Ranking Iowa's losses to Northwestern

okeefe4prez

okeefe4prez

Well-Known Member
Off the top of my head, these were the top 5 losses to Northwestern in the Fitzgerald era:

1) 2009 - not even close. Wooten knocked Stanzi out for the game and regular season, derailing something special.

2) 2005 - Iowa was coming off an OT home loss to Michigan that was the first home loss in forever. Iowa blew a 13 point lead with the ball and just over 5 minutes to play. It was unreal.

3) 2010 - Another game Iowa had no business losing. Team clearly quit and ended up losing 3 in a row.

4) 2008 - Iowa was way better than Northwestern. The Cats knocked Shonn Greene out with a concussion, IIRC.

5) 2018 - Iowa still had a chance to win the West in a year the division was very soft. And Iowa got destroyed.

Point is, while yesterday's loss sucked, it was nowhere near the worst loss to Northwestern.
 
okeefe4prez said:
Off the top of my head, these were the top 5 losses to Northwestern in the Fitzgerald era:

1) 2009 - not even close. Wooten knocked Stanzi out for the game and regular season, derailing something special.

2) 2005 - Iowa was coming off an OT home loss to Michigan that was the first home loss in forever. Iowa blew a 13 point lead with the ball and just over 5 minutes to play. It was unreal.

3) 2010 - Another game Iowa had no business losing. Team clearly quit and ended up losing 3 in a row.

4) 2008 - Iowa was way better than Northwestern. The Cats knocked Shonn Greene out with a concussion, IIRC.

5) 2018 - Iowa still had a chance to win the West in a year the division was very soft. And Iowa got destroyed.

Point is, while yesterday's loss sucked, it was nowhere near the worst loss to Northwestern.
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That 2005 loss was a combination gut wrencher, kick the nuts, napalm injection all at once. Dink, dunk, score. Recover onside kick. Lather, rinse, repeat.

Everything that went right in 2004 went wrong in 2005. Culminating in the snow job by the "officials" vs Urb and Florida in the Outback Bowl.
 
Northside Hawk said:
That 2005 loss was a combination gut wrencher, kick the nuts, napalm injection all at once. Dink, dunk, score. Recover onside kick. Lather, rinse, repeat.

Everything that went right in 2004 went wrong in 2005. Culminating in the snow job by the "officials" vs Urb and Florida in the Outback Bowl.
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I still remember it like it was yesterday. I might have a few details wrong, but my recollection was Shada got a pick with like 5:30 to go, so Iowa had the rock either in NU territory or darn close. Drive stalled. Schlicher missed a long FG, in no small part because the weather was absolute dogshit. Basanez just tossed it all over the field in the last few minutes, and I think Sutton had a big play or two as well. They got the onside and Iowa's defense couldn't even slow them down.

I guess technically that wasn't in the Fitz era because coach Walker passed away in 2006, but I will include that one since Fitz was the d-coordinator at the time.
 
For some reason I think this one was the worst, other than 2009, and that’s just because we had so much riding in 2009. Not having Fant on the field a large portion of the game, among other things, pisses me off more than anything that happened in those previous games.
 
okeefe4prez said:
I still remember it like it was yesterday. I might have a few details wrong, but my recollection was Shada got a pick with like 5:30 to go, so Iowa had the rock either in NU territory or darn close. Drive stalled. Schlicher missed a long FG, in no small part because the weather was absolute dogshit. Basanez just tossed it all over the field in the last few minutes, and I think Sutton had a big play or two as well. They got the onside and Iowa's defense couldn't even slow them down.

I guess technically that wasn't in the Fitz era because coach Walker passed away in 2006, but I will include that one since Fitz was the d-coordinator at the time.
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That would have been the one time to punt and pin NW deep. Even if Schlicher makes the field goal, it's still a two possession game at 30-14.

I went straight to Madison after that game and went X Mas shopping with my wife and probably ate at Red Lobster. Anything to keep my mind off football for the rest of the day.
 
I agree with #1 being 2009 - that was just the football Gods deciding we can;t have nice things.
I would put yesterday at #2, just because of the monumental questions that cannot be answered with any logic.

Lord I do miss the woodshed-beat downs Hayden would apply to NW!
"I sure hope we didn't hurt any of your boys today."
Classic Fry
 
2009

All the rest feels about the same. Fitz knows if he can keep the game close he can win it. There is no panic mode with him when he plays Iowa.
 
My top four:

2010 is top for me, since I was in Evanston in the rain and we blew a 4th quarter lead and lost basically on the last play--a play that the NW QB tore his Achilles on! Then the long drive home to Iowa. Really painful stuff.
2005 since so much had to go wrong for us to lose, and we still did. Ridiculous. That was the game where Greenway was fooling around on the sidelines when we had our big lead, and then....somehow....we lost.
2017 since we let them back into a game we could've closed out, and lost in OT when Fant drops the easiest backyard toss from your dad to lose the game.
2018, cold, awful, winnable, few positives.

Those four stand out since we lost late leads.

2008 and 2009 were just bad luck: injuries and, in 2009, a terrible holding call on Eubanks that negated a Wegher 50 yard TD run. Refs took that one from us. But it's not as if we played poorly those two Saturdays, it was just bad luck.
 
Just bumping this in case somehow NU lucks into a victory on Saturday. Luckily nothing is riding on this game so if we lose, it won't be in the list of esteemed losses above.
 
TychoBrahe said:
My top four:

2010 is top for me, since I was in Evanston in the rain and we blew a 4th quarter lead and lost basically on the last play--a play that the NW QB tore his Achilles on! Then the long drive home to Iowa. Really painful stuff.
2005 since so much had to go wrong for us to lose, and we still did. Ridiculous. That was the game where Greenway was fooling around on the sidelines when we had our big lead, and then....somehow....we lost.
2017 since we let them back into a game we could've closed out, and lost in OT when Fant drops the easiest backyard toss from your dad to lose the game.
2018, cold, awful, winnable, few positives.

Those four stand out since we lost late leads.

2008 and 2009 were just bad luck: injuries and, in 2009, a terrible holding call on Eubanks that negated a Wegher 50 yard TD run. Refs took that one from us. But it's not as if we played poorly those two Saturdays, it was just bad luck.
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Iowa played like garbage in 08. Brodell fumbling a punt right before half with Iowa leading 17-3. If there was a mistake to be made, Iowa did it
 
okeefe4prez said:
2) 2005 - Iowa was coming off an OT home loss to Michigan that was the first home loss in forever. Iowa blew a 13 point lead with the ball and just over 5 minutes to play. It was unreal.
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In that game didn't Greenway get hit w/ a key roughing penalty late? For bumping a downed NW player when he tried to dive over him?

It was just one thing after another.
 
hawkeyes87 said:
In that game didn't Greenway get hit w/ a key roughing penalty late? For bumping a downed NW player when he tried to dive over him?

It was just one thing after another.
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Yes and afterwards Basanez got a little overly giddy in his victory by saying that Iowa was playing chippy all day, hitting late, head shots, stuff in the bottom of piles, wondering out loud if Iowa coached their players that way.

It reminded me of Danny Noonan showing Tony D'inunzio how "tough" he was in Caddyshack by taunting Tony from behind a locked, screened in door, knowing Tony couldn't get at him.

The other thing I remember Tate missing a third down pass in the end zone, and being so mad at himself that I thought he was going to tear off his own head.
 
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okeefe4prez said:
Point is, while yesterday's loss sucked, it was nowhere near the worst loss to Northwestern.
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You are normally pretty level headed but how did Iowa get destroyed last year by NU. The stats were very close and I am not a big stat person but there are some telling stats. Iowa had more yards but Fitzie got Iowa in a muck and mud type of game on a cold cool windy day. They made a great play on the last TD and Fitzie rolled the dice on defense playing a lot of guys in the box and BFerentz was no where to be seen this game as he may as well just mailed in the scripted play sheet. I dont think BF took one shot down the field but instead very short passes which is stupid if the defense against you is cramming the LOS.

jNW did a good job rushing the ball and holding our defensive players (go all the way back to Barnett and you will see this trend, but they are smart players and know how to hide their holds).

I would say Fitzie is KF's thorn in his side.
 
The last two years may not have been the worst, but were clearly indicators of how to beat Iowa for all other teams to see.
Fitz was an early adopter of loading the box and blitzing LB into the gaps. NW held Iowa to 89 yds rushing in 2017 and 64 yds in 2018. Our OC had no solution in either year.
We can be fairly sure that will be the NW strategy Saturday. The question is will our OC have a solution when he knows what's coming?
 
SCHawkeye2 said:
The last two years may not have been the worst, but were clearly indicators of how to beat Iowa for all other teams to see.
Fitz was an early adopter of loading the box and blitzing LB into the gaps. NW held Iowa to 89 yds rushing in 2017 and 64 yds in 2018. Our OC had no solution in either year.
We can be fairly sure that will be the NW strategy Saturday. The question is will our OC have a solution when he knows what's coming?
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I am not sold on our OC knowing how to counteract Fitz's defense. You said it correctly that NW will jam the LOS because KF and BF never hardly ever take a gamble and go for the bomb or whatever you want to call it.

This would be a perfect game to do something really different like split backs in the backfield (which BF did do in some early games). It is harder to zero in on the first motion when only one running back is in the backfield. It will be interesting to see what happens. Do some jumbo Off line stuff with an extra tackle and another tackle as an H Back.

But it wont happen because the coaches want something on script.

Of course the last time Iowa beat NW in 2015 was because the hawk Off line just dismantled NWs front 7 and Wadley went crazy, CJB hit every pass he needed to, and NW had a freshman Thorsen who got ate up by our defense.

And we are without one of our top two receivers now although I think Tracy et al can do the job.
 
2005. Just got screwed bad by refs at home vs Mich. DOMINATING NW all game. Was watching game in bar in Chicago. Schlichter missed a short FG w less than 4 mins left, and I turned to my brother and said “we just lost 24-23”.

Of course our extra soft prevent defense gives up quick TD. Then on onside kick (opponents recovered SEVEN STRAIGHT onside kicks against us during this stretch). And march right down and score again and we lose.

I was sick for a week.

also, Schlichter rarely missed a FG, but EVERY time he did, it always cost us a game.
 
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