Rob Howe's 2010 Iowa & Big 10 FB Predictions

9-3 is completely reasonable. There are many potential losses on that schedule. 8-4 wouldnt suprise me and 11-1 wouldnt suprise me either.

Way to take a position. :) You're covering all the bases.

Actually I agree with you that I wouldn't be surprised to see 11-1 or 8-4.
 
We're bringing an amazing defense fellas. Just think back to how our D stuffed MN and GT the last two games of the season. I'll take that group into any stadium and feel alright about my chances.
 
Way to take a position. :) You're covering all the bases.

Actually I agree with you that I wouldn't be surprised to see 11-1 or 8-4.

My prediction is 10-2 with losses to OSU and some other random game that will be impossible to predict. But, like i said nothing would really shock me
 
We're bringing an amazing defense fellas. Just think back to how our D stuffed MN and GT the last two games of the season. I'll take that group into any stadium and feel alright about my chances.

No doubt we will be in every game....but football is a fickle game. Hopefully we get the bounces we need to win the many close games we will be in
 
We will know after Wisconsin if the D-line can stop the run as well as they rush the passer. This is the biggest difference between Ballard and Klug vs. King and Kroul. Iowa's D gave up an alarming number of rushing yards to some teams that weren't especially strong on the O-line. I think Ballard will make a big step forward this season and I am hoping Binns will as well. I think Binns' may be the best athlete on a very athletic line.
 
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We will know after Wisconsin if the D-line can stop the run as well as they rush the passer. This is the biggest difference between Ballard and Klug vs. King and Kroul. Iowa's D gave up an alarming number of rushing yards to some teams that weren't especially strong on the O-line. I think Ballard will make a big step forward this season and I am hoping Binns will as well. I think Binns' may be the best athlete on a very athletic line.

I think we'll know a long time before that. He's nowhere near the same class as Clay, but ISU's Robinson is pretty good, and was getting yards at pretty good clip last year before the ISU coaching staff **** themselves and had Arnaud start chucking it.
 
My prediction is 10-2 with losses to OSU and some other random game that will be impossible to predict. But, like i said nothing would really shock me


I'm thinking along the same lines as well..........I am predicting 10-2, with a close lose to either Wisconsin or OSU and right now I am debating between about 4 games where that other lose will come.
 
The thing that baffles me is how everyone is claiming that Terrell Pryor really turned it on and showed why he was so highly touted out of high school at the end of last year.

Last time I checked they played Iowa in the 2nd to last regular season game and he looked like a quarterback who was handcuffing his own offense. Did Tressel even allow him to throw a pass after halftime?

At Michigan in the regular season finale he was 9/17 for 67 yards 1 TD 1 INT and he had 19 carries for 74 yards 3.9 per carry.

At Penn St the week before Iowa he was 8/17 for 125 yards and had 5 carries for 50 yards.

I agree that he looked phenomenal against Oregon but I'm not sure if that is more telling of his game or Oregon's defense.

If Pryor can look like he did against Oregon against a defense like Iowa or any of the better defenses in the Big Ten then everyone else is playing for 2nd place...but that is a big if considering I don't think he's ever done it against a Big Ten defense (at least not a decent one).
 
The thing that baffles me is how everyone is claiming that Terrell Pryor really turned it on and showed why he was so highly touted out of high school at the end of last year.

Last time I checked they played Iowa in the 2nd to last regular season game and he looked like a quarterback who was handcuffing his own offense. Did Tressel even allow him to throw a pass after halftime?

At Michigan in the regular season finale he was 9/17 for 67 yards 1 TD 1 INT and he had 19 carries for 74 yards 3.9 per carry.

At Penn St the week before Iowa he was 8/17 for 125 yards and had 5 carries for 50 yards.

I agree that he looked phenomenal against Oregon but I'm not sure if that is more telling of his game or Oregon's defense.

If Pryor can look like he did against Oregon against a defense like Iowa or any of the better defenses in the Big Ten then everyone else is playing for 2nd place...but that is a big if considering I don't think he's ever done it against a Big Ten defense (at least not a decent one).

Jon and Steve were discussing OSU - and more specifically Pryor - a few weeks back, and Jon brought up the point that over the last 3/4 weeks of the season, OSU ran the ball something like 50 times a game, and averaged over 200 yards rushing in all of those games. Tressel didn't want anything to do with Pryor throwing the ball, and I doubt that the Vest changed his mind between beating Michigan and the Rose Bowl.
 
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People seem to have Wisconsin's football program held in higher regard than I do. Do people not realize that outside of the transition years from Fry to Ferentz (Ron Dayne years), Iowa has dominated this series.

While the series is at a deadlock, most if not all of Wisconsin's real damage in this series was done before the 70's began. I believe in the 40 years since, Iowa holds like a 26 -11 and 3 mark or something like that mark against the Badgers. Bucky doesn't concern me.
 
Jon and Steve were discussing OSU - and more specifically Pryor - a few weeks back, and Jon brought up the point that over the last 3/4 weeks of the season, OSU ran the ball something like 50 times a game, and averaged over 200 yards rushing in all of those games. Tressel didn't want anything to do with Pryor throwing the ball, and I doubt that the Vest changed his mind between beating Michigan and the Rose Bowl.

I'm not sure what you are talking about...but if you're implying that Tressel didn't want Pryor throwing the ball in the Rose Bowl I will go ahead and disagree with you there.

His line from that game was:

23/37 266 yards 2 tds 1 int 20 carries 72 yards

He absolutely looked phenomenal that day.
 
Really? That may be the dumbest thing I have ever read. You think last year's team had higher expectations than 11-2 and a BCS win?


Ok, maybe i worded that incorrectly. Here's the thing, when we as fans and media are expecting big things from the Hawks (2005, 2006/2007) they went in the tank. 2005/2006 was tough because of Tate's injury, and we all thought Jake was going to be even better than Tate because of hype.

What exactly were we expecting in 2002? Probably a bowl win, but we were way under the radar. In 2003 we lost banks, clark, and a few others, but we knew we had a great defense. But we were still a team that we had no idea. Ditto for 2004 and having a sophomore QB in Tate. Again, low expectations for that year minus the defense.

We were all talking about a possible NC a few years ago with Tate's senior year and that didn't happen.

I think the defense will be just fine (as it almost always is), especially if we stay healthy upfront.

But i'm concerned about a OL that will need to gel right away for us to have a chance at a NC or 11 wins. ISU always plays Iowa tough, and the last time they came to Iowa City both teams sent the offense back a few years (weather and Stanzi's first start didn't help).

Stanzi threw as many TD's as INT last year. Can we really expect to get the same breaks again if he performs the same or worse?

There is a lot more attention on the Hawks this year, and my statement about them playing better when expectations are lower is true.....but you could argue that for any team. I hope KF and staff continue to keep the players hungry and we don't get a fat cat syndrome this year. Especially our front 4 on defense. Clayborn has a ton of accolades and i'd still like to see him come out fired up, rather than expect to be great.
 
We will know after Wisconsin if the D-line can stop the run as well as they rush the passer. This is the biggest difference between Ballard and Klug vs. King and Kroul. Iowa's D gave up an alarming number of rushing yards to some teams that weren't especially strong on the O-line. I think Ballard will make a big step forward this season and I am hoping Binns will as well. I think Binns' may be the best athlete on a very athletic line.

I think there is more going on than just Ballard and Klug replacing King and Kroul here.

I looked a little at the rushing defense numbers between 2008 and 2009:

2008: 94 yards/game
2009: 123 yards/game

Looks like a huge drop-off from one year to the next and it's easy to assume losing King and Kroul accounted for that drop.

But, if you look at the schedule, you'll see that 2009 went up against Michigan and Ohio State and played the one of the nation's top rushing offenses in a bowl game (versus Spurrier's Fun'n'Gun Part II in 2008).

Also in 2008's favor, you had the abberation in the Metrodome, where we got up so big on Minnesota that they couldn't run and ended with 7 yards rushing. If you take out the Michigan, OSU games from 2009 and take out the Minn game from 2008 you get:

2008: 101 yards/game
2009: 107 yards/game

I know it's convenient to leave out games that support my case, but here is my justification (which you are free to reject or accept): going into the games with mobile QBs, Norm's strategy was to #1 neutralize the QB's ability to hurt us with his feet and make plays on the edge. In order to do that it meant lessening the role of the DEs in supporting the run game up the middle.

Looking at the films of those games, Michigan and OSU ran mostly straight up the middle for most of their yards. Herron's run around the edge was originally a run up the middle that he bounced to the outside.

I personally, don't like the strategy of ceding the middle of the field and would rather have made the QB's beat us with their arms and feet.

Now, the interesting thing is, Rich Rod wasn't smart enough to figure it out and his QBs cost him the game. The Vest, who is clearly the best coach in the Big 10, outcoached Kirk once again, and scratched where it itched.

We sat there against OSU the entire time waiting and preparing for Pryor to try to beat us with his feet while Saine and Herron silently and then violently put us away.

Hopefully the coaches will have more faith in our players this year than they showed against Michigan and OSU.

But back to the original point, I dont' remember Iowa utilizing this strategy in 2008 and it proved to be a more effective defensive scheme. In my mind, that is more important than the switch from King/Kroul to Ballard/Klug.
 
I think you mean they play better when YOUR expectations are lower. Everybody keeps going back to 2005. That was a stupid year for people to expect much from Iowa. Not only was Iowa replacing the whole defensive line and many other key players, they were replacing them with complete inexperience and guys that were not physically developed.

That year was about the prognosticators having their heads on backwards. This was mainly due to them missing on Iowa three years running. However, even at this, Iowa was still only a few plays away from 9-3 or even 10-2.
 
I think there is more going on than just Ballard and Klug replacing King and Kroul here.

I looked a little at the rushing defense numbers between 2008 and 2009:

2008: 94 yards/game
2009: 123 yards/game

Looks like a huge drop-off from one year to the next and it's easy to assume losing King and Kroul accounted for that drop.

But, if you look at the schedule, you'll see that 2009 went up against Michigan and Ohio State and played the one of the nation's top rushing offenses in a bowl game (versus Spurrier's Fun'n'Gun Part II in 2008).

Also in 2008's favor, you had the abberation in the Metrodome, where we got up so big on Minnesota that they couldn't run and ended with 7 yards rushing. If you take out the Michigan, OSU games from 2009 and take out the Minn game from 2008 you get:

2008: 101 yards/game
2009: 107 yards/game

I know it's convenient to leave out games that support my case, but here is my justification (which you are free to reject or accept): going into the games with mobile QBs, Norm's strategy was to #1 neutralize the QB's ability to hurt us with his feet and make plays on the edge. In order to do that it meant lessening the role of the DEs in supporting the run game up the middle.

Looking at the films of those games, Michigan and OSU ran mostly straight up the middle for most of their yards. Herron's run around the edge was originally a run up the middle that he bounced to the outside.

I personally, don't like the strategy of ceding the middle of the field and would rather have made the QB's beat us with their arms and feet.

Now, the interesting thing is, Rich Rod wasn't smart enough to figure it out and his QBs cost him the game. The Vest, who is clearly the best coach in the Big 10, outcoached Kirk once again, and scratched where it itched.

We sat there against OSU the entire time waiting and preparing for Pryor to try to beat us with his feet while Saine and Herron silently and then violently put us away.

Hopefully the coaches will have more faith in our players this year than they showed against Michigan and OSU.

But back to the original point, I dont' remember Iowa utilizing this strategy in 2008 and it proved to be a more effective defensive scheme. In my mind, that is more important than the switch from King/Kroul to Ballard/Klug.

tell that to pete carroll after they played texas in the national championship game
 
I'm totally NOT sold on Mr. Pryor.

His offense is typically.....1/2-a-look one way, 1/2-a-look the other, tuck it and run.

His passing is almost by accident it seems.

I like Iowa beating them this year, and going 11-1....the lone loss at scUM.
 
I'm totally NOT sold on Mr. Pryor.

His offense is typically.....1/2-a-look one way, 1/2-a-look the other, tuck it and run.

His passing is almost by accident it seems.

I like Iowa beating them this year, and going 11-1....the lone loss at scUM.

I don't get why people keep thinking we will lose to Michigan? I think Michigan is about the 8th or 9th most likely team to beat us. They were terrible on defense last year and lost their best two players, they can't pass the ball. Yeah, they played us close in Iowa City but they fell apart the rest of the year, I just don't see us losing to them.
 

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