While explaining why Iowa didn’t deserve to even be in the BCS Championship conversation, ESPN Radio’s John Kincade laid out quite a little nugget. He said something to the effect that watching Big Ten Football/Iowa-Indiana is not even comparable to watching SEC Football. It is like watching horses in mud. Just look at how the two have done in Bowl games and you’ll see it. Look at the speed of the games. End of discussion.
I love the way he won’t even discuss it after that. Here’s the problem….he obviously didn’t look at the very thing to which he pointed. Sure, the SEC has done very well in Bowl Games over the last 5 years. But never let pertinent facts get in the way of proving your story. And the fact is that the Big Ten is 7-6 head to head with the SEC over that time span. Oh, by the way, the Hawks are 3-1 vs. the speed demons as well.
See, they don’t give out football trophies for track prowess. We hear it every year. “The SEC is so much faster. They’ve got better athletes. Etc.” But when it comes down to it, the only games upon which the national guys base their assumptions are those two blowout losses by Ohio State in the BCS Title Games. The rest of the facts go right out the window.
The funny thing is that this discussion is quickly going south…pardon the pun. It’s like a political debate. At this point, the discussion is being filled with inaccuracy, misinformation, and nothing but subjective opinion because all objective analysis indicates that Iowa is right there with the top dogs. So in order to knock the Hawks down, the pundits are just tossing out anything that comes to mind to hope that something sticks.
More reasons to discount Iowa….and more pertinent facts to toss back….
*ESPN’s Lou Holtz says that Iowa is winning against, “the likes of Illinois and Purdue while Florida is winning in the SEC.” Of course Iowa hasn’t played either the Illini or the Boilers. On the other hand sudden girl-with-the-curl Oregon struggled to beat Purdue at home only securing a victory when the Boilermakers failed on a two-point conversion attempt after regulation time ran out.
*Iowa needed two blocked field goals to beat UNI. That was lucky. Alabama needed two blocked field goals to beat Tennessee. That was a demonstration of the heart of a champion.
*Iowa needed to score on the last play of the game to win at Michigan State. That was lucky. Florida needed to score on the last play of the game to beat Arkansas at home. That was a demonstration of the stuff that makes champions.
*Iowa trailed lowly Indiana at halftime. Texas trailed even more lowly Wyoming late in the second quarter.
*Iowa is using it’s defense to score most of its points. Yet Florida, Texas (twice), Cincinnatti and Boise State all had pick-6 interceptions this last weekend which simply prove how good they are.
*Iowa is getting officials calls due to the Big Ten wanting to keep them unbeaten. See that Florida/Arkansas game for half of a dozen of actual questionable calls that kept a team unbeaten. Oh, and listen to the CBS announcers root, root, root for Florida every week. For some reason you don’t really get that out of ESPN for the Hawks.
*Ricky Stanzi threw five interceptions last week. So did future NFL Hall-Of-Famer Kurt Warner. It happens.
*Iowa had close calls with UNI, Arkansas State, and Indiana. Of course Iowa was missing 3/5 of its offensive line and breaking in two freshman running backs against the Panthers. Arkansas State was never really within striking distance with Iowa leading 24-7 before throwing a pick-6 and giving up an oh-by-the-way TD in the game’s final minute. And how close was the Indiana game really? Iowa won the second half 35-3. They lead by two scores with 11 minutes to go. The game was crazy but not a close call.
As we demonstrated last week Iowa has a far more difficult schedule so far than all of the other teams surrounding them in the top 10. They are still unbeaten and the only arguements against ranking them higher are purely subjective. When somebody comes up with an objective reason why Boise, Cincy, Oregon, Florida, Alabama, Texas should be rated higher I will listen. But for now, all of these guys just need to just say it….”I just THINK that these teams are better. I have no real proof.” That works so much better than trying to justify your opinion with facts that will trip you up every time.
Now, let’s just hope that their proof doesn’t come in the form of an Iowa loss, because we will never hear the end of it.
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I’m curious how the discussion would go if any of these morons had to be held accountable for what they’re saying.
Especially Holtz. How they can’t just be laughing at the guy all the time is beyond me.
I still stand by the thought that the goal needs to be the Rose Bowl. The BCS NC game is just a popularity contest any way. They can’t vote us out of the Rose Bowl if we’ve earned it. If they reward us with “most popular” at the end of the year, well then that’s just great.
This is the time of year where one-by-one those unbeatens start to lose. The target on their back gets bigger and everyone’s out to get them. I’d like to think Iowa has endured enough of these situations over the year, that they are prepared to take care of business in the final three. I think their best football is still ahead of them. Need to beat Northwestern first though.
Mike
You are correct. One other thing, Iowa has not come close to playing a full game of football, maybe MSU was the closest, or Iowa St. I would love to see Iowa come out and play 60 mins of football, w/ few mistakes. I think we all would like the result of that.
I agree. I think that this offense can be so much better than it has been. We’ve seen flashes. If they can keep one unit on the field for a couple of weeks in a row, they could start to look like they did at the end of last year.
Still, have flashes in my mind of how good they would be if Shonn Greene were part of the picture.
Great rebuttal!