Will Iowa stay #5?

hwks1 said:
Let’s be real. They should be 14 not 4.
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Honestly kind of surprised that Iowa stayed #5. Was expecting them to slide down a spot or three. Clowns are out of the top 25.
 
Find me 6 better teams than Iowa. I'll help:

Bama.
Georgia.
Oregon.
PSU?
Arkansas? Based on beating A & M who beat KSU by more than Iowa did.
Oklahoma?
ND? Best win is Wiscy, and they beat them by more than PSU, and if PSU is better then maybe they should outrank both Iowa and PSU.

After that, I can't find anyone worthy of discussion. Florida and OSU can make an argument based on eye test, but they have losses. Cincy can't due to common opponents. BYU can't based on opponent strength.

If you want to say Maryland, did Iowa ever trail Kent State? Because Maryland did, 3 - 0 at 5:25 in the first quarter. Did Iowa have two Kent State TDs nullified by penalties, one of which was a bullshit holding call where the Kent State blocker was gettingheld and the refs screwed up the directionof the penalty? Cause Maryland did. Did Iowa turn the ball over twice to Kent State? Cause Maryland did.

The arguments all have to do with the eye test and ignore two of the three phases - defense and special teams. Iowa is (still) the 3rd ranked defense in the country behind Georgia.

What are the glaring weaknesses?

OLine: Sacks allowed 80th. 104th rushing yards per rush.

That will get better, because the oline always gets better at Iowa. Also Iow's played two teams in the top 50 in sacks, one of them being CSU at 13, a top 5 total defense in ISU, and a top 2 turnover margin defense in Kent State. Translation: Iowa has played tough defenses.

But Iowa more than makes up for that with the #3 scoring defense in the country. Iowa is #12 in the country in average margin of victory. You have to judge a bit on S.O.S, but Iowa currently ranks #8 there.

If Maryland had been ranked (just on the outside at 26th), that would have been 4 top 25 games out of 6 to start the year, half of those top ten games. For reference, Iowa's had a total of 6 ranked games in a season 4 times since 1985, 5 ranked games in a season once, and the majority of seasons Iowa plays 3 or 4 ranked games in a season. 2003 was the only year with more than 4 ranked games that Iowa finished in the top ten, making that, perhaps the best Iowa team ever fielded since Evashevski was the Iowa coach. This year is the best start relative to S.O.S. to date, that Iowa has had since 1985, with wins over #18 and #9.

Don't come at me with Iowa doesn't deserve #5. The stats ans S.O.S. don't support your eye test, and neither do the eye tests of the other possible contenders. If you don't believe now, you'll never believe. Every team Iowa beats will be "exposed" and "overrated."

Best team since 2003, which, as I said, based on results was the best Iowa team ever despite the record.
 
Fryowa said:
Remember folks, PSU isn’t critical to winning the West. Wisconsin is.

That’s the team we should be concerned with. Especially since they’ll have the biggest chips on their shoulders for Iowa in recent history.
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I hope that Mertz is still mired in his season long slump by then. And that they aren't sparked by his potential replacement.

Bucky has looked even worse than their record. Shooting themselves in the foot in the red zone. Can't get running game going particularly on first down. Can't get tight end involved.

They looked flat at the end of last year and it has carried over. They were saved in their bowl game by a NC State quarterback that kept throwing to the wrong colored jersey.
 
Who gives two shits where any team is ranked?

Rankings mean jack squat. You have to win your division games and win in Indy to win the conference. Where you’re ranked during that doesn’t mean shit.
 
Fryowa said:
Who gives two shits where any team is ranked?

Rankings mean jack squat. You have to win your division games and win in Indy to win the conference. Where you’re ranked during that doesn’t mean shit.
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It does though. Postseason placement is big $$$. Rankings mean people are talking about you more, and that's good for recruiting. And high rankings mean you are winning. And winning means nobody is talking about Iowa's racism scandal. Akrum was still talking about how he regrets going to Iowa in June, and our commitment numbers were down then.

It's better to be ranked highly for several weeks than it is to be ranked highly postseason because recruits are watching and listening to general college football stuff just like we do.
 
Fryowa said:
Remember folks, PSU isn’t critical to winning the West. Wisconsin is.

That’s the team we should be concerned with. Especially since they’ll have the biggest chips on their shoulders for Iowa in recent history.
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If you're playing the long-game, PSU is just as important.

If we beat them, and Bucky, (and everyone else) and go to the B1G champ game, we *might* have a chance at a CFP birth if we win that as well.

If we stumble even once along the way (i.e. PSU), but still manage to win the West and Champ game, I think we still miss out on the CFP.
 
Seth53 said:
If you're playing the long-game, PSU is just as important.

If we beat them, and Bucky, (and everyone else) and go to the B1G champ game, we *might* have a chance at a CFP birth if we win that as well.

If we stumble even once along the way (i.e. PSU), but still manage to win the West and Champ game, I think we still miss out on the CFP.
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We were down at half to a team that South Dakota State put 42 points on, and you're talking CFP? That's the kind of delusion we make fun of ISU and nebraska fans for. Iowa State and Indiana have both shown themselves to be fake news, and we struggled with Kent state as well. I think I'd start with winning the west, which is probably the only realistic of those goals.

This is a really good Iowa team by past standards, and a truly elite defense even in a national sense. But there is no way this kind of offense is going to get us through a B1G season without 2-3 losses. We're in the weakest B1G West in the short history of the division, so 2-3 losses can still probably keep us at the top of the pile. But people saying OSU aren't all that just because of the Oregon game are in left field. Their depth will keep them rolling.

And let's assume Iowa makes the CFP. Do you think that a 58-3 steamroll by Georgia in front of literally every college football fan and every recruit in the nation would help things, as opposed to a strong showing in say, a NY6 bowl? Alabama and Georgia are in a completely different zip code than Iowa or anyone in the B1G. We'd be praying for a continuous clock rule if we played them. That's not a knock against this team, it's just the reality of college football right now.
 
Fryowa said:
We were down at half to a team that South Dakota State put 42 points on, and you're talking CFP? That's the kind of delusion we make fun of ISU and nebraska fans for. Iowa State and Indiana have both shown themselves to be fake news, and we struggled with Kent state as well. I think I'd start with winning the west, which is probably the only realistic of those goals.

This is a really good Iowa team by past standards, and a truly elite defense even in a national sense. But there is no way this kind of offense is going to get us through a B1G season without 2-3 losses. We're in the weakest B1G West in the short history of the division, so 2-3 losses can still probably keep us at the top of the pile. But people saying OSU aren't all that just because of the Oregon game are in left field. Their depth will keep them rolling.

And let's assume Iowa makes the CFP. Do you think that a 58-3 steamroll by Georgia in front of literally every college football fan and every recruit in the nation would help things, as opposed to a strong showing in say, a NY6 bowl? Alabama and Georgia are in a completely different zip code than Iowa or anyone in the B1G. We'd be praying for a continuous clock rule if we played them. That's not a knock against this team, it's just the reality of college football right now.
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I think we could hang with Georgia. We'd lose, but it would be like that game where we played LSU when they had OBJ and Landry and that good RB. The offense likely wouldn't cross the 50 but the defense and ST would keep it reasonably close.

I think Arkansas would give us more problems than Georgia.

I ain't counting Purdue out of the West just yet. I don't think they are very good, but Iowa has yet to prove that we can cover Bell and Brohm may find just enough offense to outwit the teams that try to make it into a trench game. The West is really bad, though. I thought Illinois would turn it around, but Peters is an absolute disaster at QB. If they had a QB they'd be 5-0.
 
Fryowa said:
We were down at half to a team that South Dakota State put 42 points on, and you're talking CFP? That's the kind of delusion we make fun of ISU and nebraska fans for. Iowa State and Indiana have both shown themselves to be fake news, and we struggled with Kent state as well. I think I'd start with winning the west, which is probably the only realistic of those goals.

This is a really good Iowa team by past standards, and a truly elite defense even in a national sense. But there is no way this kind of offense is going to get us through a B1G season without 2-3 losses. We're in the weakest B1G West in the short history of the division, so 2-3 losses can still probably keep us at the top of the pile. But people saying OSU aren't all that just because of the Oregon game are in left field. Their depth will keep them rolling.

And let's assume Iowa makes the CFP. Do you think that a 58-3 steamroll by Georgia in front of literally every college football fan and every recruit in the nation would help things, as opposed to a strong showing in say, a NY6 bowl? Alabama and Georgia are in a completely different zip code than Iowa or anyone in the B1G. We'd be praying for a continuous clock rule if we played them. That's not a knock against this team, it's just the reality of college football right now.
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Lots of "what if's" in your retort.

As I've stated many times before, aim high.

Who thought Iowa had a chance to make the CFP in 2015?
They offense was better by far. The defense wasn't as good as this one.
We had some luck that year. We were 23 seconds away.

And like I've also stated a lot, #1--I don't think we'd get steamrolled by 55+ points by anyone, and, even if they did, #2--they would have made the CFP fair and square. No consolation-prize NY6 bowl game. Let's not shy away from aiming for the big prize just because of other's press clippings.
 
Fryowa said:
We were down at half to a team that South Dakota State put 42 points on, and you're talking CFP? That's the kind of delusion we make fun of ISU and nebraska fans for. Iowa State and Indiana have both shown themselves to be fake news, and we struggled with Kent state as well. I think I'd start with winning the west, which is probably the only realistic of those goals.

This is a really good Iowa team by past standards, and a truly elite defense even in a national sense. But there is no way this kind of offense is going to get us through a B1G season without 2-3 losses. We're in the weakest B1G West in the short history of the division, so 2-3 losses can still probably keep us at the top of the pile. But people saying OSU aren't all that just because of the Oregon game are in left field. Their depth will keep them rolling.

And let's assume Iowa makes the CFP. Do you think that a 58-3 steamroll by Georgia in front of literally every college football fan and every recruit in the nation would help things, as opposed to a strong showing in say, a NY6 bowl? Alabama and Georgia are in a completely different zip code than Iowa or anyone in the B1G. We'd be praying for a continuous clock rule if we played them. That's not a knock against this team, it's just the reality of college football right now.
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As state above - I feel like the fake ID team we were blasted for a few years ago and couldn't agree more that I wouldn't even want to play CFP this year. We'd be embarrassed on national tv. Let's aim for an NY6 bowl and get a team like Florida where half their team is already in preseason mode or moved on to NFL training.
 
This board is approaching Husker level nonsense. Stop talking about playoffs or even Indy for that matter. This team is still likely going to lose a minimum of 3 games. The ranking is nice for publicity and recruiting but we are not a top 10 caliber team. There are several unranked teams that could beat us. And please, Georgia would beat Iowa by 30. They would beat every team that we have played by 30 and the two cream puffs by 50.
 
vork22 said:
This board is approaching Husker level nonsense. Stop talking about playoffs or even Indy for that matter. This team is still likely going to lose a minimum of 3 games. The ranking is nice for publicity and recruiting but we are not a top 10 caliber team. There are several unranked teams that could beat us. And please, Georgia would beat Iowa by 30. They would beat every team that we have played by 30 and the two cream puffs by 50.
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While I agree with you about not being a playoff team. All you can do is play the games on yours schedule which we've done and won all 4 of those games. Are Indiana and ISU as good as they were projected to be? No, but to play the hypothetical "there are several unranked teams that could beat us" card is a stretch, nor can it be proven.

Unless I missed something earlier, is there a reason you chose Georgia as the team your using to make such a comparison? They're currently ranked number #2 and look like a playoff team, but there schedule so far leaves a lot to be determined with regards to how good they really are as well. Why not just use Bama as a team to measure Iowa with and then said based on how good Bama looks that Iowa isn't a top 10 team?

Not trying to call you out, but we still have to lose games and are as deserving of the ranking at this point as much as anyone. If were still ranked this high in 3 weeks then we deserve to be, but I simply don't see how they can totally be discredited at this point in the season. That said I agree that rarely do you see a team as inept offensively as we are ranked this highly.
 
The ranking is good press and I'll happily take it while it lasts.

Are we actually the 5th best team in the country? I severely doubt it. We're good, but not that good. Polls are dumb. They get slightly less dumb as the year goes on, but still dumb. Gives the talking heads something to ramble about. If they are going to ramble anyways, might as well have them rambling about the Hawks some of that time.

In practical terms, once we do lose a game this year (and we almost certainly will), it's almost guaranteed to come in the form of an "upset" in terms of the polls and HN is going to lose its fucking mind.
 
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