Why Do Iowa Teams Chit The Bed So Much?

MelroseHawkins said:
Not like we do though. I'm fine with having great teams occasionally and being competitive the other years. But, why when Iowa is having a great season (outside the usual curve) they can't complete the season with a great bowl win or finish the season as conference champs?

Look at Wisconsin, for example. I view Wisky and Iowa as very similar for various reasons. Historically, they are very close but each has a decade where one is a little better such as Iowa in the 1980's and Wisky in 2000's. The only difference is that Wisky great teams win big bowl games (Rose) and or do well in the Final Four (couple years ago), Iowa doesn't and chits the bed in those games (Iowa vs UNLV to go to Final Four, 3 Rose Bowl losses, BCS losses to USC and Stanford, basketball team on top of BIG before crapping out late in season........). The point of my thread is asking why Iowa doesn't finish big, while teams like Wisconsin do.
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I wish I had the answer.

With last year's hoops team, I never bought into the notion of them being a 1 seed, but I thought they had a great shot at a 2-3 seed and making a nice NCAA run. Going from a 1 to a 7 in basically the span of a month, though.. Pretty much the same thing happened two years before that, except Iowa went from more like a projected 4/5 seed to an 11 in the play-in round. It's tantalizingly frustrating to be so close to a great year and see it pi$$ed away so drastically.

Football hasn't been as bad for me, but I think 2015 was a little bit of a smoke & mirrors show.. The team did a great job against a manageable schedule, but got exposed a bit in the Rose Bowl. I still think they were a better team than they showed in that game, though.

That 2003 Orange Bowl - Iowa didn't play well but they also had an unusually long layoff before that game, and caught USC right when they were starting to become *USC*, and I think a lot of people also seem to forget that game was tied at halftime and Iowa left a lot of points on the field in that first half. Seemed like Iowa was just kinda gassed in the second half.
 
docholihawk said:
To answer your question of why we can't have what the clowns have. Maybe it's because we don't take transfers who've been kicked off other teams or maybe because we don't have fake degrees and show up on 60 minutes because of it. Maybe because we don't have recruiting violations or maybe we don't have a coach who hands out game tickets to cops to keep his players out of legal trouble. If those kind of things don't bother you you're following the wrong program.
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When this kind of thing shows up I always feel a little obligated to remind people that Fran recruited a 26 year old felon. Seems pertinent.
 
Hawk5656 said:
I noticed how Fran was talking about how great of a coach Crean is and he shouldn't be on the hot seat. He even went as far as mentioning how Crean will have his team ready to go tonight because he's a great coach and has had a week to prepare for the game. Thought that was odd considering he had a week to prepare for a bad Illinois team and lost at home
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You know Illinois was off for the week as well, right? And, they had won their previous game at Northwestern, right? I don't think Illinois is great, but they had a better road win than Iowa has had all season just a week ago.
 
Robowe said:
You know Illinois was off for the week as well, right? And, they had won their previous game at Northwestern, right? I don't think Illinois is great, but they had a better road win than Iowa has had all season just a week ago.
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Illinois is terrible
 
1977Hawkeye said:
I was definitely "meh" on the Lick hire, especially after hearing Barta say the hire was going to have "sizzle". My reaction to the hire when my parents called and told me about it, was pretty much literally: "Iowa hired Todd Lickliter.. Who? Butler's coach... Oh. Yeah, I guess Butler had a solid team this year".

.
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Butler's replacement for Lickliter just coached the East in the NBA All Star game this past weekend. Weird how that works out. :)
 
1977Hawkeye said:
I wish I had the answer.

With last year's hoops team, I never bought into the notion of them being a 1 seed, but I thought they had a great shot at a 2-3 seed and making a nice NCAA run. Going from a 1 to a 7 in basically the span of a month, though.. Pretty much the same thing happened two years before that, except Iowa went from more like a projected 4/5 seed to an 11 in the play-in round. It's tantalizingly frustrating to be so close to a great year and see it pi$$ed away so drastically.

Football hasn't been as bad for me, but I think 2015 was a little bit of a smoke & mirrors show.. The team did a great job against a manageable schedule, but got exposed a bit in the Rose Bowl. I still think they were a better team than they showed in that game, though.

That 2003 Orange Bowl - Iowa didn't play well but they also had an unusually long layoff before that game, and caught USC right when they were starting to become *USC*, and I think a lot of people also seem to forget that game was tied at halftime and Iowa left a lot of points on the field in that first half. Seemed like Iowa was just kinda gassed in the second half.
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Really, I don't remember that. I just remember the kick-off return to start the game, then seemed like heard the USC fight song every other minute the rest of the game.
 
Hawk5656 said:
Fran had a week to prepare for a terrible team at home and lost
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Illinois also had a week to prepare. Does that matter? Illinois just beat an NCAA tourney team, on the road. It happens.

Wisconsin lost at home to NW (after they lost at home to Ill). Maryland lost at home to Nebraska. Notice a pattern yet?
 
Robowe said:
Illinois also had a week to prepare. Does that matter? Illinois just beat an NCAA tourney team, on the road. It happens.

Wisconsin lost at home to NW (after they lost at home to Ill). Maryland lost at home to Nebraska. Notice a pattern yet?
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Well Illinois was on the road and is going to fire their coach at the end of the season
 
MelroseHawkins said:
Really, I don't remember that. I just remember the kick-off return to start the game, then seemed like heard the USC fight song every other minute the rest of the game.
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That kickoff was epic.

Yeah, it was tied 10-10 at halftime. I think Iowa had 1st and Goal a couple times and shot itself in the foot with penalties, and missed a short FG just before halftime (very uncharacteristic of Nate Kaeding). It could easily have been more like 17-10 or 21-10 Hawks at halftime.

USC steamrolled us in the 2nd half, though.
 
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Hawk5656 said:
Well Illinois was on the road and is going to fire their coach at the end of the season
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So, what was Northwestern's excuse losing to the same Illinois team at home a week before?
Do you think Nebraska is good? Should Maryland have lost to them at home?
 
Robowe said:
So, what was Northwestern's excuse losing to the same Illinois team at home a week before?
Do you think Nebraska is good? Should Maryland have lost to them at home?
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I don't know, I didn't watch any of those games. We've lost to 2 terrible teams at home, an average one in Seton Hall and Maryland this season. That's terrible
 
1977Hawkeye said:
Recruiting cures a lot of ills, no doubt, but Iowa had the same PG when they rose to #3 in the country at one point last January, as they did the rest of the year when it all came crashing down. I'm not saying that PG couldn't be better, but Iowa was good enough as-is, for most of the season.

Almost without fail, the losing streaks start in February. I can't help but notice that this is around the time where we start seeing conference opponents for the second time. Are they figuring us out and our coaching staff has no answer for it? Do our players get too comfortable when they are having success?

February meltdowns were a problem under Alford, and Fran's teams seem prone to it as well. Under Lick, the entire season was a meltdown. But there has to be something to it.. Not just bad luck, coincidence, etc. It's been a pattern.

I just have to wonder if we're simply being out-coached.
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A lot of truth. When you're playing/doing well and winning, what do you adjust? What do you change (if anything), and if you do change anything, why?

The 2014/2015 seasons were easy to read: Hawks clean the defensive glass, get the ball out into transition, score. Teams start crashing the offensive glass, get killed. Then comes adjustment time. Teams stop crashing the offensive glass, keep an extra guy out on perimeter, Hawks transition game neutralized.

I will say, at least in 2015 & 2016, the BTT early losses didn't carry over, as we won first round games in NCAA (progress).

With regard to the Rose Bowl letdown, pretty simple, as seen by what happened with BOTH Iowa and MSU. Both teams got beat up. For MSU, it was a matter of, "Jesus, we come off a war with Iowa and now we gotta play an Alabama team who coasted through the last third of their season?" For Iowa it was even simpler: "(With pasted on smile and robotic-yet-depressed clown voice) We're excited to play in the Rose Bowl. It's the Granddaddy of them all. It's on New Year's Day. It's in California". Not only did we lose a war, we then got sent to do weekend maneuvers afterward.
 
Robowe said:
I will take you at your 1st 3 words. Thanks!

By the way, Iowa also beat Purdue, Michigan, and ISU (gasp!) at home. That's good.
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It's called having one of the youngest teams in the country. You'll see some flashes of what they can do with some good wins - and other games that make you scratch your head. Par for the course, really.

If this was a more experienced team, I'd be a lot more upset about this season.
 
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