The Iowa Hawkeyes defeated the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets 24-14 last night in the Orange Bowl. Iowa finish the season 11-2. This is the second time in history and under Coach Kirk Ferentz that Iowa finished the season with 11 wins.

This is also Iowa’s first BCS bowl win and first win against an ACC team in nine attempts.

Iowa is going to the Orange Bowl in Miami Florida on Jan. 5th, 2010. It was I little nervous seeing the Fiesta Bowl going against what they said by not picking Iowa.

#10 Iowa (10-2) will be facing #9 Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets (11-2). The Yellow Jacket won the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) championship game against the Clemson Tigers. So the Hawkeyes will be facing the best team from the Atlantic Coast Conference.

The Hawkeyes have just under a month to prepare for Georgia Tech’s triple option offense that help them win the ACC this year.

Illinois 27 Iowa 24
Iowa lost a heart breaker game last weekend to Illinois after making a comeback. Iowa was trailing in the 4th period 24 – 9 when they started on their comeback. Iowa hit a Td in the beginning of the 4th to get the score to 24 – 16. Then Iowa hit another TD in the last 3 minutes of the game to bring to total to 24 – 22. Iowa went for a 2 point conversion and got it to make the score 24 – 24. On last drive of the game for Illinois, they brought the ball into FG range and made a 44 yard FG with about 30 seconds left in the game. Iowa tried to make up a lot of ground by throwing long passes. With 9 seconds left in the game Illinois Intercepted a pass from Ricky Stanzi to seal the win for Illinois. Greene ran for over 100 yards for the 9th straight game and had a score against Illinois. Greene will have a challenge this weekend to make it 10 straight games with the Penn State with one of the top ranked Run Defenses in the nation.

Iowa drops to 2 – 3 in the Big Ten and 5 – 4 Overall.

They are still 1 game from being bowl eligible. Iowa hosts the 3rd ranked Penn State team that is undefeated at home this weekend with another change to become bowl eligible the following week when a struggling Purdue team comes to Kinnick. Iowa then travels to Minnesota for their last regular game of the season. Last year Iowa lost the change to go to a bowl game by losing their last game of the season. Let hope the close losses this season doesn’t come back to haunt the Hawkeyes.

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.

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!!!!

This is the first time since 2006 that a I got Iowa Hawkeyes Football tickets to see them in Iowa City. Last year I didn’t have a chance to get tickets because the tickets sold out before I had a chance to get them. Tickets are hard to buy since Iowa had the two 10 win seasons a few years ago.

I get to go to the Homecoming game this year. The Friday night before is the homecoming parade and activities that is part of homecoming week. Iowa City is a blast during this week of activities. Now I just need to have a babysitter for my kids.