ESPN Iowa projections

ICHawk24

ICHawk24

Well-Known Member
Their statheads give Iowa less than a 50% chance of winning at Pitt or Maryland. I guess those who think we "should" go 10-0 should reconsider.

http://espn.go.com/blog/bigten/post/_/id/103618/preseason-projections-west-division

Strength of schedule: 59
Projected overall record: 7.96 wins, 4.27 losses
Projected conference record: 4.85 wins, 3.15 losses
Odds of winning the Big Ten: 7.8 percent

Three interesting games: at Pitt -- 43.6 percent predicted chance to win (lose by 2.5 points); at Maryland -- 42.4 percent predicted chance to win (lose by 2.9 points); vs. Nebraska -- 61.2 percent predicted chance to win (win by 4.4 points); vs Wisky -- 45.9 percent (from Wisky capsule)

Synopsis: The Hawkeyes definitely seem to be a difficult team to figure out when it comes to the stats. They're favored against Nebraska but are underdogs to Maryland and Pitt -- which, yes, is a little head-scratching. In another key matchup, Iowa is predicted to beat Iowa State by 10.2 points.
 
ICHawk24 said:
Their statheads give Iowa less than a 50% chance of winning at Pitt or Maryland. I guess those who think we "should" go 10-0 should reconsider.

http://espn.go.com/blog/bigten/post/_/id/103618/preseason-projections-west-division

Strength of schedule: 59
Projected overall record: 7.96 wins, 4.27 losses
Projected conference record: 4.85 wins, 3.15 losses
Odds of winning the Big Ten: 7.8 percent

Three interesting games: at Pitt -- 43.6 percent predicted chance to win (lose by 2.5 points); at Maryland -- 42.4 percent predicted chance to win (lose by 2.9 points); vs. Nebraska -- 61.2 percent predicted chance to win (win by 4.4 points); vs Wisky -- 45.9 percent (from Wisky capsule)

Synopsis: The Hawkeyes definitely seem to be a difficult team to figure out when it comes to the stats. They're favored against Nebraska but are underdogs to Maryland and Pitt -- which, yes, is a little head-scratching. In another key matchup, Iowa is predicted to beat Iowa State by 10.2 points.
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This is the only game that matters #superbowl.

Seriously though, there guess is more scientific than mine, but still a guess. ESPN and I both picked 8-4, but I could make a case for 10-2 or even 6-6 if the circumstances are wrong. I don't think anybody has a real good feel for what's going to happen in the fall.
 
Hawknick said:
This is just another example of Espn's anti Iowa bias.
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That's what happens when you cheer for Iowa. Unless they are coming off an outstanding year and return a lot of talent they are always going to be an afterthought in preseason predictions. We can whine about it or we can accept it. Whatever we choose to do doesn't make one bit of difference in the actual outcome of the season so I really don't understand why some of my fellow Hawk fans chose to beat the whole "lack of respect" drum. It is what it is and it isn't gonna change.

Unfortunately the people who have an opinion that actually matters (Iowa's opponents) very rarely make the mistake of overlooking Iowa. They always know when they play the Hawks it's going to be a battle. It would be nice if Iowa's opponents would let the medias take rub off on them occasionally.
 
May this ESPN sentiment increase and spread like wildfire across America. and may Iowa then suddenly smoke both Pitt and MD. Such a scenario will increase the value of those two wins.
 
While I have no scientific formula I do expect to lose one of those two games (Pitt/Maryland) ... I think Maryland might have a better chance at catching us. Why? They return quite a few starters ... we can be a different team on the road ... but most important is because of this ...

Maryland hosts Ohio State ... has a BYE week ... hosts Iowa ... then at Wisky ... then at Penn State ... So ... out of those four games ... I imagine they won't lose all 4 ... and I imagine they won't beat OSU ... nor will they win on the road at Wisky or PSU ... and so unfortunately ... after they get beat convincingly by OSU they then have a week off to lick their wounds and prep for Iowa ... I don't know, this game just worries me (even though I think we are the better team) ...
 
Maryland may present some problems for Iowa given that they have a good fifth year senior QB and a couple of good receivers returning. But I think Iowa will still beat them. This is a combination that didn't do that well last year for them.

As for Iowa State being a 10 point underdog. I think Iowa will cover that easily. They are replacing their defensive front seven. I think 9(8?) members of their defense is different this year.

ESPN is good at what they do. Making glitzy sports TV shows. They seldom know the conferences or teams as well as the fans do.
 
HawkeyeDenis said:
Maryland may present some problems for Iowa given that they have a good fifth year senior QB and a couple of good receivers returning. But I think Iowa will still beat them. This is a combination that didn't do that well last year for them.

As for Iowa State being a 10 point underdog. I think Iowa will cover that easily. They are replacing their defensive front seven. I think 9(8?) members of their defense is different this year.

ESPN is good at what they do. Making glitzy sports TV shows. They seldom know the conferences or teams as well as the fans do.
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This is true, but how many fans take an unbiased perspective when it comes to predicting wins?
 
ICHawk24 said:
Their statheads give Iowa less than a 50% chance of winning at Pitt or Maryland. I guess those who think we "should" go 10-0 should reconsider.

http://espn.go.com/blog/bigten/post/_/id/103618/preseason-projections-west-division

Strength of schedule: 59
Projected overall record: 7.96 wins, 4.27 losses
Projected conference record: 4.85 wins, 3.15 losses
Odds of winning the Big Ten: 7.8 percent

Three interesting games: at Pitt -- 43.6 percent predicted chance to win (lose by 2.5 points); at Maryland -- 42.4 percent predicted chance to win (lose by 2.9 points); vs. Nebraska -- 61.2 percent predicted chance to win (win by 4.4 points); vs Wisky -- 45.9 percent (from Wisky capsule)

Synopsis: The Hawkeyes definitely seem to be a difficult team to figure out when it comes to the stats. They're favored against Nebraska but are underdogs to Maryland and Pitt -- which, yes, is a little head-scratching. In another key matchup, Iowa is predicted to beat Iowa State by 10.2 points.
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Yeah, because ESPN knows everything!

Signed,

LeBron James
 
HawkeyeDenis said:
Maryland may present some problems for Iowa given that they have a good fifth year senior QB and a couple of good receivers returning. But I think Iowa will still beat them. This is a combination that didn't do that well last year for them.

As for Iowa State being a 10 point underdog. I think Iowa will cover that easily. They are replacing their defensive front seven. I think 9(8?) members of their defense is different this year.

ESPN is good at what they do. Making glitzy sports TV shows. They seldom know the conferences or teams as well as the fans do.
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I think those wideouts were hurt and didn’t play for much of last year. Same for a number of other players, I think. Those guys are back and they are deep at many positions except, I think. offensive line. They could be really good.
 
Wait ESPN finally figured out which school was which in Iowa? Those Cyclones in Iowa city and those Iowa state Hawkeyes in Ames?
 
DesMoinesHawki said:
While I have no scientific formula I do expect to lose one of those two games (Pitt/Maryland) ... I think Maryland might have a better chance at catching us. Why? They return quite a few starters ... we can be a different team on the road ... but most important is because of this ...

Maryland hosts Ohio State ... has a BYE week ... hosts Iowa ... then at Wisky ... then at Penn State ... So ... out of those four games ... I imagine they won't lose all 4 ... and I imagine they won't beat OSU ... nor will they win on the road at Wisky or PSU ... and so unfortunately ... after they get beat convincingly by OSU they then have a week off to lick their wounds and prep for Iowa ... I don't know, this game just worries me (even though I think we are the better team) ...
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good observation. that bye week to prep for us could be a difference maker. I think the bigger problem may be their uniforms. Our guys may be caught off guard and distracted by those butt-ugly unis.
 
I think 8-4 is totally possible. Maryland is, on paper without seeing our back 7 in action, not a very favorable match-up for us this year. They have a nice set of WRs who could work us over.

I like our chances against Pitt, though.
 
http://espn.go.com/blog/bigten/post/...-west-division

Strength of schedule: 59*
Projected overall record: 7.96 wins, 4.27 losses*
Projected conference record: 4.85 wins, 3.15 losses*
Odds of winning the Big Ten: 7.8 percent

You can deduce some other things from these numbers. Wins and losses add up to 12.23 instead of 12.0 I believe because ESPN is factoring the chances of making the Big Ten CCG.

So the odds of winning the west division is 23%. Since the odds of winning the big ten is 7.8%, the odds of making and losing the CCG is then 15.2%, then you can adjust the totals for only the 12 games only to 7.88 wins, 4.12 losses

This is very close to numbers I had come up with myself, although I had given Iowa better than 50% chance of beating Pitt and MD.
 
I don't know the percent chance I would put on Pitt and Maryland, but any road game is difficult.
 
I am still trying to figure out how good Iowa was last season. Everything is skewed because Michigan and Nebraska both fell apart at the end of last season, which iowa gets some credit for contributing to that slide. But a lot of the credit goes to the Iowa defense and a new scheme on 3rd down that had offenses totally confused.

By the end of the year, Iowa had exercised a lot of demons. They were finishing games finally and even stopped a fake punt for once. A LOT of credit also needs to go to the Iowa coaching staff.

The question is will that same Iowa team show up this season. Well, of course not because the defense lost 5 starters. Plus even if Iowa gets equal production from the new starters, opposing offenses have had a whole off-season to adjust to Iowa's new schemes. So once again it will be up to the Iowa coaches to make their own counter moves. Should be interesting.
 
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I am sure when Iowa beats Pitt and Maryland, espn will immediately do a story critical of their own stupidity. Great thing about being in the media: You can say whatever and never be held accountable. Or, you can be a member of congress.
 
doclee said:
I am sure when Iowa beats Pitt and Maryland, espn will immediately do a story critical of their own stupidity. Great thing about being in the media: You can say whatever and never be held accountable. Or, you can be a member of congress.
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Not sure how ESPN gets slammed for being biased here. All they are doing is projecting records based on their own stat-based power index (not sure what goes into it).

Why is it hard to comprehend that the games at Pitt and Maryland will be difficult and/or Iowa could lose? Those teams are going to be decent to good. When you add in flying 1,000+ miles to another time zone for a game at locations where no one on the roster has ever played before, it's not hard to see how Iowa could lose.

Maryland especially has a mobile QB who can throw back, as well as very quality skill players. Might have the best group of skill position players Iowa will see all year (depending on what happens at QB for Nebraska and Wisconsin).
 
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