Yes we DID!

Hello football fans!!!

Wow.  I just keep saying that over and over in my head the past 48+ hours.  The 2008 version of the Iowa Hawkeyes just may be the most resilient Hawkeye football team that I’ve ever seen.  Only my liver takes more lumps and keeps coming back for more.

The scene on Saturday was absolutely outta this world.  I kept thinking to myself that even if we don’t pull this win out, what a GREAT scene it was for any recruit that was there to take in.  How many teams in the country have nearly 70,000 fans that would show up on a 35º day to watch a 5-4 team?  Not many, but I’m glad to say that I’m one of ‘em, along with many other people on this list.  And I wasn’t sure how the green shirts were gonna look for the student section, but I thought they looked great.  In fact, I might go out and find a green and black shirt sometime soon.

And the game?  Wow.  Twas see-saw battle (in the second half at least) that kept me on the edge of my seat the entire afternoon:

If somebody would have told me that we were gonna go up 7-0 nothing, I wouldn’t have thought it was likely.

If somebody would have told me that Penn State was going to run all over us and control the clock the entire 1st half, I would not have believed it.

If somebody would have told me that we’d turn the ball over two times and be down my 9 points in the 4th quarter, I would have reluctantly understood.

If somebody would have told me that despite all of that, we’d still come back and win…well…I woulda thought they were Joe Paterno crazy.

So that game went NOTHING like I thought it would, and at the same time blew all of my expectations through the roof; not since Spring Break my Senior year of college did something exceed my expectations like this game did.  And I didn’t even need to get a shot after it was all over.

The scene immediately AFTER the game was just as great.  Although I’m certainly not shy when it comes to given and receiving hugs, I think I might have set a personal record for the 30 minutes immediately following the game.  Everybody in section 110 and half of 109 got a big ol’ bear-hug from me right around 5:30 pm CST on Saturday night!  I was feelin’ the LOVE and I wasn’t gonna hold it in!  In fact, I’m fairly certain I was working on my 50th hug before they even had a chance to wheel Joe Paterno outta the press box.

So after I hugged it out with everybody around me, I turned to go up the 6 rows to hug my brother and his wife.  Halfway there I found a girl about my age that was there with her husband/boyfriend.  She wasn’t saying a word; she was instead just standing there all teary-eyed and not saying a word.  So I asked: “Are you crying?”  And she just said: “It’s just so neat.”  My heart seriously sank.  I have to get outta Minnesota to find a girl like that!!!  Anyway, I hugged her too.

In the short term – that win drastically helped our bowl possibilities…in a HUGE way.  If the game this Saturday goes like the Guidos are predicting it will go, we’ll be sitting at 7-4 and a lock for a non Detroit-located bowl (which ironically is where I’m at while I type this alone at the bar) with the Alamo or Insight Bowl praying that we’re still on the board.  And if we win out, we’re an almost certain lock for the Outback Bowl.  However, I probably don’t need to get ahead of myself just yet as we could have done the same thing last year with only one game left…and we all know how THAT ended up.

In the long term – this game has the potential of launching our program back into the stratosphere that we were in from ‘02-’04.  Once again…I know I’m getting ahead of myself here, since a loss to Purdue this week would bring us right back down to mediocrity in a major way.  However, I dare any recruit to come away from that game and not be impressed.  And more importantly, I think both our staff and players have learned a valuable lesson the past 3 years that can’t be learned the easy way.  We all know that this team has been a MUCH better team than we’ve grown accustomed to watching in recent history, and this past Saturday was proof of that.

I’ll have more on Thursday night/Friday morning, and I’ll probably still be smiling until then.  And if I see you before next Saturday, I might still be in a hugging mood as well, so watch out.

HAVE A GREAT WEEK!!!!!  (I’m sure we all will!)

HAVE A GREAT WEEKEND!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

GO HAWKS!

-Jeffrey the Greek!