Jubilation in Old Columbus TownIt didn't go down quite like most of Buckeye nation (and a lot of Hawkeye nation) envisioned, but in the end, the Buckeyes clinched their first Rose Bowl trip in 13 seasons by squeaking by Iowa in overtime, 27-24.
And how fitting was it, that on Senior Day in Ohio Stadium, three standout senior defenders stepped up in overtime after the Hawkeyes had stormed back from a 14 point fourth quarter deficit to tie the game? Kirk Ferentz's squad had all of the momentum in a stunned Horseshoe when they received the opening series of the extra period.
On first down, James Vandenberg, who had played brilliantly to that point, threw the ball away on a rollout. On second down, linebacker Austin Spitler dragged down Hawkeye running back Adam Robinson for a six yard loss. It was Doug Worthington's turn next. On 3rd and 16, he busted through the Iowa line and sacked Vandenberg for a 10 yard loss. Finally on 4th and 26 and out of field goal range, Vandenberg heaved up a desperation throw into the endzone that was picked off by Anderson Russell -- his second snatch of the day.
Seniors stepping up on Senior Day. It's almost too perfect.
After the Buckeyes took over in OT, it was three straight Boom Herron runs up the middle for a total of three yards before kicker Devin Barclay stepped up and kicked the biggest field goal of his life: a 39-yarder for the final margin.
While the fourth quarter and overtime provided plenty of excitement, the game started as a typical Big Ten slugfest with two strong defenses taking turns stifling offenses that struggled for much of the first half.
The Hawkeyes got on the board first, taking a 3-0 lead on a 32 yard Daniel Murray field goal in the waning moments of the first quarter. The score came after Iowa received good field position on their second possession and they rode the hot start of Vandenberg (7/7 to start) to move the ball down the field. Hawkeye receiver Trey Stross, an Ohio kid, dropped a would be touchdown on third down (he had a brutal day overall with four drops) and the Buckeyes escaped giving up just the three.
The Buckeyes answered on their next possession, marching 73 yards in 17 plays before settling for a Barclay 30-yarder to knot things up. The running game appeared to pick up some steam on the drive and Pryor completed a key 3rd and 10 strike to DeVier Posey for 15.
Needless to say, Tressel was in a great mood after the gameOSU held Iowa to a three-and-out on their next possession and took over at their own 26. Six straight runs by Boom and Zoom moved the ball to the Iowa 34 before Pryor found Ray Small for a 12 yard gain. On the next play, Saine put on a cutting showcase, taking the ball 22 yards for the score and the Buckeyes had their first lead of the afternoon at 10-3.
Anderson Russell intercepted a tipped Vandenberg pass on Iowa's next possession but with just 58 seconds remaining in the half, Tressel was content to take the 10-3 lead into the locker room and ran the clock out.
On Iowa's opening drive of the second half, Adam Robinson quickly ripped off successive nine yard runs before Vandenberg dialed up a 55 yard strike to wide receiver Derrell Johnson-Koulianos. Torrence was the victim in this instance, and looking at a first and goal from the Buckeye seven, things were looking a tad bleak. Alas, the defense held and the crowd erupted when Murray missed a chip-shot 22 yard field goal.
The two teams traded a few three-and-outs before Vandenberg and the Hawks got the ball back on their own 44 after a meager 31 yard John Thoma punt. Vandenberg again hit a big play, finding Marvin McNutt for a 33 yard gain (Chekwa the victim, this time) to the OSU 13. Three plays later, on 3rd and six, Vandenberg drilled a beautiful slant for a touchdown between Coleman and Chekwa. Just like that, it was 10-10.
On the Buckeyes' next series, Pryor delivered a couple of huge passes, the first going to a wide-open Jake Ballard for 17 on 2nd and seven. The play was notable because Ballard thought about hurdling a defender before deciding against it and going out of bounds. Facing pressure on 3rd and five, Pryor completed a 12 yard pass to Duron Carter while he was going down -- perhaps the play of the game out of the quarterback. Facing another 3rd and 10, Pryor ran the keeper for 19 yards to keep the drive alive. On the next play, Boom scampered into the endzone for an 11 yard touchdown out of the Wildcat, putting the Buckeyes back ahead 17-10 at the top of the fourth quarter.Linebacker Ross Homan stepped up on the next series, intercepting a Vandenberg pass at the Buckeye 45 and showing some nifty footwork of his own, returning the ball 34 yards before being brought down. 14 yards of the return were wiped out due to an illegal block out of Nathan Williams, but big mo had surely swung and the stadium was rocking.
On the very next play, Saine took a handoff from Pryor, made a sick move at the line and sprinted 49 yards down the right sideline to put the Buckeyes up 24-10. With a little over 10 minutes left in the game, this one looked to be in the bag.
Unfortunately, nobody told the Hawkeyes. DJK took the ensuing kickoff back 99 yards for a score to cut the lead to seven. It was the 4th-longest kickoff return in Iowa history and and it sucked to this biased fan, at least.
A kickoff out of bounds and a personal foul spotted the Buckeyes the ball at the Iowa 45 on their next drive. Riding Boom for six-straight carries, the offense moved the ball to the Iowa 27 before Barclay came in and missed a 47 yard field goal. Still up seven with time ticking away. No worries, right?
Not quite. Vandenberg went to work right away, moving Iowa from their own 30 to the OSU 10. He finished the drive with a nasty fade over Chekwa to Marvin for his second touchdown of the game. 24 up and the once jubilant home crowd is shitting bricks to put it mildly.
The Buckeyes received the ball again with 2:42 to work with and were able to pick up a couple of first downs, but the drive fizzled out at their own 31. After a Thoma punt, the Hawkeyes received the ball with 52 seconds remaining but Ferentz opted to run the clock out, setting up one hell of an overtime finish.
Bullets...
- James Vandenberg is going to be one hell of a quarterback. The future looks bright in Iowa City. And his mom is hot as well, so there's that.
- Hats off to the Iowa offensive gameplan. They did a great job of moving the pocket and rolling Vandenberg out, neutralizing the Buckeye rush for the most part. Worthington's sack in overtime was the only one recorded by the Buckeyes.
- The win takes away some of the sting, but up by just seven and opting for a run up the middle on 3rd and nine late in the game was a terrible call. Absolutely no balls shown. If Cooper took heat for biting his nails and instilling a lack of confidence in his players, what does this say about Tressel?
- Pryor didn't have that many huge plays, but finishing 14/17 with no turnovers to clinch a Rose Bowl trip is really something. He did manage to pass Todd Boeckman and move into 10th on the all-time passing list.
- Freshman lineman Marcus Hall made his first career start today at right tackle.
- The Buckeyes were this close to having two 100 yard backs on the afternoon. Saine finished with 103 and Herron with 97. The 229 yards of rushing marked the 7th time the unit has gone over 200 on the ground this year and really says something, coming against a solid Iowa defensive front.
- Thoma really struggled today, averaging only 35.8 yards on five punts. A couple shanks were really costly and helped Iowa maintain great field position throughout the afternoon. He'll have a chance to avenge this performance, thankfully.
- It's Michigan week. 'Nuff said.
Comments
What a douche... eat me A-hole
http://www.cbssports.com/colle...
Michigan week baby. I love raggin on all of my friends this week. We need to hashtag all of our twitter posts as #thegame this week.
Gregg Doyel is the single dumbest human being to have ever walked this earth. It's empirical fact.
Gregg Doyel is stupid ass, there was mistakes but that dickhead made it sound like the Bucks were a 2-9 and backing into a championship. The Bucks earned it, I wonder if Dickead Doyle is this hard on an overrated Charlie Weiss. Some reason, I doubt it.
the part about limbaugh/tressel was a head scratcher. i can't get my dander up bc it is so non-sensical. the guy is such a waste of life.
He could have just said "I can't stand Tresselball" and saved everyone, including himself, a lot of time.
yea he is, he didnt bash USC that got 55 hanged on them at home which was the most points allowed in THE HISTORY OF USC FOOTBALL but you know whatever rite we won
well, a win is a win. iowa had their chance and decided not to do anything with about a minute left (personally, i would have tried for a win). if i had to guess, this sounds like sour grapes from a guy who was disgusted to see osu win (not by their performance). yes, execution of plays and play calling was bad at times, but if my team puts me in a position to win....your fuckin' right im running the ball up the gut with three downs and kicking the field goal.
now for osu's chance to win in regulation. tressel was thinking overtime all the way and hoping for his defense to hold iowa if they should try one last drive. that's why he kept it conservative..if iowa was winning, the playcalling would have been significantly different. i also think some of the booing was warranted...i think on the 3rd down play, terrelle looked for something downfield, didn't see anything and checked down to the back for a no gainer. pretty easy to see, and im biased.
everyone wants a spectacular ending, go fuckin figure.
Doyel was at the game today. Probably why he wrote about it. Dude is little brother small.
What a douche... Who cares what some half-ass writer for the ever failing CBS has to say? Seriously... He works for CBS sports... Who the F*@k cares?
It really ticks me off how much crap OSU can get for winning.
Apparently, good offense is "playing to win" whereas good defense is "playing not to lose." Strangely, they both win games at a fairly even rate.
I probably would have tried it, too, but they weren't exactly in a good position for it.
Their freshman quarterback already threw one int that was returned for a touchdown, they were just luck it was called back.
I have full confidence that if Stanzi had been in the pocket, they would have aired it out.
Top teams usually have top defenses...(look at the NFL) offense is second in my book! I'd rather watch a BigTen slugfest than a BigEast/SEC/Pac10 scorefest any day! It's just good football... no matter what ESecPN says.
in other words, you are saying we should sign gregg up for this:
http://www.omegamaleprogram.com/
At the time of the game, I kind of agreed with what Doyel is saying .. I thought it was a pansy ass strategy to go out like that tied. In hindsight, I think both coaches played it right. Why allow the potential big play, but what are two big play defense, to change the game.
Of course, I suppose nobody is going to mention that we're a fingernails length of an offsides on Williams, from going up 31-17, on the Gibson return of the pick and definitely sealing things up.
Or that the "oh it's an interception no it's a completion for a first down" was one of the luckiest plays I've ever seen :) Awesome play, but damned lucky :)
I really don't know why it took us so long to blitz. I think we kept expecting our D-line to be able to get there, and then they couldn't in time. Took us way too long to adjust, though - Vandenberg had all day in the pocket.
For goodness sakes, I have had perhaps 20 Lagunitas tonight & I can see that Doyel has no peni* (Lagunitas in the house!!!)
Look, when Terrelle can execute our offense like Troy Smith, then our offense will act accordingly. In the mean time, embrace Tresel Ball and all that it offers!
Kind of reposting, but as the fourth quarter played itself out and I was being reminded of Texas and SC, something happened. We…won. On blogs, people questioned our resiliency and whether or not we could hang with a team as battle tested as Iowa. The 2007 and 2008 versions of the Buckeyes would’ve folded, what with JL making 12 tackles 5 yards upfield and Boone doing his best swinging gate impersonation. We were far from perfect today, but we’re only getting more battle tested. A few concerns though: a mobile and athletic team like Oregon (assuming it's Oregon in the Rose) essentially has the blueprint to beat us. Just roll the pocket, hit the intermediate routes, and mix in some screens. Our inability to get off blocks was frustrating as hell. B-Rolle just didn't fly around today like he usually does.
True that on the D. That's how we won our crystal.
homan played an amazing game, the biggest problem is just that we gave vandenberg all day to throw. its not the end of the world if you cant get a push with your front 4, but you cant sit back and hope for things to change, you need to call some blitzes and change things.
we played passive defense today, and the result wasnt good
No Doubt! Defense is key.....eff that guy from SECbs
he has an agenda, and hating on the bucks is fashionable nowadays...
First off both teams played their asses off!! I must say however the soft zone D about gave me a stroke tonight!! I'm going to ask Santa for a mouthguard & some high blood pressure meds for the Rose Bowl!! I about ground my teeth down to nubs watching this one. Hallelujah Doug Worthington!! Thank You for the sack!!
I've got 2 words for all the haters out there: ROSE BOWL.......:-o
and...
SUCK IT!
Mark May, Gregg Doyel, and all the other haters out there.
Hahahahahahahahahahahaha........Rose Bowl.
And add Pat Forde to the list..... http://sports.espn.go.com/espn...
By the way, Thoma sucked ass horribly today. WTF was wrong with him? You can't play Tresselball without a good punter. Not that I'm condoning it, but if the punt is a crucial part of your philosophy, one needs a good punter...
Iowa really had all the bounces go their way, and the still lost. We get a couple of bounces go our way (like making a tackle on the kickoff return, or the offsides/interception return) and the score isn't even close.
Thanks for playing Iowa. Now go beat up some SEC team in your bowl game. It's gonna be a game to look for next year when we visit Iowa City on November 20th. I'm sure they'll play it under the lights as well......prime time.
What did I say? I said with everyone making fun of his name, I hope the Iowa QB doesn't end up like that stupid Michigan running back Butka dude. He displayed his arm and skills and if it wasn't for his receivers scared to catch a fastball the ending of the game could have a different script. But I'm not ready to crown him unflappable just yet because if it wasn't for the Iowa linemen holding back the D-Line, OSU would have killed Iowa. Every time an Ohio State defensive guy was in his face the Iowa QB threw a bad pass or an interception, unfortunately that really happened.
Tressel ball is only good for a 3 score game. The offensive conservative play is killing me. It makes me wonder if Pryor is still hurt pretty bad. May be Tressel didn't want to put his QB in a position to make a lot of ankle twisting cuts? I don't know but I would have love to see Pryor throw for 200 y's.
Can we get Iowa's offensive line coach? Their line gave the kid QB all the time in the world.
was zoom hurt? seems like we needed him for more than 11 carries,compared to booms 32 as they both gained about 100 yrds.
I was thinking during the game that Pryor was probably hurting. Then found out about the knee and turf toes to go along with the ankle. We need him to get the Bucks through the scUM game and then heal up for Pasedena.
Chris Rock said: "Man if you got haters, if you complainin bout haters you need to stop. What the fuck do you think haters do - they fuckin' hate! So let those motherfuckers do they god damn jobs."
Another horrible performance by Pryor. Under 100 yrds passing, give me a break!
Thank you 741. Insightful.
I have decided not to be mad about "Tressel Ball" anymore. Does he play to win? No. Does he play not to lose? Yes. Always has. Always will. The bottom line is, you can't argue with the record. As long as he's here, it's not going to change. Accept it and enjoy the wins. I am not going to take this era for granted.
Speaking of Tressel Ball, it will be in full effect on Saturday in AA. If you saw the scUM, Wisconsin game, the strategy is very simple... run...run all day.... run up the middle, run on the outside...just run. scUM's D was completely demoralized in the second half, b/c they couldn't get off the field, and all Bucky was doing was running right at them. Obviously, I see us running a very similar game plan at them. Assuming Thoma decides it's a good idea to punt beyond 20 yards and our tackling improves on special teams, this will be a methodical beat down... OSU- 31 UM -10
Luckily? I guess what our defense did to Iowa during their first shot in OT was luck. This guy is an idiot.
F it. We won, Pryor is hurt, and we are going to the Rose Bowl. Beat scUM, keep them out of a bowl, and win the Rose Bowl.
If Pryor is ready next year, it's gonna be on lile Donkey Kong.
Funny how none of the national writers think about that. Maybe they didn't see the playbook opened up against NMSU.
Do you want to be pretty with a QB who isn't quite ready, or do you want to win?
I want to win, and Pryor looked good actually stepping into his throws and completing them.
Can they get Barclay a real jersey now? That was embarrasing.
Actually a very good performance by Pryor. He has really progressed well the last three weeks. All we need now is to keep that progression going for the rest of the season and we have a very good chance to finish with two wins. I believe our DL will maul our last two opponents. We get that and Pryor playing within the game plan and we chalk up two W's.
We have got to have a better punter on the roster. Time and time again thoma looks awful.
Kept waiting for the deep ball to be thrown. The guy from cbs is just saying what we all have been for years. Open it up and the game won't be close.
I just think Tressel gets it in his head its going to be a tight ball game and runs with it. Heading into the locker room JT said "its going to come down to the last play" The guy loves close hard fought games. Thats fine when you are the lesser of the two teams but not when your Ohio State.
Not his fault it was the game plan. We didn't go deep all game. If Iowa misses some tackles on those short passes his stats look better. No int's and no turnovers will win games. Ohio State didn't need to pass because Iowa couldn't slow down the run game all day. 14/17 is solid. They got the W. You give us all a break! Go play NCAA and get your stat fix.
when you are not playing for a national championship it doesn't matter how good you look. Style points mean nothing in the end. People's beliefs about the team mean nothing because we are not vying for their vote as one of the 2 best in the land.
this is an okay team in an okay (at best) conference in an okay (at best) year in college football ... good enough to try and win a BCS game, and that is all any of us realistically could hope for - and we got it!!!
I'm stoked and believe we will play a team we can actually beat in the Rose
Oh, vendenberg's mom is hot
He says that no matter how awful the opponent. He simply plays to the level of his opponenet, too often playing down to inferior teams. Navy is a case in point, his attempted homage almost cost OSU a W. He is a gentleman and noone can take that away from him, but his BS "we played a good football team today, we knew they would play hard for four quarters" is overplayed. JT when you make excuses for close games such as NAVY or OU by saying "they are a good football team" you look like a joke. How about, I didnt prepare my guys and we played like shit or my QB plays like a scared child, at least be honest.
That was my biggest problem with this game. They should've been putting constant pressure on that QB with blitzes. If they hit him early and often the game wouldn't have been close in my opinion. That being said hats off to Iowa. That team has a whole lot of grit and they will most certainly win their bowl game.
That being said though, I thought the few passes he threw looked really good. I know most of them were screen passes and stuff like that, but those were balls he was not throwing well earlier in the year.
fuck Pat Forde an the horse he rode in on.
Tresselball: 5 BCS bowls in a row and 7 out of the last 8. 5 big 10 titles in a row. 5 consecutive wins against Michigan, and 7 out of the last 8. One National title. I'll take playing not to win if these are the results every 8 years.
one has to wonder how banged up Pryor really is. They definitely avoided any designed runs on his part.
I think this will be Bollman's last year. He can hide his incompetance no longer.
that would be nice. I don't care if we hire a video coordinator to run the O-line, it can't be worse than the coaching for that position that we get now. I want change, any change.
Years and years of shitty O-line has to stop at some point, right?
Funny, I'm so used to Tresselball now that I don't notice it during the game.
Ferentz got Tresseled trying to out-Tressel Tressel in Tresselball.
It all boils down to JT though. JT has to see the incompetance from the offense and the OL specifically. Yet he allows it year after year. There is no reason our OL should be this bad after some of the OL recruits weve had in recent years. Then there is Boren who was a stud...until Bollman got ahold of him.
Dear Pat Forder,
You can keep hatin' on Tressel and the Buckeyes, and we'll just keep on winning Big Ten titles and shoving our conservative approach down your throat. Your column reminded me of a story about the late Woody Hayes. Before taking the field at Michigan one year, he turned to his team and told them, "you hear those boos? That's respect." You, Pat, are the "boos." Thanks for the respect.
Mark May and I have a date this week and we're both bringing our dildos because we are dickless.
Is the B10 allowing November night games next year? It'll probably be another 3:30 game
Navy is a bad example- if you remember Tressel actually gambled on 4th down then and it almost came back to haunt him when they completed the 85 yard TD on the next play.
Did we lose because to me it looks like we did we all the bitching. Enjoy the victory. Savor the rose bowl And stop pretending you are football gurus. Hell half the bitchers on hee have probably never even played football. Enjoy being big ten champs for another year and relax
I think the offensive scheme these past two weeks was to do exactly what was needed to win the game and nothing more. Dominate the line of scrimmage and ram the ball down the opposing team's throat. So they only needed to attempt 12 passes at Penn State and 17 vs. Iowa - and Pryor didn't put up a gaudy stat line... So what.
Two wins on the board (including what I consider Pryor's single best performance as a Buckeye at Penn State) and yet another BCS bowl appearance - finally this time at the Rose Bowl.
I guess you just can't please some people.
And I disagree with the notion that we can simply expect more so-called Tressel ball in Ann Arbor this week... If Pryor is healthy, I think there's a great chance the playbook will be wide open - there is nothing to lose, and Tressel loves to shut up his detractors.
Balanced attack, with Pryor passing for 300+ and rushing for 100+... Beanie-esque, warrior-like domination.
If Pryor's still banged up, then all of you Tressel ball haters will have more to complain about... in victory.
Amen, Sean
kudos to Stewart Mandel for giving credit where credit is due.
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.c...
If we could work this into a post it would be great.
http://new.music.yahoo.com/bru...
Cheers to that, Brian! And f*ck Mark May, Pat Forde and Gregg Doyel. This is the big shitburger they now get to eat for writing off our Buckeyes!
I will be shocked...totally shocked if Pryor throws more than 10 times in AA (assuming of course that our O-line is dominating and we are on pace for 200+ rushing yards).
Fuck the media, we're goin to the Rose Bowl!
I love how nobody says that TP has better stats than VY had at this point in his career or that TP has better stats than Tebow this year(coming into this game) more TD's more passing yards, more rushing yards more YPC and less sacks. I'm not saying he's Tebow but our offense has been just as bad as Florida's this year. Hell we're only averaging 3 less points a game, and that's because we all know Tress doesn't run the score up like Florida does.
I saw some receivers run deep routes, he just didn't throw to them That is on him. No biggie, if the run game is working stick with it. But to blame the coaches for TP not throwing deep in ludicrous.
Yep.
Tressel has shown, in the Michigan game, he'll open up the play book and get creative. There have been years like 2 years ago when Boeckman sucked and they let Beanie win the game, but some of those years, even when Troy was pretty green still, they have gotten very creative in this series. I too, wouldn't be shocked to see an open offense.
He has played a great game manager the last couple of weeks. He is checking down now, hasn't been staring down receivers. I say look out for this team in the Rose Bowl. I'd like to see them play Oregon, or someone even better, but the Rose Bowl will obviously only take Pac 10 and Big 10 teams.
Yeah, I could care less what those guys say. This team has played and beaten some very good teams. I'd venture to say that Penn State, Wisconsin, and Iowa are better than a lot of the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th best teams in other conferences. Mark May can pick Ohio State to lose every time and sure he may be right one or 2 times a year.
Greg Doyel is a blowhard. He used to be on a local radio station in Cincinnati in the morning, and all the man ever talked about was UFC. He and Mo Egger, his co-host who regrettably is still on the radio, were a couple of morons. I did applaud Doyel earlier in the year for saying the SEC is over rated, but people like him need to realize that ripping Ohio State has been done before, it's not creative journalism anymore.
Keep ripping the team that's been to 7 BCS bowls and is 4-3 in those bowls. Rip the team that is heading to it's 8th and keep praising Florida who has played no one and LSU who can barely beat Louisiana Tech.
Happy for the win....But I heard Chaos & PB Buckeye ...Yelling I like was about the playcalling. We were screaming at Thoma for not being able to punt the ball more than 30 yards. Wondering why someone who was 14 for 17 could not throw a safe pass on first down ? Was he hurt or was he not part of the running game ? The strategy may have been to play for overtime up 14 points ? MORE IMPORTANT...How do you argue with success ?
Replace that game with two teams in the SEC, and its "OMG Amazing SEC DEFENSES! When can they join the NFL?"
I'll take these kinds of performances by Pryor any day. Probably his best game against a real team.
Who would've thought TP was near perfect and we could've lost? Funny, huh?
Two years ago had nothing to do with Boeckman sucking and everything to do with the weather being completely crappy.
Michigan kept trying to run their normal offense, and their receivers dropped balls constantly, quarterback had it slip through his hands on snaps - overall nastiness.
Bengals just beat the Steelers without scoring an offensive TD. Goes to show that ball protection, field position, and defense can win on any level.
In our are of the country, teams MUST be built to win in inclimate weather. Unfortunately, this is a disadvantage when traveling to warm climates for bowl games, playoffs, etc..
are=area
Yeah, not sure why so many unhappy people. We won and are going to the Rose Bowl. We are in great shape to beat TTUN again. So this isn't the best OSU team in history, right now it's the best in the Big ten again.
Oh, and the Pac ten champion doesn't look unbeatable this year (no USC), so the Big ten stands a chance of winning the damn game. Plus, hopefully, we are the only Big ten rep so that our other matchups are fair. could be a great ending for the Bucks and Big ten
ESPN "experts" are projecting either Iowa or PSU in the Fiesta Bowl; I do think that Big 10 will get two teams into the BCS, after USC pooped the bed.
http://espn.go.com/college-foo...
However, it raises an interesting issue: does the Fiesta Bowl select the clearly better Iowa Hawkeyes, or the PSU Nittany Lions, with the much stronger national fan base support?
This has the potential to be an all-out catfight. And it is especially satisfying to me, because if you comb the Black Shoe Diaries and the Black Heart Gold Pants comment sections, there is a great deal of back and forth between Iowa and PSU fans that essentially says "we like you guys, you're great fans and very classy, but Ohio State is the devil and must burn to the ground."
Here's me guessing that the mutual love fest and sense of good will between Iowa and PSU fans fades very quickly when they realize they are competing for the favor of Fiesta Bowl officials. And remember: Iowa and Northwestern fans got into a very messy fight last season, when an Iowa team with a weaker record than Northwestern, and which had lost a head to head matchup with the Wildcates, was selected over Northwestern to represent the Big 10 in the Outback Bowl. Iowa's argument in that case was that Iowa has the bigger and better fanbase than Northwestern. Let's see if Iowa responds so well to that argument if Penn State is selected over Iowa for the BCS at-large spot, because PSU has the bigger and better fanbase. A great deal will hinge on how bad PSU and Iowa beat MSU and Minny, respectively, and whether Iowa can crack the top 14 in the BCS by season's end. My guess: Iowa beats the crap out of Minny, and PSU struggles to put away MSU in Lansing, giving Fiesta Bowl officials enough cover to select Iowa.
Have a feeling Okie State might have something to say about it too if they win out. They're the next best team in the B12 south, and with everyone hating the Big Ten these days they might get in over a two loss Iowa/PSU. Not to mention they have large fan base in the southwest.
True dat!
True, but OK State still must play at OU for the season ending game: would you really bet against an Oklahoma U team, at Norman, that has nothing left to play for but to humiliate their secondary rival/little brother? And plus, OK State has not more Dez Bryant, and Zak Robinson got creamed and likely concussed. OK State will beat Colorado easily, but I like for OU to exorcise some demons and put OK State firmly in its place. OU has had a rough season, but they just put 65 on Texas A&M and will be ready to play against OK State.
And besides: only one OSU belongs in the BCS.
"Ferentz got Tresseled trying to out-Tressel Tressel in Tresselball."
Classic.
Hahaha.....sweet
and Boeckman sucked
Iowa has a huge following in Arizona though. I believe that a lot of people from Iowa retire to Arizona like those from Ohio and Michigan go to Florida. They would have no problem filling up the stadium and people will tune in to see them, they are a Big 10 team and travel very well.
Definitely. He was a close play from Dane away from being 15/17. And the Iowa secondary is stout. You have to be a complete idiot to bash Pryor's performance from Saturday.
Looking over some of the stats from the Oregon game, Masoli is certainly not a world beater. They're not going to put on an air show. It's going to be our strength (run D) against their ground game. Thad and Cam are going to make a shit ton of money playing on Sundays, but it's a little disconcerting how they can disappear at times. A truly dominant college D tackle (like Glen Dorsey) shouldn't be slowed just because the other team is rolling the pocket. Now, I know we started blitzing way too late and were our own worst enemy at times (Williams' being offsides), but Cam and Thad have the physical gifts to blow shit up under any circumstances. Hence, where were they at times on Saturday? It's because of things like this that I hope they come back to become truly dominant.
By Oregon game, I meant this past weekend's game against ASU.
Bingo, we should have been dialing up blitzes non freakin stop.. He was taking a three step drop and delivering all day long.. you can't expect our dline to get to him in that short amount of time.. so you blitz.. you dare the freshman to beat you at the shoe..
I would have loved to see Pryor throw for 200 yards too but you really aren't understanding Iowa's defensive scheme and the fact that the passing game just wasn't there.. Iowa's secondary blanketed us deep all game..Pryor was smart for not forcing those throws into coverage and double coverage because thats when we get turnovers.. the only had 7 in the box all game so what do you do? you run the ball.. you don't pass into coverage!!!!
we had 230+ yards.. that my friend is big time..
you're forgetting that we did score a good amount of points against a defense that is just good all around..
if you want to point fingers on this game being close then point them at our defensive gameplan for not blitzing more.. because our dline simply didn't have time to get to him, he was taking three step drops all day long.. and then blame our special teams for terrible punting, returns and return coverage.. thats the problem.. not our offense..
you guys are nuts.. we dominated the trenches .. are you freaking kidding me???? we ran for over 230 yards.. you people should just go watch ESPN..
i'm on a roll this morning with you idiots.. tell me why you care so much if we pass the ball ?? You would have rather Pryor make poor choices and throw the deep ball into coverage than run against 7 in the box all day long and pick up 230+ yards on the ground? Pryor had a great game considering he is banged up.. he managed the game well and made zero mistakes..
What is funny about what Doyel wrote besides his bald pointy head, is that he claims the fans in the stands were booing (there was a little) when if fact it was all of us chanting "BOOOOOOOOOOOOM"
I was at the game and even though SW Airlines has decided the best route from Philly to Cols. is via Chicago turning an hour and change flight into four, it was one of the most exciting games I have had the privledge to witness and totally worth the hassle getting to Cols. The Seven Nation chant with 105k bouncing had the 'Shoe rocking, literally.