Upon Further Review
Everyone remembers November and Kirk's teams seem to get better in this important month.
Mike Zierath
Staff Columnist
The CFP committee came out with their first ranking poll of the season and there was a lot of talk on the message boards all week about it. So, I took a bye week. Sometimes, a guy just needs one of those.
Most of the conversations in regard to the CFP committee’s first poll last week were actually positive and constructive. That’s refreshing. There was very little kickback among college football fans unless you were a Miami or Wisconsin fan, and even they knew that they probably got seeded correctly. Having Georgia #1 was the right thing to do, based on resume. An argument could be made about the #4 spot, as Clemson, Oklahoma and OSU were probably fairly interchangeable.
Not so fast my friend!
Iowa’s Offense Crushes Ohio State
Iowa Routes Ohio State to squash the Buckeyes playoff path
Woodshed, Iowa 52242
All those were headlines that appeared seconds after Iowa beat OSU and crushed, squashed, smashed and woodshedded the Buckeyes season!
Then there is this: No one remembers September, some will remember October, everyone remembers November!
I don’t know who coined that phrase, but it’s a good one, and very, very accurate.
Iowa’s coaching staff lives that mantra. Play well early, get better each week, play your best football at the end. We’ve heard Kirk Ferentz say something akin to that over and over and over in his 19 years at Iowa.
Everyone remembers November!
Apparently, everyone does remember that Iowa plays well in November. It was mentioned more than once across the nation last week. Ohio State should have listened. Heck, I should have listened. I definitely didn’t think, in my wildest dreams, that Iowa would keep up with the scarlet and gray from Columbus. Okay, I might have thought that there was a chance, but 55 points? Against Ohio State? Come on man!
As I sat in one of the DFW Alumni official game watch locations on Saturday, and the shadows were creeping towards darkness, I couldn’t help but feel like it wasn’t put to bed until right around the 5:30 mark of the 4th quarter. That’s when it set in. That’s when I posted something in the Lounge about how good it felt to see this team finally turn a corner. To watch these young men figure out what it takes to play at a high level for 4 quarters. To not shoot themselves in the foot with penalties and turnovers. To play a complete game against a perennial power house like OSU and win convincingly. What we saw Saturday afternoon was the difference half a season can make with a young team like Iowa.
55 points, wow. I honestly hope they crush, squash and Woodshed Bucky on Saturday at Camp Randall. Might be a tall order, but the Badgers are beatable.
You all know what happens when that happens, right?
The Big Ten is left completely out of the College Football Playoff conversation and it’s mostly because of our very own Iowa Hawkeyes!
Think about this, and I know you can’t go back, but Iowa’s three losses this year are a last play of the game against Penn State. A two turnover in the red zone 7 point loss at Michigan State. And a head shaker in overtime, which resulted again in a 7 point loss, at Northwestern.
That’s how close this team is to being in the conversation. And they are real young. They will get 15 starters back from this squad to start next year. If they do continue to play better in November, we are all going to be Happy Hawkeye Fans at the end of the regular season.
Everyone remembers November!
And every Hawkeye fan, from young to old, will remember this one forever.
Back to the rest of the college football landscape…..
It was a big, big week which lived up to the Hype.
Maybe the best game of the week, and possibly the best college game day environment in all of football on any given Saturday, was Bedlam! Oklahoma vs Oklahoma State. Both highly ranked. Both with playoff aspirations. Both playing in what really amounted to a playoff type game. Win and you are still in the conversation. Lose, and you go home, for good. It was like watching to boxers trade haymakers. Back and forth, ebb and flow. Thank god it happened to be on the screen right next to the Iowa game or I wouldn’t have seen any part of it. Oklahoma comes out on top, knocking my pre-season CFP pick, Okie State, out of the playoff conversation. In the rest of the Big 12, TCU also won, which sets up a huge game this weekend in Norman, Ok. Another week of win or go home for the Big 12.
The Pac 12 opportunities are getting thin. It is basically a week to week playoff game for the Washington Huskies now as well. They won easily this past weekend over Oregon and now face Bryce Love and the Stanford Cardinal this weekend. It is my opinion that they are the only hope for the Pac 12 to get a playoff spot. How big is this dog? Time will tell.
The ACC still has two teams that are very much in the CFP conversation, and one of them, Miami, is unbeaten. I thought that it was highly possibly that they would lose to Va. Tech this past weekend. At 8-0, they are squarely in the top ten this week as well, probably 7 or 8 when the poll comes out on Tuesday night (yes, I’m writing this ahead of time). They get Notre Dame this weekend! This too amounts to a playoff game type scenario. Winner is still moving toward the playoffs. If Miami wins, they really get into the conversation. If they lose, they are history, unless, they win the ACC Championship game over Clemson, which is the way this is apparently heading. So many ifs, but, there are still two teams in the ACC that have a say in the final four teams.
The SEC is rolling toward a show down for the ages. It will likely, barring some crazy event, like the earth imploding, be a #1 vs #2 SEC Championship game. It’s gonna be a doozy. Maybe one for the ages, hard to say. Mentor vs Protégé. Two teams that look in the mirror and see each other looking back. Both with powerful defenses and just as powerful run games. Good skill position players. Good coaches. Solid History. If the SEC Championship game is as good as I think it might be, The SEC could have two teams in the playoff situation. This is going to be interesting for the overall college football landscape.
That leaves us the Big Ten. Four teams in the East stand at 7-2 overall. Two of those teams have one Big Ten loss. They meet this weekend and the winner of the Michigan State and Ohio State game will be in the drivers seat in that division. Wisconsin is 9-0 in the West. They have our Hawkeyes this weekend, which puts them at 9-1. If they would happen to lose the last two games against Michigan and Minnesota, it is possible that Northwestern wins the West. Not likely, but possible. (yes, they were my West darkhorse at the beginning of the year). Regardless of who goes from the West, the Big Ten would be out of playoff contention unless it is an undefeated Wisconsin Badger team, and I already pointed out that they are losing this weekend to Iowa.
So, if Notre Dame keeps winning, my playoff scenario that I laid out two weeks ago that leaves three power 5 conferences out of the CFP four team final, is very, very possible. And looking more and more likely all the time.
There are just 5 undefeated teams left. There are ONLY 9 undefeated or one loss teams in the power 5 conferences. 9……………………
Right now, all Five conferences still have a shot. But Notre Dame is really the wild card in this whole thing right now. I’m hoping for a Miami win this weekend.
Which brings me to this. We’ve had a number of really good weeks of college football already this year. This weekend may end up being the best. There are seven games featuring teams that are currently ranked in the CFP top 25 playing each other this weekend. Washington vs Stanford, Michigan State vs OSU, Okie State vs Iowa State, Georgia vs Auburn, Alabama vs Mississippi State, Notre Dame vs Miami and TCU vs Oklahoma. Eight of those teams are still in the conversation. Two of those team will fall out of the conversation based on the matchups alone. That leaves six. It’s getting dicey guys and gals.
Everyone remembers November!
Everyone remembers November and Kirk's teams seem to get better in this important month.
Mike Zierath
Staff Columnist
The CFP committee came out with their first ranking poll of the season and there was a lot of talk on the message boards all week about it. So, I took a bye week. Sometimes, a guy just needs one of those.
Most of the conversations in regard to the CFP committee’s first poll last week were actually positive and constructive. That’s refreshing. There was very little kickback among college football fans unless you were a Miami or Wisconsin fan, and even they knew that they probably got seeded correctly. Having Georgia #1 was the right thing to do, based on resume. An argument could be made about the #4 spot, as Clemson, Oklahoma and OSU were probably fairly interchangeable.
Not so fast my friend!
Iowa’s Offense Crushes Ohio State
Iowa Routes Ohio State to squash the Buckeyes playoff path
Woodshed, Iowa 52242
All those were headlines that appeared seconds after Iowa beat OSU and crushed, squashed, smashed and woodshedded the Buckeyes season!
Then there is this: No one remembers September, some will remember October, everyone remembers November!
I don’t know who coined that phrase, but it’s a good one, and very, very accurate.
Iowa’s coaching staff lives that mantra. Play well early, get better each week, play your best football at the end. We’ve heard Kirk Ferentz say something akin to that over and over and over in his 19 years at Iowa.
Everyone remembers November!
Apparently, everyone does remember that Iowa plays well in November. It was mentioned more than once across the nation last week. Ohio State should have listened. Heck, I should have listened. I definitely didn’t think, in my wildest dreams, that Iowa would keep up with the scarlet and gray from Columbus. Okay, I might have thought that there was a chance, but 55 points? Against Ohio State? Come on man!
As I sat in one of the DFW Alumni official game watch locations on Saturday, and the shadows were creeping towards darkness, I couldn’t help but feel like it wasn’t put to bed until right around the 5:30 mark of the 4th quarter. That’s when it set in. That’s when I posted something in the Lounge about how good it felt to see this team finally turn a corner. To watch these young men figure out what it takes to play at a high level for 4 quarters. To not shoot themselves in the foot with penalties and turnovers. To play a complete game against a perennial power house like OSU and win convincingly. What we saw Saturday afternoon was the difference half a season can make with a young team like Iowa.
55 points, wow. I honestly hope they crush, squash and Woodshed Bucky on Saturday at Camp Randall. Might be a tall order, but the Badgers are beatable.
You all know what happens when that happens, right?
The Big Ten is left completely out of the College Football Playoff conversation and it’s mostly because of our very own Iowa Hawkeyes!
Think about this, and I know you can’t go back, but Iowa’s three losses this year are a last play of the game against Penn State. A two turnover in the red zone 7 point loss at Michigan State. And a head shaker in overtime, which resulted again in a 7 point loss, at Northwestern.
That’s how close this team is to being in the conversation. And they are real young. They will get 15 starters back from this squad to start next year. If they do continue to play better in November, we are all going to be Happy Hawkeye Fans at the end of the regular season.
Everyone remembers November!
And every Hawkeye fan, from young to old, will remember this one forever.
Back to the rest of the college football landscape…..
It was a big, big week which lived up to the Hype.
Maybe the best game of the week, and possibly the best college game day environment in all of football on any given Saturday, was Bedlam! Oklahoma vs Oklahoma State. Both highly ranked. Both with playoff aspirations. Both playing in what really amounted to a playoff type game. Win and you are still in the conversation. Lose, and you go home, for good. It was like watching to boxers trade haymakers. Back and forth, ebb and flow. Thank god it happened to be on the screen right next to the Iowa game or I wouldn’t have seen any part of it. Oklahoma comes out on top, knocking my pre-season CFP pick, Okie State, out of the playoff conversation. In the rest of the Big 12, TCU also won, which sets up a huge game this weekend in Norman, Ok. Another week of win or go home for the Big 12.
The Pac 12 opportunities are getting thin. It is basically a week to week playoff game for the Washington Huskies now as well. They won easily this past weekend over Oregon and now face Bryce Love and the Stanford Cardinal this weekend. It is my opinion that they are the only hope for the Pac 12 to get a playoff spot. How big is this dog? Time will tell.
The ACC still has two teams that are very much in the CFP conversation, and one of them, Miami, is unbeaten. I thought that it was highly possibly that they would lose to Va. Tech this past weekend. At 8-0, they are squarely in the top ten this week as well, probably 7 or 8 when the poll comes out on Tuesday night (yes, I’m writing this ahead of time). They get Notre Dame this weekend! This too amounts to a playoff game type scenario. Winner is still moving toward the playoffs. If Miami wins, they really get into the conversation. If they lose, they are history, unless, they win the ACC Championship game over Clemson, which is the way this is apparently heading. So many ifs, but, there are still two teams in the ACC that have a say in the final four teams.
The SEC is rolling toward a show down for the ages. It will likely, barring some crazy event, like the earth imploding, be a #1 vs #2 SEC Championship game. It’s gonna be a doozy. Maybe one for the ages, hard to say. Mentor vs Protégé. Two teams that look in the mirror and see each other looking back. Both with powerful defenses and just as powerful run games. Good skill position players. Good coaches. Solid History. If the SEC Championship game is as good as I think it might be, The SEC could have two teams in the playoff situation. This is going to be interesting for the overall college football landscape.
That leaves us the Big Ten. Four teams in the East stand at 7-2 overall. Two of those teams have one Big Ten loss. They meet this weekend and the winner of the Michigan State and Ohio State game will be in the drivers seat in that division. Wisconsin is 9-0 in the West. They have our Hawkeyes this weekend, which puts them at 9-1. If they would happen to lose the last two games against Michigan and Minnesota, it is possible that Northwestern wins the West. Not likely, but possible. (yes, they were my West darkhorse at the beginning of the year). Regardless of who goes from the West, the Big Ten would be out of playoff contention unless it is an undefeated Wisconsin Badger team, and I already pointed out that they are losing this weekend to Iowa.
So, if Notre Dame keeps winning, my playoff scenario that I laid out two weeks ago that leaves three power 5 conferences out of the CFP four team final, is very, very possible. And looking more and more likely all the time.
There are just 5 undefeated teams left. There are ONLY 9 undefeated or one loss teams in the power 5 conferences. 9……………………
Right now, all Five conferences still have a shot. But Notre Dame is really the wild card in this whole thing right now. I’m hoping for a Miami win this weekend.
Which brings me to this. We’ve had a number of really good weeks of college football already this year. This weekend may end up being the best. There are seven games featuring teams that are currently ranked in the CFP top 25 playing each other this weekend. Washington vs Stanford, Michigan State vs OSU, Okie State vs Iowa State, Georgia vs Auburn, Alabama vs Mississippi State, Notre Dame vs Miami and TCU vs Oklahoma. Eight of those teams are still in the conversation. Two of those team will fall out of the conversation based on the matchups alone. That leaves six. It’s getting dicey guys and gals.
Everyone remembers November!
