A lot of things happened for the Iowa football program on Saturday night when the Hawkeyes stole a 15-13 win from Michigan State.
A lot of them happened for the first time in over 100 years of Hawkeye football.
Kirk Ferentz got his first win at Spartan Stadium when Ricky Stanzi hit Marvin McNutt for a seven-yard touchdown on the final play of the game. It was also Iowa’s first win against Sparty on Sparty’s turf since Sedrick Shaw, Matt Sherman, Tim Dwight and company did it in 1995.
The 2009 squad became the first team in school history to be 8-0, surpassing the legendary 1985 team of Chuck Long, Ronnie Harmon, and Larry Station who started 7-0 – a team that ended its season in Pasadena.
Iowa scored its first walk-off touchdown since Warren Holloway’s “The Catch” the 2005 Capital One Bowl against LSU.
The Hawkeyes also appeared in the BCS rankings at no. 4, jumping ahead of Boise State and Cincinnati from last week, marking the first time since the 2002 squad went into the Orange Bowl ranked fifth.
And while all of that is proof of the appeal of the Hawkeyes as a big-time BCS player, there are still reasons to believe that not everything is certain to up roses in Iowa City.
Iowa’s two head-scratchers against Northern Iowa and Arkansas State – which the Hawkeyes won by a combined four points – continue to hurt the Hawkeyes’ credibility on the national stage.
Eventually the Hawkeyes playing to the level of their opponents could hurt them, particularly with looming threats from Indiana, Northwestern, and Minnesota in three of the next four weeks.
Thankfully for Iowa, all three of those games are at home.
Well, kind of.
Kinnick Stadium is said to be a safe haven for Iowa, but the UNI and ASU games were both at home where Iowa’s average margin-of-victory is just four points in four games. Yet, on the road, Iowa has wins of 32 (Iowa State), 11 (Penn State) and 10 (Wisconsin). With just one road game left – at Ohio State, Nov. 14 – Iowa has to be confident in its ability to walk into a hostile environment and perform at a high level.
If the Hawks can drop the hammer on the Hoosiers, the Wildcats, and the Golden Gophers on their turf like they are capable of, then it wouldn’t be out of the question for Iowa to be one of three or four teams in the national title discussion.
Nor should it be.
The last time a Big Ten team won at Penn State, at Wisconsin, and at Michigan State in the same year was 1997, when Michigan beat Drew Bledsoe’s Washington State in the Rose Bowl and finished 12-0 to share the national title with Nebraska.
It should be interesting to see what they do at home. I wouldn't worry about it too much or look back at the UNI/Arizona games though. I think the guys can probably see the big payoff within reach and they aren't about to play stupid and lose what they've been working for their entire lives.
ReplyDeleteHmmm, interesting stats. How badly will the loss of two starting players hurt our chances for the run at the Rose Bowl? Time will tell.
ReplyDeleteGood point, Erica. It is pretty late in the season for Iowa to start playing like a bunch of boneheads. I think the big question is how will the game plan change offensively without A-Rob and Dace (Adam Robinson and Dace Richardson)? I'm not 100% sold on Wegher's ability to carry the ball 20-30 times in a game. In the last three games, Wegher has 50 yards on 36 carries. I'd really prefer to see Brinson or Iowa's two redshirted freshman back up Wegher rather than Paki O'Meara, but we'll see how Mr. O'Keefe feels about that one.
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