I was forced to take a little time off from blogging to fix my computers. Both my laptop and desktop where infected with viruses from my wife’s camera and from facebook.
I will take some time this weekend and get my blog updated.
That’s right. Iowa could finish this year perfect and still be watching the BCS Championship Game from home. Everybody can thank the AP and Coaches Polls for this. The AP and Harris Polls make up two thirds of the BCS rankings and the Computer rankings make up the other third.
Iowa is currently ranked 11th in the AP, 11th in the Harris, and 12th in the Coaches Polls. However the Hawkeyes are ranked much higher in the computer rankings. They are also going to be ranked 10th in the BCS if it came out today.
There are several reasons this can happen. They include a poor Conference ranking for the Big Ten (6th in the Sagarin rankings), Iowa’s schedule only having two or three ranked teams in it, Iowa’s beating Penn State is being forgotten, the AP and Coaches Polls have to be turned in by Saturday or Sunday night, or that the AP and Coaches Polls are turning into a popularity contest instead of the true value they are supposed to be judging.
That’s right a popularity contest and Iowa is not a popular liked school in these polls. Every year I see a team that gets the short end because they are not as popular as some of the other schools in the polls. There are also teams in the Top 10 that should be dropped lower than Iowa. One of the teams is fifth ranked Boise State. The Broncos barely beat Oregon (19-8) and last night they barely beat Tulsa (28-21). Iowa has a better overall record and schedule than Boise State. Did everybody forget that Iowa beat South Carolina last year 31-10 in the Capital One Bowl? South Carolina was a top six school in the SEC Conference last year.
The computer ranks have Iowa ranked as high as first (Colley Matrix) and as low as ninth (Sagarin). The other Computer rankings for Iowa are as follows: Wolfe doesn’t release rankings until the 18th of October, fourth Massey Ratings, eighth in the Billingsley Report, and third in the Jeff Anderson & Chris Hester Ratings.
The best thing about the computer rankings is that they are not a popularity contest. They crunch the numbers based on performance.
At least the CBS Sports line website has Iowa ranked ninth in the country. Iowa should be a top 10 team.
Ever time Iowa is talked about, they keep bringing up Iowa only beat FCS team Northern Iowa 17-16 in the last seconds of the game. Has anybody look at UNI since then. UNI is currently ranked fourth in the FCS Polls and is one of the favorites to win the FCS this year. UNI also have blown out every opponent since playing Iowa. UNI has scored as low as 30 points to as high as 66 points since the Iowa- UNI game.
So stop bringing up this game as a negative against Iowa. I’m pretty sure that UNI can beat a few teams in the top 25 as well as a couple teams in the top 10 in the FBS polls.
Just give Iowa a chance before shooting them down as a National Contender as well as a Big ten Contender. I hope after the next two games (at Wisconsin, at Michigan State) everybody will start seeing what Iowa fans have been seeing the last few games.
I have uploaded a new image on my banner. This is the first of a couple upgrades that will happen to my theme. Thanks to my themes creator BillH at benched42.net.
I hope everyone has a happy and safe 4th of July. I hope yours is a dry 4th with not rain.
Happy Father’s Day to all of the dad’s out there. This is our day today so enjoy it.
First of all I would like to apologize for taking this long to start writing about the Hawkeyes this season. Due to having to many commitments and having a new baby in the house has taken up a good portion of my time. Now lets talk about those Hawkeyes.
Welcome to another year of me blogging about the Iowa Hawkeyes Football team. After having a disapointed year last year by not making to a bowl game, the Hawkeyes are a little bit older at several key areas. The QB and WR are more mature and we lost of two best RBs to graduation as well as key members on the defense side.
Iowa Football team is currently 2-2 in the Big Ten Conference and 5-3 overall. Here is a breakdown of the season so far. I’ll go into more detail in the next volume of Iowa Hawkeyes Football 2008 Season on my blog.
Iowa has suffered losses to all ranked teams. Iowa lost a non-conference game to Pittsburgh 20-21 and lost to Northwestern 17-22 and Michigan State 13-16 in the Big Ten Conference. Iowa lost by a total of 9 points in the 3 losses this season.
Iowa has won 5 games this season including to conference games. The Hawkeyes have beaten Maine 46-3 and Florida International 42-0 at the beginning of the season and also beat Iowa State in the State Rival Cy-Hawk game 17-5 at Kinnick this year. Iowa Has also beaten Indiana 45-9 and Wisconsin 38-16 in the last 2 games they played.
The two biggest suprises on the Iowa Hawkeyes offense this season is Sophmore Ricky Stanzi beating out Junior Jake Christensen at starting QB and how good Shonn Greene has been at RB. Also another suprise is how Jewel Hampton has risen as the backup RB behind Greene and how good Brandon Myers is at TE.
The two biggest suprises on the Iowa Hawkeyes Defense this season is how LB’s Mitch King and Kroul is anchoring the Hawkeye Defense and how stingy the Defense has been against their opponents. Also another suprise is how good the CB’s have been doing and how much LB Pat Angerer has been improving and making himself be noticed.
I’m planning on doing some grilling today. What are you doing today to celebrate Labor Day and the last official day of summer?
As of September 1st, I will not be supporting Stat Traq anymore. This is due to a couple of reasons. The first reason is that my family comes first over the internet. I like to code, but I love spending time with my family.
The other reason is that I don’t get any donations for the effort that I spend maintaining this plugin. I took on this plugin because I thought it would be a challenge to make it a better plugin and a better statistic tracker for wordpress.
I will reconsider supporting Stat Traq if I start receiving some donations for my effort on it and if I start getting some free time to work with it this fall. If someone else would like to start maintaining it, you are welcome to it. If you do start maintaining it, please send me an email so I can tell everyone where to get it from.
The Iowa Hawkeyes will start playing football in 10 days and it is time for my predictions for the season. I have 2 different predictions that I will list on here. One is the loyal Hawkeye fan that I am and the other one is a realistic prediction. Here we go.
My first prediction is based on my loyal Hawkeye fan side that wants them to win.
W Maine
W Florida International
W Iowa State
L At Pittsburgh
W Northwestern
L At Michigan State
W At Indiana
W Wisconsin
W At Illinois
L Penn State
W Purdue
W At Minnesota
Conference Record 6-2
Non Conference Record 3-1
Overall Record 9-3
I have the Hawkeyes winning 3 out of the 4 non conference games they have this year. I think Pittsburgh will be a little too much for the Hawkeyes this year. I have them only losing the Michigan St and Penn State due to being 2 powerhouses this year in the Big Ten. I have Iowa going to 1 of the top 3 or 4 bowls games for the Big Ten Conference.
Now here is my realistic prediction for this season.
W Maine
W Florida International
W Iowa State
L At Pittsburgh
W Northwestern
L At Michigan State
W At Indiana
L Wisconsin
L At Illinois
L Penn State
W Purdue
W At Minnesota
Conference Record 4-4
Non Conference Record 3-1
Overall Record 7-5
I just don’t think the Hawkeyes are going to be stronger enough on offense this year. I will think they still will have issues with Pittsburgh as well as Michigan State, Wisconsin, Illinois, and Penn State. I have Iowa finishing this season as 7 wins and 5 loses and barely making it to one of the lower 3 bowl games the Big ten play. I don’t think this will be our dream season as the nightmare from the last two seasons will still haunt us this season.
The key players that will make this a break and make season is the Offensive line, Running Backs, and the Quarterback dealing with pressure and not getting sacked all of the time. All he has to do is just throw the ball out of bounce at least by a receiver instead of losing 5 to 20 yards on the sack.
Here is the schedule for the Iowa Hawkeyes for the 2008 season.
Aug. 30 Maine
Sep. 6 Florida Int’l
Sep. 13 Iowa State
Sep. 20 at Pittsburgh
Sep. 27 Northwestern
Oct. 4 at Michigan State
Oct. 11 at Indiana
Oct. 18 Wisconsin
Nov. 1 at Illinois
Nov. 8 Penn State
Nov. 15 Purdue
Nov. 22 at Minnesota
Good Luck and GO HAWKS!!!!
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