Around the Big Ten

[klondike]

You can only win the games in front of you. Iowa is good.

I agree. I know some Iowa fans and it annoys me to no end that they think they're in elite company everytime they have a good year. No. You're not Alabama... never will be..

[froot loops]

In 2015 MSU played them in the big ten championship game and it was a war. They are a good program and Ferenz is a great coach. Most of the fellas in here think Ferenz is a joke.

[lineygoblue]

From my POV, Iowa is good, but not #2 good. They have a solid defense, but their offense is Lloyd-ball 2021 version. I think McNamara is a better QB than Petras. They don't have a RB that compares to Haskins or Corum. Shoot, if Donovan Edwards would have went to Iowa, he'd be starting right now.

The good thing for Iowa is their remaining schedule. They're only play two teams with a pulse, (Nebraska, Wisconsin) and the rest are going to be easy wins.

Their playoff dreams will end in Indy when they face OSU.

[Hannibal]

Frerentz is a horribe offensive coach who hires really bad assistants on that side of the ball or runs terrible schemes. They still run a version of the 2006 Mike Debord Michigan offense, but with talentless 3* players almost everywhere besides RB.

[Tom W]

Not everyone thinks that Ferenz is a joke. He’s consistently put together solid teams, without a lot of 5-stars, and they are occasionally do something dangerous. The knocks on him stem from the fact that he seemed a lot like Lloyd Carr when most of us expected that Michigan HAD to do better.

it doesn’t help that Iowa happens to play in an otherwise underwhelming division. In other words, they’re Wisconsin without Jump Around or as many Rose Bowl trophies.

[Mike]

In 2015 MSU played them in the big ten championship game and it was a war. They are a good program and Ferenz is a great coach. Most of the fellas in here think Ferenz is a joke.

The same 2105 teams that lost 38-0 in the playoff and were down 42-0 at halftime of the Rose Bowl? That’s kinda my point. They aren’t the 2nd best team in the country. Petras flat out sucks.

Granted, they will probably go 12-0 again. Then OSU will beat them by 3+ scores and they’ll get railed in a NY6 bowl. It’s almost like we’ve seen this movie before.

[froot loops]

Again, people are comparing Iowa to some utopian top 5 team that doesn't exist. It's not like there are 4 teams getting screwed. They are all kind of flawed. These silly arguments in college football are why the National Football League is far superior. Penn State had their chance and they blew it, Iowa was better

[Hannibal]

The arguments don't mean much because the season is only half done. Schedules still need to be played out. Rankings are incomplete for now. Iowa really does seem like a team that is waiting to be exposed. Their offense is Godawful and they subsist on turnovers more than the 1995 Northwestern Wildcats.

[Mike]

I enthusiastically rooted for Iowa and am happy they won. Just doing some analysis of their overall strength, which I think is lacking. I stand by my assessment that they’d be the 3rd or 4th best team in the East Division. I watched every snap yesterday and Petras was awful outside of a couple well schemes plays. PSU was laying the wood to them until Clifford got hurt. It was a godsend for Iowa and they were able to sludgefart their way to a victory.

It will all get settled in due time. Always does.

[lineygoblue]

I'm just not going to believe that Iowa is better than Alabama.

Sorry.

[Hannibal]

PSU also had what appeared to be some pretty significant injuries on defense. The crowd was booing as if PSU guys were going down on purpose to slow down the Iowa offensive juggernaut but they lost some pretty important dudes, I didn't notice how many of them returned. PJ Mustipher was on the sideline for the whole game, as far as I could tell.

[Dr. Strangelove]

Iowa will go 11-1 or 12-0 and get overseeded into a bowl game where they get blown out. They would do better in an Outback level bowl against an SEC team disappointed to be there.

But I also do think Ferentz has done a great job over his career and understands the best way to win at Iowa with the caliber of talent they can attract. When he retires, if his replacement tries to transition into a high octane spread offense it could be a disaster.

[froot loops]

That's fine, but this is the way the rankings work. You lose, you drop and the people behind rise. Because it's Iowa , you fellas think the rules should change. It will work in the end. Your Alabama team probably will climb back up the rankings, but for now they lost and Iowa beat Penn State.

It wasn't that long ago that Iowa beat the shit out of OSU

This crybaby fatalism about OSU and Alabama is weird.

[froot loops]

Injuries are part of football and should be factored into the rankings. If you can't bring in a second quarterback to continue what you were doing, you were over ranked because you were relying too much on one guy. Clearly PSU isn't deep enough to win at Iowa.

[Hannibal]

Yesterday illustrates why Franklin is not a great coach. You need more than one functional QB in your program, even if your backup is a true freshman and even if you are on the road. Freshman are stepping into starting roles and functioning all over the country, and they have been doing this for some time. And the guy who couldn't hit the ocean from the beach yesterday was a 2019 recruit. There's no excuse for your #2 guy to be that terrible. Even with the transfer portal in place. That's Harbaugh caliber ineptitude.