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Hawkeyes’ imperfect perfection gets them little respect

Greg Shelley Written by Greg Shelley, Thursday November 05 2009
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Despite going 9-0, the Iowa Hawkeyes are facing an uphill perception battle to get into the title game, even if they finish 12-0.

 

Iowa claims the only 9-0 record in division 1 and finds itself ranked only at number four in the BCS standings behind Florida, Texas, and Alabama, all 8-0 teams. No doubt, many of the Iowa faithful have to be pondering the question of where Ohio State would be ranked currently if they had managed to stay unbeaten to this point. After all, right now, if you left it to the computers, removing some of the apparent bias from the other polls, the Hawkeyes are the clear number 2 team, just .040 behind the Gators and .090 in front of the Longhorns and the Crimson Tide.
 
Apparently, the Big 10 deserves lots of national respect whenever Penn State or Ohio State are on top, but when Iowa puts together a perfect season, the Big 10 is somehow diminished. At least, that is the way it seems, particularly from here in Texas. We are talking about a team that has beaten #18 Arizona, #11 Penn State (then #5), Michigan, #21 Wisconsin, and Michigan State. They beat the three ranked teams by a collective 31 points.
 
Ah yes, some will argue that their struggles with some lesser teams, such as last week’s near-miss against Indiana, is to blame for the lack of respect they seem to be getting. However, adversity alone should not be used as a ruler, because after all, the only thing that matters is how well your team responds to that adversity. That is something that the Hawkeyes have done exceedingly well this year, and particularly against Indiana when they posted 28 unanswered points for yet another come-from-behind victory. 
 
Call me confused, because much of the coverage I have seen in the fallout this week has held some level of a negative connotation for Iowa. What! They should be faulted because they know how to get back up? If anything, we all know what Iowa is likely to do when they are down during any given game, something that cannot be said for the other remaining undefeated teams—yet. Still, because of the seeming slant against Iowa, they are certainly not in complete control of their own destiny.
 
Sure, they need to beat Northwestern, and probably need to do so in decisive fashion. Then they have to put a beating on Ohio State, which is when they might finally get the positive attention they deserve, but even that is not guaranteed. The Buckeyes could easily lose to the Nittany Lions this weekend, which will tell the country that Iowa won’t be playing such a solid Ohio State team after all. Or, the Buckeyes could pull off the upset of Penn State, which then would be used as reason to taint Iowa’s earlier victory over Penn. Either way, even finishing the season at 12-0 is no guarantee for respect sufficient to get the Hawkeyes into the BCS Championship. They will have to depend a little on the failures of those teams still ranked in front of them.
 
If Florida and Alabama remain unbeaten, one of them will get a loss compliments of the SEC Championship game. That is likely to get Iowa bumped up to number 3, but then what to do about Texas? Actually, Texas is the real anomaly in all of this, since the computers average puts Iowa in front of them already, but it is not enough to overcome the public and emotional sentiments floating around. As a long-time fan of the Big 12, I will readily admit that this is not the Big Bad Big 12 of recent seasons past. 
 
So, Texas has played its way through a less-than stellar Big 12 South for the most part, and had some early season woes with a couple of non-conference victims, but they manage to get ranked ahead of Iowa even though their two marquee victories came against the three-loss Oklahoma Sooners and two-loss Oklahoma State Cowboys. Texas finishes the season with the likes of UCF, Baylor, Kansas, and Texas A&M. Any loss there would be a shocking upset. Then, it’s onto the Big 12 Championship against a north team generally destined for a beating. (Currently, the 5-4 Kansas State Wildcats lead the abysmal North.) 
 
I know that all sounds like bad news for the Hawkeyes and their fans, but that is actually where the hope lies. Iowa has to do what it has done all season already—get up off that mat and keep on rolling to one victory after another, three more times. While they might not get a chance to hit the Longhorns directly, perhaps Texas’ soft remaining schedule will knock them down for the Hawkeyes to roll into the championship game, and at last, get some of the respect they apparently already deserve.

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4 comments


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Greg ShelleyGreg Shelley, over 2 years ago said:

Well, Bama, with the loss to Northwestern, I'll agree with the notion that Iowa is apparently not all that good after all. But, are you seriously saying that the Big 10 is in the same class with the Mountain West and the WAC? By the way, USC is apparently not all that good this year either, at least as hyped.

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Bamababe2k9Bamababe2k9, over 2 years ago said:

The problem with programs like Iowa, BYU, TCU, Boise State and Cincy is they are in bad conferences. And fellows I'll be honest with you, I think they will get killed in the Rose Bowl this year by OR or USC. They aren't that good.

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Greg ShelleyGreg Shelley, over 2 years ago said:

Ryan, yeah, I know it's very frustrating. Unfortunately, Iowa lost to Northwestern and for the most part much of any argument. Nonetheless, I know what you mean about them getting less respect. Houston has found themselves in a similar situation--they beat Oklahoma State and were themselves unbeaten, but were ranked behind Oklahoma State until OSU lost their second game. Oh well, good luck to Iowa the rest of the way--they should win the Big 10.

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RyanHutchRyanHutch, over 2 years ago said:

I completely agree. Iowa lose one game and fall to 15 in the AP poll. How does the number 4 ranked 9-0 team lose one game and suddenly be erased from all title talks when they can still very likely win the Big Ten with a win over Ohio State? It seems that with any conference if the big name schools are behind the smaller ones, everybody assumes that the conference is weak. No one ever thinks that maybe the smaller name schools are becoming elite programs, which is the case with Iowa