Every game we win is like another rung on a ladder to nowhere

Northside Hawk said:
There are countless examples of teams who bounce back from crushing losses and go on to have great seasons. I brought up Michigan 1985, who actually finished that year ranked higher than us after all the bowls played out. Look at our 2009 team who was ranked #4 in the country and got a quick 10-0 lead on jNW. They had national championship aspirations if Stanzi stays healthy. We may have had the best defense in the country that year. They kept slugging and won the Orange Bowl.

Crushing losses are a part of sports, and life. How one deals with them can go a long way toward revealing their true colors.
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my stance is that giving away the WUs game means we are (likely) already out of the running to win the West and make it to the B1G Championship game. We still need to go to PSU. My preseason was that we should beat WUs and our only loss on the schedule would be @PSU. If we do lose to PSU, that means WUs would have to lose 3 B1G games for us to make it to the B1G Championship game. So...to me, that makes the title of this post "...one more rung to a ladder to nowhere" is valid. We lost the West by giving away the first game of the B1G season. Sure, we can still reach 10 wins and that would be a good win total season. but, it would also be an under performing season. That's been my biggest gripe with Ferentz and Iowa fans keep focusing on the 10 wins and not what wasn't reached.
 
Adam said:
The run game was indeed shit. Minnesota obviously sold out in practice to stop it. That has been the smart money for years. That said the passing game was unstoppable unless we stopped ourselves. We ran frequently even when it wasn't working much because we had confidence to convert on the 3rd and longs. Plus all of our arm chair QB's should very well know that you simply must run the ball to keep a defense honest. You can't pass on every down or the DL will eat your QB and the picks will rain from the sky.

All in all we played this game the right way. Offense handled their business. The burden is actually now on the defense. The defense needs to tighten up. They face the 2nd most dangerous offense of the season next week on the road. If the defense doesn't tighten up the zone coverage Indiana will score 42. At least they don't have a defense and scoring 48 on them like Minnesota is a realistic outcome. I'm booking next week as a old fashioned barn burner.
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I am guessing you have not watched Indiana play the last 2 years. Both the high power offense and crappy defense are gone now. Indiana relies on defense now.
 
guffus said:
I am guessing you have not watched Indiana play the last 2 years. Both the high power offense and crappy defense are gone now. Indiana relies on defense now.
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While I can't say that I'm educated (only seen Indiana once this year) the OSU game tends to paint the exact opposite picture.

Indiana 26
OSU 49

Seems alot like Indiana of old. Potent offense, no defense.
 
Adam said:
Stubborn stupidity = 200 or 300 more complaining posts. Book it.
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Northside Hawk said:
He explained, in a post to me, that the offense was encouraging.
His concern is that we stayed on script too long instead of taking what was obviously there, and that runs into a stacked box against better teams will lead to multiple losses. Doesnt sound like bitching to me. Read the posts.
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I've read the posts. Still sounds like senseless complaining to me. While it's not the most egregious or mental complaining on here. I chose his post to illustrate a point. A specific point that this offense has to run the ball. Period. There is no scenario that Iowa goes Air Raid. We simply aren't built for that and I guarantee it looks worse than running into 8 and 9 man boxes. It might work once every season or 2 as a complete surprise to some unsuspecting team, but it would probably be riddled with poor execution.
 
ArvadaHawk said:
my stance is that giving away the WUs game means we are (likely) already out of the running to win the West and make it to the B1G Championship game. We still need to go to PSU. My preseason was that we should beat WUs and our only loss on the schedule would be @PSU. If we do lose to PSU, that means WUs would have to lose 3 B1G games for us to make it to the B1G Championship game. So...to me, that makes the title of this post "...one more rung to a ladder to nowhere" is valid. We lost the West by giving away the first game of the B1G season. Sure, we can still reach 10 wins and that would be a good win total season. but, it would also be an under performing season. That's been my biggest gripe with Ferentz and Iowa fans keep focusing on the 10 wins and not what wasn't reached.
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I disagree that 10 wins would be underperforming. Wisconsin and Penn State were/will be favored against us so it’s not like we got upset. If we win 10 games it means we won all of the games we should have won. It would also mean a pretty good bowl game and certainly a top 25 ranking.
 
I’m not willing to seed the division to Wisconsin just yet. An Iowa win next week and a Bucky loss to Michigan and we are back in the hunt. I think Iowa has a better chance than Wisconsin does at winning in Happy Valley. Alex Horningbrook is just inconsistent and he is more than capable of loosing to Northwestern or Purdue if the bad Alex Horningbrook shows up.

Even without winning the division, a 10-2 Iowa team would likely be in a New Year’s 6 game. All they have to do for that is just win the games they are favored in.
 
Illinois, Purdue, NW, Rutgers, Nebby, Minnesota,ISU (add your own)....all teams and programs who would love to be in a position to win 10 games and a potential NY 6 game.
 
ArvadaHawk said:
my stance is that giving away the WUs game means we are (likely) already out of the running to win the West and make it to the B1G Championship game. We still need to go to PSU. My preseason was that we should beat WUs and our only loss on the schedule would be @PSU. If we do lose to PSU, that means WUs would have to lose 3 B1G games for us to make it to the B1G Championship game. So...to me, that makes the title of this post "...one more rung to a ladder to nowhere" is valid. We lost the West by giving away the first game of the B1G season. Sure, we can still reach 10 wins and that would be a good win total season. but, it would also be an under performing season. That's been my biggest gripe with Ferentz and Iowa fans keep focusing on the 10 wins and not what wasn't reached.
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Respect your opinion, don't agree with it.

If ten wins has become the benchmark of an underperforming season then how did you survive all those seven or eight win seasons (or worse)?

If you were to construct a Mount Rushmore of Iowa's toughest losses, 2018 Wisconsin would be right up with 2010 Wisconsin, 1990 Ohio State, amd 2015 Michigan State (CCG). But one loss should not ruin a season and leave us on a ladder to nowhere, no matter how tough that loss was.

Who knows? We may tie with Wisconsin, jNW, and Purdue will two conference losses apiece. Lots of football to be played. What if the tie breaker includes cumulative round robin record of all four teams in head to head with each other?
 
Adam said:
I've read the posts. Still sounds like senseless complaining to me. While it's not the most egregious or mental complaining on here. I chose his post to illustrate a point. A specific point that this offense has to run the ball. Period. There is no scenario that Iowa goes Air Raid. We simply aren't built for that and I guarantee it looks worse than running into 8 and 9 man boxes. It might work once every season or 2 as a complete surprise to some unsuspecting team, but it would probably be riddled with poor execution.
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Some of the most egregious or mental complaining comes from people who don't bother to post during or after wins.

I don't think this team will forget how to run the ball. It's just that other options were obviously available yesterday, early late and often. At least I believe Young and Sargent deserved more touches and I thought Smith, not Cooper, should have been our wideout inside the ten yard line.
 
Umm...we did have a bit over 100 yards rushing. And, I think we had around 80 yards on two screen passes, i.e., some passes are really runs. And, when Iowa rushes for 100+ yards they have a fantastic winning percentage.

I just love these guys who think that if Iowa does not win a BT championship, the season is not worth watching. Or, even if we end up a very competitive second place in the west and go to a big time bowl game, we are a miserable failure. Why do these clowns even invest the time to keep track of Iowa sports?

See you in Bloomington next week.
 
I’m convinced that we may never win the B1G again. Once every few years we have a cakewalk schedule that should guarantee winning the West with a win over Wisconsin. When we have the schedule and team to do that and we lose to Wisconsin that goal is all but gone. That being said a 3 loss season is likely now and that would get us a nice bowl. If we can’t limit it to 3 losses then I would agree that this season was a disaster. I’m looking forward to the Wisconsin game moving to the last game of the year in place of Nebraska. At least our chance of winning the West will last longer then.
 
This team doesnt feel like last year's team. Wisconsin game aside, we've been putting the hammer down mostly when we are the better team. There will be NOTHING wrong with 9-3 or 10-2 this season. I think 9-3 is the floor. And once again, most predicted 9-3 as a ceiling. The 7-5 whiners will start complaining about 9-3's.
 
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