I'd like to hear more about your analysis of this one.
The way I see it, the pros for Iowa are:
1) Balanced offense
2) Stanford's defense isn't great
3) Home crowd
The pros for Stanford:
1) They have the better offense and the best player
2) They played a much tougher schedule (#4 vs #57 I think is the matchup in SOS)
3) More familiarity with the setting
I'm just doing this off the top of my head. I, too, want to take the Hawks moneyline, but I'm concerned that I haven't put enough thought into it yet.
First, ignore OiT (this probably goes without saying). He's fixated on the 0 for 9 on 3rd down against Nebraska thing.
As for the game, I think +220 is absolutely outstanding value first of all. A few other things working in Iowa's favor:
-HEALTH, and I think this is understated. Every team gets beat up throughout the season, but Iowa had several key performers on the verge of having to sit out. Canzeri will be at full speed, Daniels SHOULD be as well, CJ will have some mobility back, Meier will be back on a full practice regime, and Duzey will have more time to recover from his nagging injuries.
- Kickoffs- Koehn is one of the best in the country at producing touchbacks, and this will negate a huge weapon for Stanford
- If Iowa's defense is overmatched in this, it isn't by much. And stylistically, we are a nightmare matchup for their defense. They run a 3-4 type defense with a weak DL and sometimes with an extra DB on the field. We are exactly what they don't want to see.
-Motivation- I feel like Iowa has an edge here. There are rumblings from the Stanford camp that they are disappointed they don't get to play OSU (who would absolutely smash them, BTW), and the thrill of making the Rose has probably worn off for the Cardinal.
McCaffrey is a heck of a player, but he absolutely feasted on Pac12 defenses. We'll be the hardest-hitting, most disciplined unit he'll see all season, and when Iowa has the players (and they certainly do this year), our coaches have shown they can gameplan the opposition's best player into relative ineffectiveness.
As for this being my "biggest play of the bowl season", it simply means I'll be betting a higher %-age of my account on this game, but it certainly won't be one of those all-or-nothing deals.
