Whoa. Whoa. Whoa. Everybody calm down, everybody breathe easy-- believe it or not, things aren't as bad as they seem. Sure, Iowa went down to defeat to Arizona last night losing 34-27, but it's not the end of the world. It may seem like it, but it's not. There are a number of things at work here worth mentioning, not least of which is the fact that this probably wasn't quite the statement game for Arizona that everyone makes it out to be. Uncharacteristic mistakes on special teams cost us two touchdowns. (That's 14 points) and Ricky Stanzi just mentioning that he wanted to keep his to-that-point-anyway-but-we-knew-it-was-too-good-to-true interception free season going meant that the Football Gods were sure to call down at least 1 pick six on him. Which they did losing us another 7 points right there. A third mistake: too much celebration and that missed PAT. One more point right there.
So: if this was a defeat, it was a self-inflicted one. Big win for Arizona? Oh, no doubt, but let's not pretend that we didn't see this coming. Concerns about the relative youth of our o-line have been out there for months, concerns that became real problems last night. Poo-poohing Arizona's defense? Yeah, not so much- they were more than up to the task. But then again, it's not like our offense was completely missing from the game. We moved the ball. Sometimes not very well, sometimes not at all, other times brilliantly, but still, eppur si muove! It still moved!
But what does all this mean? Do we miss out on a National Title Shot? Yup, I'm afraid so- but the Big 10 title and the Rose Bowl are still on the table and if there's one overarching trend we can pinpoint about Kirk Ferentz's recent teams, it's that they tend to get better down the stretch. Adjustments are made, experience is had, the overall job gets done. It's worth noting that the last time we were out west, we got our asses handed to us by Arizona State to the tune of a 44-7 drubbing. We went on to go 9-4 and win the Capitol One Bowl in miraculous fashion against LSU. At least we put up a respectable showing this time around- and if you look back further to 2002, an early season loss- at home no less, to Iowa State failed to doom the season. So although this was a tough loss, it was a respectable one. We're left with the knowledge that something is probably going to be done on special teams and unfortunately, every team in the country now knows that if they shut down our run, our pass isn't as spectacular. We seem to function better with a balanced offense- but again, even without the run we effectively moved the ball, scored points and came very close to pulling out a comeback.
Not bad, not good: but we were lulled into the false perception that 2 cupcake victories made some of the pre-season worries seem less than important- but those two were just testing our jab. Now we've played a real game and now we know what we have to work on- not an unimportant thing to take away from this game. We have to watch out for Michigan and Northwestern on the road (perhaps even Indiana too) and Sparty, Wisconsin and Ohio State are going to be brutal games- but home games, so we'll at least have some friendly faces around us. Penn State? Can't sleep on 'em, but it's hard to tell where they are- a drubbing by 'Bama doesn't mean much when you send a freshman QB into Tuscaloosa, it's the equivalent of throwing someone into a meat grinder, chum tends to result. But we keep spoiling their party and they're going to want blood, so you have to circle that one as well.
This was a good barometer of where Iowa really was as a team. We can see where the adjustments have to happen and although it was a Big Win for Arizona no doubt, Iowa pretty much gave a ranked team 15 points for free at their home stadium. You do that, of course you're going to come out on the fuzzy end of that lollipop. But without those fifteen points we'd be looking at an Iowa win 27-12.
Big win for Arizona, but not as big as everyone seems to think it is. If they can get past Oregon, then and only then will they have truly hit the big time.
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