That Went Well...

To add to Christo's soup analogy (dead on BTW) I'll offer mine: There was a kid from Monticello when I was playing baseball in high school that every other guy on the team would feast on. He came up as a freshman just like I did and I got to face him every year. A submariner but hardly Kent Tekulve, his fastball just kind of was there and whatever breaking stuff he had was flat. But I couldn't get over the goddamn submarine motion and every time I faced him I would ground out weakly to second or foul off the two good pitches I would see and then proceed to strike out on a terrible pitch in the left handed batters box. Meanwhile, the rest of the team would be enjoying a nice stats padding 15-3 win. It became branded in my brain that I couldn't hit this guy even though he was unbelievably hittable. THAT'S Iowa vs. Northwestern.
At least I didn't have to watch Pat Fitzgerald dance around like an asshole.

The Good: Um.....Marvin McNutt? Guy made an unreal catch to keep some hope alive during Iowa's Chinese Fire Drill last drive. Alan Reisner also bailed Stanzi out of a few fucking putrid throws. Seriously, Rick, you can throw to someone else on 3rd down.

The Bad: Where to start? Stanzi has reverted back in some ways to the norm. The INT with 10 minutes left was just a brutal decision that gave Northwestern a glimmer. And that's all those dickfaces need. Iowa was running at will at that point and could've, at worst, ran another four minutes off the clock but no, Stanzi had to remember they were playing Northwestern and it was about time someone had to piss in their pants. Cue wounded duck into triple coverage. McNutt running underneath without a guy within 10 yards of him on that play, BTW....
I hate to pile on the coaches but Ken O' Keefe really needs to tell Stanzi that it's OK to throw to someone besides his tight end on 3rd down. And you guys really need to work on the 2 minute drill. It shouldn't take a minute to get a first down when the other team is in prevent. And if they aren't? Go deep. The cluelessness is pretty inexcusable to be honest.

The Godawful: It's November, guys. Defensive players shouldn't be falling over like wounded Rebels at Gettysburg. When I saw Clayborn and Klug and the lot sucking air on the last drive I knew it was over. And the drive before that. And the drive before that. I'm baffled as to how 22 year old guys on a football team can be that winded in the middle of a late season game. Nice conditioning.

The defense is so overrated it's not even worth talking about anymore. That's 4 times that they needed to make a stop and didn't. I'm not counting Indiana as a stop, it was dumb luck. (The same Indiana team that just gave up 83 to Wisconsin BTW...Stay classy, Brett!) That's not an anomaly, that's not bad luck , that's just a defense that can't get it done when it needs to. Some good players but really not very tough to beat when you get down to it.

Yeah, they can win the next two and go 9-3 and that's not terrible but I saw nothing yesterday or the week before that leads me to believe they can beat Ohio State. It's possible and college football is queer that way but this is a deeply flawed team.

The Insight Bowl is a very real possibility. I think I have plans that night.

P.S.-- Fitzgerald said in his post game news conference that he refers to the last 5 minutes of the game as "Cat Time"....Oh, Fuuuuuuuck you!

P.S.S-- the officiating was fucking brutal. Clayborn was ass raped on the first scoring drive by NW and I lost count at 7 on obvious holding calls on Persa's "scrambles". Jesus. I hate being that guy but these refs didn't help. And last time I checked a defensive player hitting a guy a full second before the ball gets there is still pass interference, even on a Hail Mary. Ref standing 5 feet away looking right at it.

This is getting old.