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Rumors of Hawkeyes’ demise greatly exaggerated
Hawkeyes went back up the elevator vs. Michigan
Michigan WR Roy Roundtree is cloaked by Iowa CB B.J. Lowery on the game's final play (Cliff Jette photos/The Gazette)
IOWA CITY — Here’s what all of us who care about college football should do if we’re being honest:
Say it out loud, to yourself and anyone who has had to listen to you insist how games and seasons will turn out. Say “No matter how much I think I know about this stuff, I don’t really know that much.”
I just did so in the Kinnick Stadium press box as I typed this. I whispered it, though. Didn’t want to bother anyone else here who knew nine days ago that Iowa would lose to Minnesota and follow it with a win over No. 13 Michigan. Which was no one, come to think of it.
What you heard and possibly said yourself after Iowa’s belly flop at Minnesota was “They may not win another game this season.” What you didn’t hear was “I think the Hawkeyes can keep Denard Robinson bottled up for the most part,” and “If Iowa’s defense has to make a stop on the final drive against Michigan, it will.”
I was in the camp that wondered if the Hawkeyes might lose out and stay home for the holidays with a 5-7 record. I also was in the camp who thought the Hawkeyes could (the operative word was “could”) beat Michigan Saturday, but only in the event they posted a lot of points. Like 38. Or more.
There had been no psychic visions of Iowa holding the Wolverines 118 yards under their season-average of 441. Or of boldly staring down a Michigan 1st-and-goal at the 3 by forcing four straight incompletions to end the game and keep Iowa on the good side of a 24-16 score at Kinnick Stadium.
“What a stop!” honorary Hawkeye captain Tim Dwight shouted with glee as he bounded up some stadium steps after the game.
What a stop, indeed. It began at the Michigan 18 when the officials said Wolverines back Vincent Smith had come out of a scrum without being downed, and had himself a stunning touchdown run. Then they looked at the videotape. Uh, no.
Robinson then used his arm, of all things. He had four completions ranging from 12 to 19 yards set up that 1st-and-goal. On second-down, another replay review was used to see if Junior Hemingway’s magnificent catch ruled out-of-bounds was a touchdown after all. Close, so close, so very close. But uh, no.
Smith dropped the third-down pass from Robinson. One play and two seconds remained.
“We broke the huddle, and I was just thinking ‘Stop them. Make the tackle, make the play,’ ” Iowa defensive back Jordan Bernstine said.
“ ‘We need a stop,’ I was saying to myself. ‘This can’t happen two weeks in a row.’ ” said Hawkeye defensive end Broderick Binns, who had a terrific game.
Iowa sophomore cornerback B.J. Lowery smothered intended Michigan receiver Roy Roundtree on fourth-down. Incomplete. Bernstine’s eyes began searching the end zone.
“I had to make sure there were no flags,” Bernstine said. There weren’t.
“And then I just went crazy.”
Lowery and Roundtree after the incompletion
As did the crowd of 70,585, minus a few thousand Michigan fans. They expected more from their team’s 35-point-a-game offense than less than half as much against a defense that had been dissected by so many quarterbacks without Robinson’s resume.
“It’s almost better we won that way,” Ferentz said, talking about a defensive stand to secure victory. “It’s easy to say that now. But it’s almost better in that we really had to dig in. There were plenty of opportunities to surrender, but nobody did.”
The calendar flipped from October to November last Tuesday, the same day the Hawkeyes had their first practice after the mess in Minnesota.
“The coaches tell us there’s a 24-hour rule, win or lose,” said Binns, who batted down three passes and had a 12-yard quarterback sack. “Last week we had 24 hours to sit there and be mad at ourselves for dumb mistakes. After that, on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, we’re on Michigan, preparing to play a different team. We knew it was important not to let Minnesota beat us two times.”
Unlike media and fans, the teams can’t afford to linger on previous results. Look at what else happened in the Big Ten Saturday. Road teams Minnesota and Indiana gave Michigan State and Ohio State hard times before falling. Northwestern won at (gulp) Nebraska.
The Big Ten is officially off its hinges.
After Ferentz’s postgame press conference, a reporter told him Minnesota had nearly upset MSU.
“Imagine that,” the coach replied, than he snorted. That’s how he laughs.
“We try to stay off elevators,” Ferentz said. “I’ll leave that to you guys. The world’s not quite coming to an end, and we’re certainly not riding in any victory parades.”
Maybe all of us will now learn from our errors and misjudgements, and not be too hasty to declare a team immortal or dead. Nahhh.
Iowa DE Broderick Binns wraps up Michigan QB Devin Gardner (Cliff Jette/The Gazette)
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Michigan plays sloppy football frequently. The turnovers did them in.
Iowa is terrible on the road, but probably belongs in the top 25 while playing AT HOME even when overall they aren’t great.
I don’t think this outcome was really surprising, even after last weeks atrocious showing.
Frankly, with how things have been going, I’d give Iowa even odds (or better) against an overrated MSU next week, even odds (or worse) against a mediocre Purdue team away, and very low odds of beating Nebraska away.
I don’t see the Nebraska game going well this year AT ALL…
ask yourself what were the variables between last week and today. Linebacker shift and change in DL personnel. I’m not sayin, i’m just sayin.
There are no great teams in the Big Ten this season. There are a lot of good teams, and the bottom half of the league seems to be improving. What a dog fight when Indiana hangs with Ohio State right to the end, when Minnesota nearly nips MSU in East Lansing, and when NW upends the Huskers in Lincoln with Persa on the bench the entire second half.
Iowa’s players are to be congratulated for having heart, especially the defense, which gave up most of its yards when playing semi-prevent to stop the quick score. And, of course, what a brilliant stand at the end.
Then again, let’s not let the coaches off the hook entirely. They made some changes. Those changes helped. But one of the biggest plays of the game that easily could have snatched defeat from the jaws of victory is again on the coaches.
With about 2 1/2 minutes left on 4th and 1, Michigan puts 11 in the box and Iowa does exactly as expected — hands off to Coker for a loss of a couple yards with about 6 Wolverines behind the line of scrimmage. A first down there, and Iowa runs out the clock.
So before the play was run, I was calling for a Coker fake and Vandenberg on the rollout, or the same play Iowa ran to lock up victory in the Insight Bowl. So the coaches got away with that one, and overall called a much better game, a more aggressive game with more of a play to win attitude.
And so now the question seems to be, can Iowa be the Cardinals of the Big Ten. Can the Hawkeyes go from oblivion to the Big Ten title game? The answer seems to be a definite maybe…
I swear I saw Ferentz slip a few bills of his undeserved salary to the officials late in the game…
It was nice getting Tarpinian back on D great contribution to the game, too bad Alvis got hurt, will we have to put a freshman on the D-line?
Whoops sorry I meant Tyler Nielsen at Linebacker.
Great column, Mike. Sometimes you just have to shake your head at the “all-knowing” experts in the media and in fandom. Most don’t have the integrity to admit it when they’re wrong. I admire those who do.
It seems to me that Iowa plays to the level of their opponents. This is a byproduct of Ferentz’s system of doing just enough to win, that is why the scores are always close and Iowa has to jold on to win or loses at the end of the game.
Iowa most certainly is mortal this year. What’s more, considering how dinged up the defense has been … are fans really that shocked concerning how consistently inconsistent the D has appeared?
However, what I suppose has been a bit more surprising is that Iowa’s O hasn’t quite been as consistent as we’d ideally like either. The O did a lot of good things against both Minnesota and Michigan … but also made plenty of errors that caused them to either leave points on the field … or, at the very least, prematurely get off the field.
While so many Iowa fans were imploding about the loss to the Gophers … and unduly placing most of the blame squarely on the coaches. Somewhere in there, fans were failing to recognize that Iowa had something like 4 long drives that ended up netting ZERO points! If you re-watch those drives closely … our biggest problems in those drives were largely self-inflicted. Blown blocks, dropped passes, and a few poorly thrown passes … to name but a few execution errors. Of course, if it’s up to the fans …. it’s all the fault of coaches, right?!
David:
The coaches set the tone. The coaches call the plays. The players have to “Execute” the plays as called, no matter how many years/times they’ve been run against Big Ten competition. Yes, when the team plays down or up to the competition that falls squarely on the coaches.
Period.
This morning before reading this column, I googled Michigan newspapers/sports. Wow You’d thought I was reading the gazette from last weekend. And were the couch coaches calling for their Offensive coaches head! The biggest issue were the calls by the officials. Folks I am a diehard Hawkeye fan and I’d never be an apologist for officiatings missed calls blown calls and reversals of calls on the field by the replay official upstairs. The point is that the nay sayers on the Michigan comments said that ALL of the crew were former U of IA alums and that the games outcome was determined by the refs. There WAS one calmer voice that said that Michigan lost the game by the was DR was coached and all of the miscues that resulted.
In the final analysis Iowa has a long way to go but it seems that our coaches KO and NP have ” adjusted” their playbooks. I guess KF had a “come to Jesus meeting” with them and they learned that the definition of Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result! GO HAWKS!
In deference to Michigan’s “couch coaches”, they DID have a case. I was beyond shocked that D-Rob didn’t even TRY to scramble/QB sweep the three yards to tie it.
How soon we forget the ups and downs of an 11-2 team in 2009.
Iowa won on guts and luck and just enough dominating play Saturday: be happy with that. As long as they’re underdogs, I like Iowa’s chances against MSU.
What a great game and team victory. All Iowa fans should be happy today………..
You’re dang right we are!
Great article Mike, this is why we watch college football, because on any given Saturday…
The fact of the matter is that without a couple of bad quarters of play against Iowa State and Minnesota Iowa would be 8-1 and tied for the Legends division lead. Even with those few bad quarters of play Iowa is in a possible position to win out and go to the first Big Ten championship game. This is with an inexperienced defense and a young offense that will be returning most of their weapons (minus McNutt) next year. I for one am really exited to watch the rest of this season play out and I am confident that we will be something special next year.
Go Hawks!!!
“Denard Robinson was called for a hold early in the game on a play where he was untouched.”
What?
I’ll just remind everyone about the blown calls to explain the disdain for the referees from Michigan: Denard Robinson was called for a hold early in the game on a play where he was untouched. An obvious touchdown was called an incomplete pass and was not overturned, ignoring video evidence of a clear touchdown. Also, Iowa’s pass defense consisted of the secondary blanketing themselves over the backs of receivers and not getting called for PI.
I will certainly agree that Robinson’s play in the first half of the game didn’t help Michigan by any means, but neither did the terrible officiating, which Iowa benefited from greatly.
JRS:
Before spouting off about the “obvious” TD, please review the rules about what constitutes a catch, and then re-read the rules for college instant replay.
Considering all things Mike, I will admit that all week I was expecting the Hawks to be in this one. If you watch the Hawks under Ferentz long enough you know that this is not entirely unexpected (neither was the loss to Minnesota) which makes it what it is to be an Iowa fan: gut-wrenching every game.
There are simply too many intangibles in college football – you can’t apply logic – Minnesota nearly beat USC on the road this year, USC took stanford the #2 team in the country into OT – Iowa lost to Minny, but then went on to beat Michigan. That’s what’s great about college football, that’s why I tune in every Saturday…you just never know.
For those still claiming it was a TD:
http://s3.guyism.com/up/2011/11/touchdown-2-640×331.png
The ball is clearly touching the ground, the player does NOT have control, I don’t know of any better proof beyond that picture.