Your Thoughts on an Eight Win Season

[jameskalina]

What's the significance of an 8 win season over a 7 win season?

Seems to me winning 7 out of 13 games is good but nothing special. I doubt we will see any 7 win teams in the final top 25 rankings.

A team winning 8 out of 13 games probably places a team in the top 25, especially if that team is in a BCS conference.

Eight wins probably places a BCS conference team in the 80% percentile of all BCS teams, or higher. By most standards in college football, that's a pretty successful year.

Thoughts?

 

[hawkeyescott]

Even though it is only a one game swing 8-5 just sounds better then 7-6

 

[Cosity82]

I'm disappointed with 8, but I do realize if 8 is disappointing you don't have much to complain about.

 

[1977Hawkeye]

The difference between 7 wins and 8 in itself isn't a big thing IMO, but I think that winning your bowl game is always a good accomplishment, considering you're (in theory) matched up against another good opponent who is supposed to be more or less your equal. It's always a good win.

But having won your bowl game also ends the season on a high note and will (hopefully) carry over into the next season. I can only imagine how long this off-season would seem if we'd lost our 4th straight game and ended 7-6. Just a different mindset for me after the victory.

That's my 2 cents.

 

[djk41]

No question that 8-5 sounds better than 7-6, but more importantly it puts us in the position to finish in the Top 25.

 

[fufred]

The difference between 7 wins and 8 in itself isn't a big thing IMO, but I think that winning your bowl game is always a good accomplishment, considering you're (in theory) matched up against another good opponent who is supposed to be more or less your equal. It's always a good win.

But having won your bowl game also ends the season on a high note and will (hopefully) carry over into the next season. I can only imagine how long this off-season would seem if we'd lost our 4th straight game and ended 7-6. Just a different mindset for me after the victory.

That's my 2 cents.

that is a good post. Winning a bowl game vs. The #12 team in the country while overcoming the one deficiency you have show all year in playing defense for the entire 60 minutes should have Iowa fans ending the season on a high note. Add in not having DJK and Robinson and it makes the win even more impressive. That game was a great finish for a group of Iowa SRs that deserved it after the year they had. Hopefully the rest of the B10 follows Iowa's lead.

 

[tm3308]

I think 8 wins is disappointing compared to preseason expectations, for sure. However, considering how we won the game (riding the players of the future more than the stars of the present/past), and who we won against (a top 12 opponent), the season didn't turn out SO bad.

Guys like Coker, Hyde, Morris, Miller are going to be building blocks for the future, and those guys (mostly Coker, Hyde, and Morris) were the big reason that we won last night. If Stanzi had gone off for 400 yards and 5 TD's, with most of that going to DJK or McNutt, and AC had 4.5 sacks, it would have been fun to watch, but left seemingly bigger holes for the future. The young guys stepped up and showed us what they can do, and what they can do is revitalizing for me.

Mizzou has a good team, and beating them certainly means WAY more for the program than who we would expect to play in the Insight Bowl (you'd expect a pretty average/below average team most years).

The only big question marks (IMO) for next year are QB and the D-Line. Vandenberg looked great against OSU, but they made it easy by sitting back in a zone until crunch time, then they dialed it up. I'm not hating on Vandy, just saying that he hasn't had enough in-game work this year to show that he's improved on his blitz recognition and how to deal with the pressure. I'm cautiously optimistic about him for next season, because he's got tremendous physical skills.

The D-Line question mark is pretty obvious, not really going to discuss that one.

 

[smoot27]

that is a good post. Winning a bowl game vs. The #12 team in the country while overcoming the one deficiency you have show all year in playing defense for the entire 60 minutes should have Iowa fans ending the season on a high note. Add in not having DJK and Robinson and it makes the win even more impressive. That game was a great finish for a group of Iowa SRs that deserved it after the year they had. Hopefully the rest of the B10 follows Iowa's lead.

The real significance of this win is the momentum shift it will have. Losing this game after an already disappointing season would have made for a very long spring-summer especially with all the off-field problems lingering. This win at least gives the team something positive to build on heading into next year.

 

[ThunderHawk]

I'm inclined to flush the season and remember this victory.

The season was a massive buzzkill.

The bowl win was a great high. Well, perhaps I should use a different term there. The bowl win was sweet.

 

[tm3308]

I'm inclined to flush the season and remember this victory.

The season was a massive buzzkill.

The bowl win was a great high. Well, perhaps I should use a different term there. The bowl win was sweet.

It may be that this win is what the program desperately needed to avoid a repeat of the 2005-2007 nightmare. Each of those seasons were disappointing. In two of them we got hosed in our bowl games (just think if Moe's 4th down reception/overturn hadn't happened), and the third we didn't even play in a bowl. This win gives us momentum for once after a disappointing regular season, and helps to wash out the taste of vomit that the past month has left in everyone's mouths. I kind of wonder what would have happened if we had won the '06 Outback Bowl. We may find out over the next 2-3 years.