What was the turning point of the season?

H

Hawkeye101

Well-Known Member
Personally, I think it was when our special teams allowed Bucky Badger to pull off the fake punt when we had them stopped on 4th down.

While the MSU was a good win, was that Iowa really playing up to their potential, or were we also the beneficiary of MSU's bad mistakes (Cousin didn't have a good day).

I think the 1 point loss to Wisconsin was the turning point of the season.

Your thoughts?
 
Losing Adam Robinson late in the MSU game. He was replaced by a true freshman who had barely practiced. After that the offense lost all confidence and could barely score.
 
The turning point in the season was how we lost to Arizona.

We came back, missed an extra point, gave up the big play we weren't supposed to give up in our defense, let them score...

All of that said, even after that happened, we all thought... we've got this.

The 2 minute SNAFU that came next was a precursor for basically the entire year.
 
Wisconsin physically beating Iowa's brains out in Kinnick. I've seen a lot watching Iowa football under KF but its been a very look time since I've seen an Iowa team get pushed around like that.

I know about Wisconsin's all world OL but on the last two scoring drives, Iowa knew Wisconsin was going to run and still couldn't stop them.

I know they beat MSU a week later but for me, the season's story had already been told. Rough waters were ahead.
 
tjbreit said:
Losing Adam Robinson late in the MSU game. He was replaced by a true freshman who had barely practiced. After that the offense lost all confidence and could barely score.
Click to expand...
IMO Coker should have seen the field a lot more than he did. Give ARob an occasional break, gain some experience. But no.....we ride ARob into the ground. And when Adam goes out with an injury, we can say Markus doesn't have any real expereince agains't live action. Coker performed well enough when called upon.
 
Adam Robinson getting concussed in the 4th quarter with a 30 point lead.

Wisconsins, OSU, every team in the conference can play two RBs except Iowa this year.
 
The first series of the Indiana game when O'Grief packed it in for the remainder of the season with the fade, fade dive right playcalling. Even if Wisconsin punted, O'Grief would have gone into prevent offense, gone three and out and given Wisconsin plenty of time to score again, we were going to lose that game no matter what. You keep the O trucking from the Indiana game until the end and we are a 9-3 or 10-2 team. Still not in the BCS, but a lot more respectable than how things actually played out.
 
AIRHAWK said:
IMO Coker should have seen the field a lot more than he did. Give ARob an occasional break, gain some experience. But no.....we ride ARob into the ground. And when Adam goes out with an injury, we can say Markus doesn't have any real expereince agains't live action. Coker performed well enough when called upon.
Click to expand...

Don't forget, Coker was injured early in camp and so was unable to practice or play. If I remember correctly, he had begun to practice the week before the MSU game.
 
I think the turning point in the season was when Iowa got the ball back late in the fourth in Wisky territory and could have driven the dagger in their hearts with another score. Instead, the usual conservative three and out and punt. Then, Iowa holds, makes Wisky punt and that is when they faked it. Could have driven the dagger against NW as well mid way through the fourth.
 
The day after the Orange Bowl! All of us thought we had the talent to contend for National and Big Ten Championships. Jon predicated we would go 12-0. This team found out talent does not when championships, they only showed up to compete in half their games. Did the coaches have a great year? no. but they have proven themselves over the past decade, do they need to assess their schemes absolutely but the veterans on this team blew a great opportunity, give me robert gallery, brad banks, pat angerer, dallas clark over this group any day.
 
ForeverHawk said:
I think the turning point in the season was when Iowa got the ball back late in the fourth in Wisky territory and could have driven the dagger in their hearts with another score. Instead, the usual conservative three and out and punt. Then, Iowa holds, makes Wisky punt and that is when they faked it. Could have driven the dagger against NW as well mid way through the fourth.
Click to expand...
This is it. Driving the dagger. Not in KF DNA. Prevent offense, bend dont break. Team could not or did not reach deep to finish when called upon.
 
tjbreit said:
Losing Adam Robinson late in the MSU game. He was replaced by a true freshman who had barely practiced. After that the offense lost all confidence and could barely score.
Click to expand...

This. Go back and watch early games. You forget how many drives AR kept alive by getting that extra couple yards, or keeping 3rd downs manageable. Coker will leave Iowa the better runner, but this year AR was more dynamic, and losing him (he wasn't right in the last 2 games he played) was devastating to offensive consistency. I reiterate here my disgust for the idiocy of leaving him in up 31 pts in the 4th qtr, w/ no experience or comparable player behind him.
 
okeefe4prez said:
The first series of the Indiana game when O'Grief packed it in for the remainder of the season with the fade, fade dive right playcalling. Even if Wisconsin punted, O'Grief would have gone into prevent offense, gone three and out and given Wisconsin plenty of time to score again, we were going to lose that game no matter what. You keep the O trucking from the Indiana game until the end and we are a 9-3 or 10-2 team. Still not in the BCS, but a lot more respectable than how things actually played out.
Click to expand...

If we stop the fake, we would have had the ball in our own territory. I don't remember how many time outs Wisconsin had left, but we would have been able to either run the clock way down, or forced Wisconsin to use all of their to's. Not calling a TO in that situation cost us that game. I don't disagree with you in regards to the lame play calling we would have seen, but I don't think Wisconsin would have had time to move the ball down the field with no time outs and score a TD.
 
I think it was the Indiana game. This was a team that was, for one of the first times in years, carried by our offense. Plain and simple, we were going to get as far as our offense carried us. And then we had the Indiana game, where the offense couldn't get the ball into the endzone until the last few minutes of the game, before the defense folded yet again in a crucial, must stop situation.

I think that game fractured this team. The offense wasn't getting the job done, the defense wasn't getting the job done and the special teams were just as special as they were in week 1.

I know the Wisconsin game sucked, but considering this team was STILL in it, and considering how dominant they looked in all phases against MSU, I have a hard time believing that was the downturn. Maybe it was, and maybe MSU just sucked spectacularly that day, but either way, the MSU win should have brought back fire into the team. They had crushed a top 10 team, and were VERY much alive in the title race.

However, after barely beating Indiana, I think the team just deflated. They didn't come out fired up for Northwestern, played half-heartedly against tOSU and then were just heartbreaking to watch against Minnesota.
 
First turning point = losing to AZ took the national championship hopes away very early. I believe this was a very realistic goal within the team.

Second turning point = Wisky fake punt made the team question themselves and coaching and took the remaining wind out of the sails.

That being said, I was at the Indiana game and my kids were able to get some autographs following the game. This was after they had gone in the locker room and were on their way to the bus. It was very clear that they were not happy. They were somewhat cordial, but McNutt and Sash (in particular) were just plain ******. I assumed it was due to the nature of the win, but looking back now, I wonder what the heck was going on.

I mean, McNutt came over to sign my kids shirt and didn't even look at them. He didn't say a word. Sash, tried to be nice, but my kids pen didn't work the first time and he said, "Pen doesn't work...turned around and walked away". Now I don't hold this against them at all. Who knows what happened in that locker room, but they were downright upset. Stanzi, Clayborn and James Ferentz also came over and they seemed fine.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Latest posts

Share this page

Top