Everybody Take A Deep Breath

Football season is almost upon us and crazily enough there are only 2 seats left at Kinnick if you're looking for tickets. (2 seats for the entire season, that is.) Pre-Season polls have Iowa hovering between #10 and #13 depending on where you look and for sure, after last season's excellence expectations are going to be super-high for this fall.

But everybody take a deep breath and stop polishing our Rose Bowl Trophies- and let me break down my preseason prediction:

Eastern Illinois: Win
Iowa State: Win (but be careful and play hard)
Arizona: Win (the first real test of the season, if we get this it's BIG)
Ball State: Win
Penn State: Win
Michigan: Win (but a tough one)
Wisconsin: Win (another tough one)
Michigan State: Win
Indiana: Win
Northwestern: Win (I want REVENGE)
Ohio State: Loss
Minnesota: Win (can Minny please score one touchdown and make it interesting?)

For an 11-1 record. But I think our non-conference games aren't going to be as easy as they seem- especially Iowa State and Arizona. We haven't won out west since 1987 (so you could argue we're due) and Arizona is going to be geared up for this game after the loss at Kinnick last season. Plus, if there's one thing the Iowa-Iowa State game has taught us over the years is that there's no such thing as a sure bet, so anything could happen there too.

The Big Ten is going to be brutal (as usual) but I believe we have the talent and the ability to be at the top of the pack when the dust clears. Penn State is going to want a piece of us, but they get us for Homecoming at night (always a tough ticket.) Michigan isn't quite there yet, but we play them at home (always tough) and I really think we can't afford to sleep on Indiana. I do think we as a team are going to want a piece of Northwestern after last year's loss and I think if the season breaks down the way it seems to be headed then the marquee match-up could well be our game versus Ohio State and if there's one team we can't seem to get consistently good with, unfortunately it's the damn Buckeyes.

At the end of the day, we got the goods to be playing in January again- but we cannot let expectations go to our heads- and Ferentz seems to be doing his damnedest to make sure we don't. Of course an early stumble could be a blessing in disguise as it'll knock us off the national radar and get us back to what we're good at: flying under the radar and kicking ass.