September « 2009 « Jeffrey The Greek!

WE ARE…IOWA!

September 28, 2009

Hello football fans!!!

I’m sitting here down in my basement living room at 11:26 pm on Sunday night, re-watching the replay of the game because I can’t sleep. Why can’t I sleep? Three reasons: 1) Sunday nights suck. 2) I got so unbelievably bombed last night watching the game at a bar in downtown Minneapolis (more on that later) that I slept in too much this morning. 3) I am still PUMPED from Saturday night!

If you’re a Hawkeye fan – how couldn’t you be??!!??

Thoughts:

Amazing that we’re doing this without our Top RB, Top pass-catcher, and best OL.

I will put our resume up against just about anybody’s. If you think winning against UNI by 1 point is bad, check out what they’ve done since losing to us. (They’ve outscored they’re opponents 131-14). The combined record of our four opponents now stands at 12-4…with those 4 losses all coming from the Hawks. We are all Arizona and to a certain degree, ISU fans now!

That was a game where we had two really, REALLY evenly matched teams. The difference? T-U-R-N-O-V-E-R-S. Plain and simple. You could put the blocked punt in that category too.

With the emergence of Karl Klug, Shaun Prater, and the improvement from Brett Greenwood…I honestly can’t think of a player/spot on our entire defense that I don’t like. Congrats to Pat Angerer for being named Big Ten Defensive Player of the Week (14 tackles, 1 INT, 1 FF), and for Adrian Clayborn being name Big Ten Special Teams Player of the Week. And one thing on Clayborn’s blocked punt - how in the world does Penn State’s special teams coach even remotely expect a 210 pound safety to be able to block Adrian Clayborn? That was like watching a replay of an 8-year-old me playing my 16-year-old brother in Nerf hoops.

With all due respect to 2004, 2008, and some of the great Hayden Fry teams, this might be the best D-Line that I’ve ever seen at Iowa. I know it’s still early and they need to do better against the run, but they don’t just play well…they absolutely take games over. Obviously Adrian Clayborn and Broderick Binns get a lot of the headlines…but I think Karl Klug is just as good. He was all over the field on Saturday night.

The way Adam Robinson and Brandon Wegher have stepped up is nothing short of inspiring. These guys were somewhere around 4^th and 5^th on the depth chart in early August, and now they’re a talented 1-2 punch. If you don’t believe that, re-watch Adam Robinson’s TD run! And I hope I don’t eat these words, but something else that they’re NOT doing is fantastic: They’re NOT putting the ball on the turf.

Rick Stanzi played well. Not great, but good enough. That was a really good defense, in some pretty bad conditions, against a very hostile crowd. He had three bad throws – the 2^nd half INT and two miss throws to Marvin McNutt. There were a lot of dropped passes out there. Rick Stanzi will be just fine.

I’ve read a few articles today dogging Iowa’s offense. HEY PEOPLE! We’ve gone without our three best offensive players and we’ve played 3 good defenses this year (and ISU isn’t as bad as originally thought). Penn State hadn’t allowed more than 7 points coming into Saturday night. If we get Bulaga and Moeaki back this week and we still can’t put up 30 points against Arkansas State…then I’ll be more concerned.

More on Thursday night/Friday morning.

———-

There is a bar downtown Minneapolis. It’s called The Loop. Some of you either live in Minneapolis and know the bar, or went there with me after the Iowa-Minnesota game last year. It’s a great bar. It doesn’t play crap music, the prices aren’t ridiculous (in Minneapolis terms), and the scenery is usually really good, if you know what I mean.

And just when I thought it couldn’t get ANY cooler…it went and turned itself into one the greatest Iowa bars not located IN IOWA! Other than the Capital One Bowl on New Year’s Day, I don’t think I’ve ever had so much fun watching a game at an establishment.

I told my buddy Patrick how ridiculously excited I was to watch the game at The Loop on a Saturday night, and after hearing from me roughly 14 times by Tuesday night, Patrick told me that I better call the bar to reserve a spot. I went one step further, and went to The Loop for lunch with my boss last Wednesday and talked to the manager Todd. I pointed out the exact spot on the table(s) that I wanted. When I got there an hour and a half before kickoff, the tables were all pushed together and had a piece of paper reserved with my name on it! I already hung it up in my office because I thought that was so damn cool.

And the scene was AMAZING. That is a pretty good sized bar, and it was ass to elbows from 7:00 until Midnight with Hawkeye fans.

On Sunday morning, Patrick went by The Loop and ran into Todd. Paraphrasing, this is what Todd said to Patrick: “103 cases of beer. That’s what you Iowans went through. And I haven’t even counted the amount of kegs and bottles of booze that you went through! You Iowans can drink! My only fear was that the walls were going to cave in when you started winning the game. I am an Iowa fan now!”

NICE! Here are some pics: