Schwartz: “Would You Rather?” Hawkeye Edition

Iowa St. We had an offense that could have competed in a National Championship game. kirk wasn't yet know as mr. conservative. and we had above avg (Iowa) team speed. And, it would have been an undefeated season and it would have been a one game shot to win it all, instead of having to win two with hardly no offense.
 
Well, if '15 won, the Hawks were officially B1G champs. And maybe got a chance to replace MSU in the cfp. Where they'd have likely gotten treated like Sparty did, against Bama, but still...

If '02 won, and they won out (a huuuge "what if" assumption- maybe the motivation from that loss was the key to winning out?), they still weren't gonna be in the championship. Miami started the year #1 and won out. OSU was #6 the week unranked Iowa lost to ISU, and won out. No chance the undefeated Hawks pass either of them.

So, really the only thing you change w/ '02 is "righting a wrong". The Hawks were clearly better than ISU.

So you have to say '15, for the B1G championship and possible cfp.
 
It's tough because the season's end in similar fashion regardless of whether or not Iowa beats ISU in 2002 or MSU in 2015. Iowa wasn't getting into the BCS Championship Game over undefeated Miami or Ohio State. Iowa would have probably played against USC anyway and the result is what it is. If Iowa wins against MSU, they end up in the college football playoff and suffer a similar fate to what MSU experienced at the hands of Alabama. But a win over MSU would have been Iowa's first outright Big 10 Championship since 1985 which I think is significant.
 
Iowa was at home in 2002 vs Iowa State which makes the loss that much worse.

But would rather have the win vs MSU in 2015. Every news media in the country was against the hawks that year.​
 
RobHowe said:
A win against Iowa State in '02 or Michigan State in '15, what say you Iowa fans?

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The 2002 team basically wore out in the second half against U$C, while the 2015 team, despite repeatedly calling the Rose "The Granddaddy of them All!", probably wasn't as excited about the Rose Bowl as they were "let down" from the B1G CG.

That said, I'd take a win in the 2015 B1G CG. The atmosphere, a B1G Championship, that HAS to take precedence. Remember, aside from O$U, you pretty much have ZERO chance of an "at-large" to the CFP. You HAVE to win it. And P$U is proof that even THAT isn't enough, even IF you beat O$U during the season.

And I'm not sure Bama woodsheds us the way they did MSU. They still win (duh), but I think it's an "up" Hawks team that goes into that game, not a"what-could-have-been" Hawks team that went to the Rose Bowl.
 
hawkeyebob62 said:
And I'm not sure Bama woodsheds us the way they did MSU. They still win (duh), but I think it's an "up" Hawks team that goes into that game, not a"what-could-have-been" Hawks team that went to the Rose Bowl.
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But MSU should have been "up" vs Bama, and it didn't help them...
 
trj said:
Pittsburgh game????? What other game would Iowa lost if JR was the quarterback?
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If we had JR in 2015, he would have set an all-time NCAA record for sacks. He simply didn't have the arm or wheels to deal with blanketed receivers that much. Hell, in 2014 there were several times JR looked straight at wide open receivers on deep post routes and wouldn't throw it. CJB threw a lot of completions into very tight windows that year. I'm not sure which way the Wisky game would have went with JR, but all the other close games would have easily been losses with JR at QB (Pitt, Illinois, Indiana, Minnesota, probably even against INT Armstrong at Nebraska). There's no way in hell we go 12-0 with Rudock at QB that year. You don't honestly believe we would have, do you?

My point, was that it was a really good thing that CJ's dad did that radio interview or do you think it didn't have anything to do with Kirk's first ever January depth chart release?
 
hawkation said:
Iowa was at home in 2002 vs Iowa State which makes the loss that much worse.

But would rather have the win vs MSU in 2015. Every news media in the country was against the hawks that year.​
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I would trade or take many Big 10 losses to wins vs ISU. Conference games are very important. How about the game at OSU in '09 or against OSU in '10 at Kinnick, or even beating jNW both of those years, I would rather have any of those 4 wins vs the '02 ISU game.

And in this case looking back the Hawks already won the Big title share and 8-0 in the Big in 2002 which means beating ISU gives you a great undefeated season but that is the only extra thing. In 2015 the hawks win that Big 10 champ game against MSU and they are 13-0, outright Big Champs, heading to the playoffs, that would have been bigger than beating ISU in '02.
 
Beating MSU, getting a Big Ten Championship and an invite to the National Championship semi-final, would have put Iowa in an exclusive club not mater what the result. It probably would have helped recruiting over the long run a bit. That years recruiting was already set to an extent, and Iowa was 8-5 the next year. So there still is a leveling of things toward the mean.

As others have stated a win over Iowa State in 2002, probably gets them into the same bowl against USC anyway. Recruiting might have gotten a bot of a boost there too.

One virtue an Iowa State win would have had is it comes early in Kirk Ferentz tenure. Any upward boost, however small, has more of an opportunity for further carryover further down the line.
 
trj said:
Pittsburgh game????? What other game would Iowa lost if JR was the quarterback?
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ISU, Pitt, Indiana, Minny, we would have eeked by NT and Purdue, along with losing by double digits to MSU if we still managed to get to Indy.

While I don't think CJ was necessarily the sole "savior" of 2015, he was better than Rudock by that point and could stretch the field in a way we needed badly.
 
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