Iowa Played 9 Bowl Teams Who Went 8-1 In Their Bowl Games

[spiderland]

North Texas the only team to lose their bowl. NW tried to lose, but Kentucky wouldn’t oblige.

Of course, we only went 4-5 against those 9 opponents, which is what landed us in frozen Yankee Stadium.

Still, playing 8 bowl champions in a single season has to be a first for Iowa, doesn’t it?

 

[cmhawks99]

Pretty impressive.. honestly I started thinking about this possibility several weeks back. Iowa played a hell of a schedule with some pretty talented teams.

 

[BetterLuckNextTime]

Most SEC teams would have a losing record with that schedule.

 

[Aleister_Crowley]

Technically they played 10 if you count BC.

 

[thewop]

So 13 games, 10 against bowl teams, winning 5. We'd like to win more of those, however, last time we had a new OC(2012) we went 4-12, and that was with a more experienced QB who showed promise the year prior.

That's not so bad in hindsight.

 

[Floyd_Of_Rosedale]

So 13 games, 10 against bowl teams, winning 5. We'd like to win more of those, however, last time we had a new OC(2012) we went 4-12, and that was with a more experienced QB who showed promise the year prior.

That's not so bad in hindsight.

A new OC at IOWA doesn't translate to a new playbook.

 

[DodgerHawki]

A new OC at IOWA doesn't translate to a new playbook.

I suppose not, but i would argue the passing game especially was almost entirely brand new. Running game was mostly the same, with zone and doses of power/gap.

Sagarin had Iowa's strength of schedule at 3, also has Iowa ranked 19 overall after the 12/30 games. Iowa winning and all the Big 10 teams winning helping out Iowa in the Sagarin ratings.

 

[BigDelHawk]

We had lots of recievers who could not catch a football. That hampered us mightily.

 

[24 so far]

North Texas the only team to lose their bowl. NW tried to lose, but Kentucky wouldn’t oblige.

Of course, we only went 4-5 against those 9 opponents, which is what landed us in frozen Yankee Stadium.

Still, playing 8 bowl champions in a single season has to be a first for Iowa, doesn’t it?

I would imagine it is yes.

So to summarize, Iowa played a few good teams and a bunch of Average ones, who like Iowa managed to make one of the WAY TOO MANY "wink-wink" Bowl Games, and by hook or by crook those opponents managed to beat other Average teams in their "wink-wink" Bowl Game.

That's pretty much it.

 

[MeetTheFerentz]

We had lots of recievers who could not catch a football. That hampered us mightily.

This cannot be understated enough. Watching the Fiesta Bowl, I couldn't help but think of how much different Iowa would be if nothing changed except we had Penn State's receivers - they caught everything McSorley threw in their vicinity, sometimes despite excellent coverage. And I don't think Stanley would have been overthrowing those speedsters too much.

This team has multiple issues, but putting a handful of that level of receiver on the field would help immensely.

 

[icantfindausernamethatisntused]

If this year's team would have played the 2015 schedule, they likely would have had 10+ wins. The computer polls actually rank this year's team better than the 2015 team.

2015:

• Sagarin Rating: 22
• ESPN FPI: 33

2017:

• Sagarin Rating: 19
• ESPN FPI: 24

The 2015 team was more consistent, but the overall talent levels were pretty close.

 

[EvilMonkeyInTheCloset]

We had lots of recievers who could not catch a football. That hampered us mightily.

A lot of our opponents were also not nice enough to lose to us, too.