The Hawkeye Report: Week 4

Pre-game.

It was a throwback game at Kinnick Stadium on saturday. The weather was damp and cold, and so was the way Iowa played until the second quarter. Iowa's offense sputtered at the beginning, only scoring on one of its first four drives, but quickly found their stride, scoring on six of the last seven drives of the game. The offense this week was paced by Ricky Stanzi's 19-25, 288-yard performance, which would have been better had it not been for about three or four easily reachable balls that were dropped. The big question this game was who was going to be the #2 runningback, and after Saturday's performances by two freshman, I don't think Ferentz will be as concerned with the spot. Marcus Coker showed promise with 10 rushes for 60 yards and definitely explosive speed (Next to Adam Robinson, it's not hard to look explosive.) Also, Brad Rogers had a decent debut performance at halfback with 9 rushes for 66 yards, slightly better than Coker. The final score was 45-0, with Iowa getting their first shut out of the year.

I noticed several times where Stanzi's feet are not set, or throwing off the back foot. As you can tell by this photo, he's not even on the ground.

On a personal note, I went to the game early to get front row seats, which were definitely worth the wait. I am very sure i was on TV, so if you know anyone who may have DVR'd the Iowa game on the Big Ten Network, let me know. It'll be the second national TV appearance by yours truly just this week. I got some great pictures and came about three inches away from catching a rogue punt in warm up.

Derrell Johnson-Koulianos

Overall, the Hawkeyes played well, and needed to after losing to Arizona last week, but at the same time, little can be judged on a game against a dismal Ball State team in poor conditions. There were a few times where a better defense would have capitalized on offensive mistakes. Also, penalties were an issue, Clayborn had several with what seemed to be avoidable personal fouls. Next week, Iowa will take on Penn State for a homecoming night game at Kinnick. The defensive will need to step up again.

Omaha-Native Shaun Prater celebrating after a forced turnover

Iowa vs. Penn State Prediction, 32-25 Iowa

HEISMAN!

Peter Johnson sighting on ESPN

After watching a rerun of SportsNation, there is proof that I was on at least once. I am going to claim that I am the first person on this blog to be on ESPN this season.

Farmageddon 2010

Sept. 18th 2010 was, for now, the Finale meeting for Iowa State University and Kansas State University @ Arrowhead in Kansas City, and what many locals were calling Farmageddon. Daniel Thomas had his break out game last year at Arrowhead against ISU and I was not looking forward to seeing him again. Thanks to my wifes parents Nick and I had GREAT seats to the game this year, Alls I'm going to say is once you sit club level it will be tough to go back and sit in the cheap seats. We walked in and up to the first bar in the club level and i turn around and Nick is having a conversation with the guy that OWNS, Rusty's Bar in Manhattan. So the game went pretty much as expected. ISU couldnt Stop Thomas, and again the offense looked like it was still in spring ball. Thomas finished up the game with over 180 rushing yards and as the nations leading rusher ave. 184 yards per game. I really cant wait to see if anyone(huskers) are going to be able to slow him down this year.

I really dont know what is wrong with ISU's offense this year. They have more then enough fire power to put up the yards. But for some reason seem to be struggling so far this year. ISU had 293 yards of total offense. The week before KSU defense gave up 447 to Missouri St. UNI seem to be down a little this year, but lets not forget that Gene Cheesdick did lose to UNI @ Jack Trice a few years ago. Hopefully the offense will get on track this week in practice.
ISU 35 UNI 14

Sportsnation visits Iowa City, More Importantly, Michelle Beadle visits Iowa City

In the shadow of the gleaming gold dome of the Old Capitol, SportsNation made its second stop of its Big Ten Road Trip. I went after eating lunch at 11:30 and stayed until 6 pm. When I arrived, Cowherd was taking questions after his morning talk radio show, The Herd with Colin Cowherd.

I was in the front row and a half hour until show time, the rain came down, and it came hard and fast. We were forced to go into the student union, and wait out the storms. An hour later, it was still raining but we were out there anyway. The show went on as planned, but I thought they would for sure have a special guest since John Clay was at the Madison show.

I might add that Michelle Beadle is much more attractive in person than on ESPN. I also looted the huge ESPN sign under the camera scaffold. Really Sweet. It now engulfs my dorm room, but it's awesome.

The Hawkeye Report: Week 3

Courtesy Getty Images

Wheaties may be the breakfast of champions, but Trix and waffles are the breakfast of a defeated Hawkeye cornerback Shaun Prater from Omaha, NE. Monday morning I sat down to breakfast (Cinnamon Sugar coated bagels,  Lucky Charms, and a Muffin) to realize that Shaun Prater and another football player were sitting at the table across from me. They were obviously talking about the game, how they wished Ferentz would have more live action in practice, and perhaps the most interesting part of the breakfast was how he described his muffed punt recovery late in the second half.

"I wuh gunnuh smoke 'im, ya know?, but jus' as i be about to smoke 'im, he looks down and he looks in meh eyes and jus' knows i'm about to smoke 'im, na mean? ... he looks up and it hit his facemask r sumtin and i gots the ball right? and i ain't lettin go, man, (laughter) na mean? (More laughter)"

Words of genius. Obviously this man has not taken advantage of the world renown Iowa Writers Workshop, or even the most basic english class, as I was struggling to understand these ebonics. But it does bring up a good point, that only so much of a football game can be seen through the TV or even in the stadium. So much of the beauty of the game is the physical conversation between the players, the orchestrated violence. We miss so much through the screen of our TV, that it makes me wonder if the game we see is actually what's going on.

The Game: All this game proves to the hawkeyes is that it's not 2009 anymore. You can't let your opponent put a 14 spot on you early. Jewel Hampton is out for the rest of the season and most likely career with another torn ACL, and not the one he tore last year. I don't like Adam Robinson, he lacks the explosion of any other successful runningback, and when the opposing defense can close those holes fast, Robinson might as well run to the line of scrimmage and kneel. Stanzi receives most of the blame, but unfairly as I saw a pretty good game from him, with only a few crucial overthrows. The defense in my opinion is overrated, letting too many plays get more yards than they should have and not stopping a couple key deep passes late in the game. Don't get me wrong, the D-line is very impressive, but the rest of the defense needs to step up. Special teams was absolutely pathetic. They were silently pathetic against Iowa State, allowing 2 kickoff returns past midfield. I thought that would be a wake up call. Obviously not. This will definitely need to be a point of emphasis this week and in the Ball State game. This game was a slap in the face to Hawkeye fans who are still high after a lucky 2009 season, bring the ignorant fans down to earth to realize that you can't win a game in the last minute everytime.

Week 3 Prediction: Iowa: 42 Ball State: 10