Tiger Hawk Blog » Rants & Raves

Iowa Could Finish 12-0 And Be Looking In From the Outside.

P Murphy — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 14:53:13 +0000

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. tigerhawkblog end

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.

Restaurant Prices Are Getting Ridiculous

P Murphy — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 17:47:57 +0000

My family when out to eat at a Country Kitchen restaurant in our town last week. We ordered a cup of soup with our meal. The soup cup is the same size of a coffee cup. The price was $3.29 for the cup. My wife and I thought we were charged for a bowl and not a cup so I asked about it. The bowl costs $4.29 and it is the size of a small plate and about 4 to 5 times more soup and for a dollar more. The next time we will order the bowl and take home the extra soup for another meal. Prices are getting out of control with us being in a recession. tigerhawkblog end

Trip to Fun City in Burlington, Iowa

P Murphy — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 17:46:40 +0000

Last week my family and I took a trip to Fun City in Burlington for a couple days of relax and rest. The swimming pool was awesome and the Arcades were great. My oldest son had a blast and it only cost me a fraction of the money due to vouchers from my work that I used. I would recommend going to Fun City at least once a year if you have kids. It is cheap entertainment if you watch what you are spending.
Now here are the bad parts of our visit to Fun City. The food is high price and basically sucks. I had the French Dip sandwich from the Restaurant Boogaloo and it was dry and over cooked. There are other places to eat inside of Fun City around the Casino areas that I never tried eating at. There are also plenty of fast food places close to Fun City. The breakfast in the morning was moved from Gasoline Alley to a buffet place right next to the casino. It was a descend walk to get to it and the food really suck. I had to wait for about 15 minutes before the cook decided to stop hiding in the back to get pancakes that was getting close to burning on the stove. And yes she left food on the stove when she took off. This concerns me also. Next time we will eat breakfast at the Perkins up the street from it. For the same price I would have gotten better service and food at Perkins.
For the casino part, the security is very tight and they check everyoneâ€™s ID when they went into the casino part. The casino is about normal size and by the look of some of the jackpots, the casino is not paying out too much, so I would drive the extra hour and go to the Quad Cities casinos. At least they pay more times than the one in Burlington one.
Final note about Fun City is that it is a fun place to enjoy if you just visit and stay there, but I would eat outside of Fun City and save your money. I would also check out the water park too. It has a lazy river and some awesome slides. This is just my opinion and observation of the place. The place has gone downhill since the last time we went there last year. tigerhawkblog end