Don't Forget Where Iowa Was 3 Seasons Ago

ChosenChildren

ChosenChildren

Well-Known Member
In Lick's last season, we finished 10-22 and 4-14 in the conference. We were the Big Ten's worst team. Fan interest had reached an all-time low and attendance at Carver was awful.

This season at this point only 3 years later, Iowa is 17-10 under Fran and has a legitimate shot at winning at least 20 games this year, and should play in the post-season barring a complete collapse. Fran is doing this with 3 freshmen getting significant playing time, and all but one of the top players returning next year. Carver is full again and we are a very difficult team to defeat there. Our road record is only 2-7, but that shouldn't surprise anybody with the level of inexperience we have playing 3 freshmen.

This is a process. Iowa is making significant progress this year. I truly believe the future is bright under this coach.

I'm not giving up on the NCAA, either. Win the next 4 and we're in. Difficult? Yes. Impossible? No.
 
What about compared to last year? Iowa was 8-10 in the Big 10 last year. Had 4 wins vs Top 25 teams. This year is looking to pretty much the same outcome- minus beating top 25 teams.

I didn't realize that Iowa only played Ohio State, Illinois, Michigan, and Michigan State ONLY once last year too.


Does the schedule get harder next year, or does Iowa always get those 4 one time?
 
Fran has a little bit of Mr. Davis in him when it comes to playing with the lead. Davis use to, for lack of a better term, sit on the ball once Iowa would get a lead. We lost a lot of games in the 90's that way as well. He needs to stay aggressive rather than just trying to run the clock out. That is a hard thing to do when you have a young team, so hopefully next season we will see a change with that philosophy.
 
burky247 said:
Fran has a little bit of Mr. Davis in him when it comes to playing with the lead. Davis use to, for lack of a better term, sit on the ball once Iowa would get a lead. We lost a lot of games in the 90's that way as well. He needs to stay aggressive rather than just trying to run the clock out. That is a hard thing to do when you have a young team, so hopefully next season we will see a change with that philosophy.
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Fran didn't call the dogs off. The players forgot how to catch a basketball. Mel and White fumbled away dunks, while the guards turned it over.

Fran's mistake was playing an over-matched McCabe down the stretch.
 
TChawk said:
How about we don't forget Iowa was a better team last year than they are this year.
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Totally false. Iowa surprised several times last year and Gatens had several games way above his normal ability. Iowa didn't lose to really bad teams this year when they were really bad....yet.
 
ILHawk said:
Thou forgetest who Fran man tried to recruit when desperate. Hindsight is always better.
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If you can't see the difference between the two situations, between taking a risk on a man who has served his time and is years from his crime, and allowing a player back on your team with very little punishment outside of a redshirt season, I can't really explain it to you.
 
Iowa is less than two years removed from an 11 win season.
And Iowa has already matched last year's regular season win total with 4 games still to be played.
 
burky247 said:
Fran has a little bit of Mr. Davis in him when it comes to playing with the lead. Davis use to, for lack of a better term, sit on the ball once Iowa would get a lead. We lost a lot of games in the 90's that way as well. He needs to stay aggressive rather than just trying to run the clock out. That is a hard thing to do when you have a young team, so hopefully next season we will see a change with that philosophy.
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This trend is concerning to me. Alot of people say that year's team has that problem, but if you go back and look at last year's play by play, even in some of our wins, this trend was present last year as well. Just look at both wins against Wisconsin, and the win @Minnesota last year - If you look at the play by play, Iowa had 7-10+ point leads with 3-4 minutes to go in all of those games, and barely hung on to win each of those. It had a double digit lead at home against Nebraska mid-way through the second half last year, and lost that game.

Same thing this year, except Iowa is getting unluckier. It even nearly happened @PSU as well. I'm not sure if it's the players, the coaching, or both - but Iowa really needs to learn how to play with a lead, because every time Iowa has a 10 point lead with 5 minutes to go, it's almost a sure bet that it will come down to a last second shot, or at minimum, the game will get too close for comfort before it's over. You're playing with fire if you start sitting on the ball when you have a lead. Keep your foot on the gas and put your opponent away!
 
Regardless of where we are compared to 3 years ago we're losing close games and those games are going to have a major impact on where we end up in the post season. I'm not approaching the ledge, but IMO I'm not going to accept the let downs based on simply comparing where we are to where we were 3 years ago. I keep hearing that argument doesn't work for the regression of the football team and I'm not going to use it to feel better about losing to Nebby and the other close games we've lost.

We can only go forward, so while it pains me to look back at how bad we were 3 years ago and see how much improved this team is, I'm not about to use it as a means of justify our inability to close out a game. IMO because of how far this program has come in a short time, it actually makes it sting even more.
 
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