Iowa Football: Perspective and Defining Moments
I know that Saturday's loss has been tough to swallow and rightly so. I think many Hawkeye fans are like me in thinking that had Iowa played their typical fundamentally sound style of football they would have had a great opportunity to leave Tucson with a "W". Unfortunately that isn't the way things work in the real world and especially in competitive sports. One bright spot from my perspective is despite the loss is that Iowa didn't fold up and get blown out. It reminded me a lot of how they persevered in Columbus last fall late in the game. My point is that this team will play hard and fight to the end. While that might sound as if I am scraping for positives so be it. But just remember, there are A LOT of programs out there that wouldn’t keep fighting.
It might be a trait that develops with maturity but I find that I am able to 'flush' games like Saturday's much easier and quicker than I was even 15 years ago. I don't think that I have developed an unrealistic optimism in those 15 years but rather I have found it easier to put things in perspective. It is amazing what having children will do to help a person really realize what is important and what isn't. That is not to say that Iowa football isn't important but I think it helps a person evaluate things more on a macro stage as opposed to a micro level . I use to be a person who would fret over every pass completion Iowa's defenses gave up even in Norm's early years. I would look at the individual plays of drives and see a lot of negatives in the amount of yardage that Iowa was yielding. The ironic thing is, I would fret just as much about the yardage Iowa was giving up on drives where they didn't allow the opposition to score as ones that they did allow points. And many times this was after the fact. I finally came to realize that evaluating the end result and fretting over that was a lot better use of my time, energy and attitude than fretting over every individual play or decision in a game. In short, I think I not only accepted Norm Parker's philosophy but have come to enjoy it immensely. The bottom line is that Iowa has had a lot of success from a win/loss perspective without always looking 'sexy' as Kirk Ferentz would say. It is less about how you get as long as you get there.
I mention all of this because in the last 36 hours I have read or heard complaints from fans that I simply find unreasonable. Take for example my neighbor who was watching the game at my house with me. Throughout the game he was complaining about the success Arizona was having in completing the underneath passes. It took everything in my being to not look at him and say, “Where have you been the last 12 years? That is a characteristic of every Norm Parker defense since he has been at Iowa.” In hindsight the ironic thing is that it wasn’t those underneath passes that hurt Iowa in the end but rather the long pass on first down of Arizona’s last scoring drive that was more impactful to the outcome of the game. That play is the exact play that Iowa’s defense is designed not to allow yet it did. And credit goes to Arizona for executing perfectly on that play.
The second instance of misguided micro-analysis is similar to that of my neighbor in that the initial, knee-jerk response to the loss and the number of points that Arizona scored (34) is to blame the defense. I think that on a simplistic level it is human nature to see something on a repetitive basis and make a correlation to a bigger result when in fact there is no correlative relationship. For example, I think some fans saw Arizona’s offense move the ball especially in the short passing game and without really evualating the entire picture found an easy scapegoat for Arizona’s 34 points. The thing is, when you factor out an interception that was returned for a touchdown, a kick-off that was returned for a touchdown, and a blocked punt that resulted in a field that stretched for all of 8 yards it is fairly obvious that Iowa’s defense was not entirely responsible for about 21 of Arizona’s 34 points.
If someone had told me prior to Saturday’s game that Iowa’s defense was going to limit Arizona to 3 scoring drives and a total of 13 points on 14 drives, I would have taken it in a second and been willing to live with the outcome of the game regardless. Well, after Arizona’s first touchdown that resulted from starting with the ball on Iowa’s 8 yardline, Iowa did allow only 3 more scoring drives the rest of the game. Arizona’s score to possession percentage was 21.43% after that first touchdown which is hardly one that the defense can take much responsibility for.
Iowa didn’t lose this game because of a bad defensive game plan, inexperience at linebacker/cornerback or poor execution by the defense as a whole. This game was lost in the kicking game, at the line of scrimmage when Iowa had the ball and poor execution by Iowa’s receiving corp. Certainly it is a team game but the defense is only responsible for limiting the success of Arizona’s offense which they did quite well. Because Iowa had to play from behind much of the night they never had the opportunity to get their running game established and Iowa is not built to win without the running game. Arizona did a wonderful job defensively of making Iowa one dimensional on offense which ironically is what Iowa’s defensive philosophy has been quite successful at doing under Norm Parker. The stat that says it all to me is this one: Iowa’s offense had 15 3rd downs in the game. The average distance on those 3rd downs was 9.9 yards. You will not win very many games on the road against a ranked opponent with a 3rd down statistic like that. The fact that Iowa was as close as they were late in the game is quite remarkable.
Finally, one of the things that I keep coming back to as I think about the last 12 years of Iowa football under Kirk Ferentz is how many times Iowa has experienced a game like this past Saturday’s and yet was able to put it behind them and move on. In short, Kirk Ferentz has been able to prevent games like the Arizona game from becoming the defining moment for his teams. I think that a more accurate statement would be that how his previous teams have played AFTER those games did more to define them than that individual game. And that for me is where the big picture comes back into play. Saturday’s game, although a disappointment, does not have to be the defining moment of this 2010 Iowa team. This team has an opportunity to make the Arizona game be an afterthought similar to the way the 2002 ISU game became an afterthought or the 2004 ASU game became an afterthought. If this team has characteristics and attitudes that are more like those that the 2002 and 2004 teams had as opposed to those the 2007 team had, I think Iowa football will be just fine. I am not saying that this team will be Big Ten Champions like the ‘02 and ‘04 teams however the Arizona loss matters little when you start talking about the conference race.
There are certainly concerns not the least of which is the health and depth at running back. However, save for the 2007 team, I don’t think I have ever seen a Kirk Ferentz coached team NOT improve as the season progressed. If this team improves and progresses each week and the mistakes and errors can be corrected on the offensive line and special teams, this team will be able to make what happens from here on out be how it is defined and remembered as opposed to the Arizona game itself. Sit back, have some faith in this staff and young men and enjoy the ride. It is what makes loving the Hawkeyes so much fun.
It might be a trait that develops with maturity but I find that I am able to 'flush' games like Saturday's much easier and quicker than I was even 15 years ago. I don't think that I have developed an unrealistic optimism in those 15 years but rather I have found it easier to put things in perspective. It is amazing what having children will do to help a person really realize what is important and what isn't. That is not to say that Iowa football isn't important but I think it helps a person evaluate things more on a macro stage as opposed to a micro level . I use to be a person who would fret over every pass completion Iowa's defenses gave up even in Norm's early years. I would look at the individual plays of drives and see a lot of negatives in the amount of yardage that Iowa was yielding. The ironic thing is, I would fret just as much about the yardage Iowa was giving up on drives where they didn't allow the opposition to score as ones that they did allow points. And many times this was after the fact. I finally came to realize that evaluating the end result and fretting over that was a lot better use of my time, energy and attitude than fretting over every individual play or decision in a game. In short, I think I not only accepted Norm Parker's philosophy but have come to enjoy it immensely. The bottom line is that Iowa has had a lot of success from a win/loss perspective without always looking 'sexy' as Kirk Ferentz would say. It is less about how you get as long as you get there.
I mention all of this because in the last 36 hours I have read or heard complaints from fans that I simply find unreasonable. Take for example my neighbor who was watching the game at my house with me. Throughout the game he was complaining about the success Arizona was having in completing the underneath passes. It took everything in my being to not look at him and say, “Where have you been the last 12 years? That is a characteristic of every Norm Parker defense since he has been at Iowa.” In hindsight the ironic thing is that it wasn’t those underneath passes that hurt Iowa in the end but rather the long pass on first down of Arizona’s last scoring drive that was more impactful to the outcome of the game. That play is the exact play that Iowa’s defense is designed not to allow yet it did. And credit goes to Arizona for executing perfectly on that play.
The second instance of misguided micro-analysis is similar to that of my neighbor in that the initial, knee-jerk response to the loss and the number of points that Arizona scored (34) is to blame the defense. I think that on a simplistic level it is human nature to see something on a repetitive basis and make a correlation to a bigger result when in fact there is no correlative relationship. For example, I think some fans saw Arizona’s offense move the ball especially in the short passing game and without really evualating the entire picture found an easy scapegoat for Arizona’s 34 points. The thing is, when you factor out an interception that was returned for a touchdown, a kick-off that was returned for a touchdown, and a blocked punt that resulted in a field that stretched for all of 8 yards it is fairly obvious that Iowa’s defense was not entirely responsible for about 21 of Arizona’s 34 points.
If someone had told me prior to Saturday’s game that Iowa’s defense was going to limit Arizona to 3 scoring drives and a total of 13 points on 14 drives, I would have taken it in a second and been willing to live with the outcome of the game regardless. Well, after Arizona’s first touchdown that resulted from starting with the ball on Iowa’s 8 yardline, Iowa did allow only 3 more scoring drives the rest of the game. Arizona’s score to possession percentage was 21.43% after that first touchdown which is hardly one that the defense can take much responsibility for.
Iowa didn’t lose this game because of a bad defensive game plan, inexperience at linebacker/cornerback or poor execution by the defense as a whole. This game was lost in the kicking game, at the line of scrimmage when Iowa had the ball and poor execution by Iowa’s receiving corp. Certainly it is a team game but the defense is only responsible for limiting the success of Arizona’s offense which they did quite well. Because Iowa had to play from behind much of the night they never had the opportunity to get their running game established and Iowa is not built to win without the running game. Arizona did a wonderful job defensively of making Iowa one dimensional on offense which ironically is what Iowa’s defensive philosophy has been quite successful at doing under Norm Parker. The stat that says it all to me is this one: Iowa’s offense had 15 3rd downs in the game. The average distance on those 3rd downs was 9.9 yards. You will not win very many games on the road against a ranked opponent with a 3rd down statistic like that. The fact that Iowa was as close as they were late in the game is quite remarkable.
Finally, one of the things that I keep coming back to as I think about the last 12 years of Iowa football under Kirk Ferentz is how many times Iowa has experienced a game like this past Saturday’s and yet was able to put it behind them and move on. In short, Kirk Ferentz has been able to prevent games like the Arizona game from becoming the defining moment for his teams. I think that a more accurate statement would be that how his previous teams have played AFTER those games did more to define them than that individual game. And that for me is where the big picture comes back into play. Saturday’s game, although a disappointment, does not have to be the defining moment of this 2010 Iowa team. This team has an opportunity to make the Arizona game be an afterthought similar to the way the 2002 ISU game became an afterthought or the 2004 ASU game became an afterthought. If this team has characteristics and attitudes that are more like those that the 2002 and 2004 teams had as opposed to those the 2007 team had, I think Iowa football will be just fine. I am not saying that this team will be Big Ten Champions like the ‘02 and ‘04 teams however the Arizona loss matters little when you start talking about the conference race.
There are certainly concerns not the least of which is the health and depth at running back. However, save for the 2007 team, I don’t think I have ever seen a Kirk Ferentz coached team NOT improve as the season progressed. If this team improves and progresses each week and the mistakes and errors can be corrected on the offensive line and special teams, this team will be able to make what happens from here on out be how it is defined and remembered as opposed to the Arizona game itself. Sit back, have some faith in this staff and young men and enjoy the ride. It is what makes loving the Hawkeyes so much fun.
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