after he was exiled from ESPN.

We are 6th in the nation in interceptions (you, by the way, are merely in the middle 50’s), remembeeeeer? Now we talked about this, we – the bad guys — sit back and devastate QB confidence (see Penn State, Minnesota, etc.) with defensive slight of hand. With no running game, I expect an incalculable number of interceptions against your confused young man, aka the quarterback.

You mentioned the highly undersized Mitch King too, he of Big-10-Defensive-Lineman-of-the-Year fame. Well, he’ll drive your lumbering OL insane by first running under, then around and eventually, about the time that the Tampa humidity and your offense’s pathetic lack of TOP (that’s right, we just own the ball usually with our running back clicking off 6 yard runs as though a clock tower-like metronome is on the sidelines; perhaps you have heard of him?) begins to breakdown the psyche of your exhausted, tormented offensive line, he finally, all 260 pounds of him (soaking wet), runs over them.

Bob Sanders, defensive player of the year in the NFL last year, left a lasting legacy at Iowa of safeties who hit with earth shattering, bone jarring, will-taking consistency any receiver dumb enough to tiptoe over the middle to catch a football. You can bet that once one of your malnourished wide receivers catches a slightly overthrown ball, we will send him to Tampa General. With any luck he will return to the sidelines to witness the destruction, with his colostomy bag in hand of course.

But, truth be told, we’re scared. We’ve been running that Wofford tape (with mouths agape) noticing that, indeed, you run a pretty terrifying offense over their in South Cock-o-lina. I was particularly impressed with the way your team doggedly overcame those three interceptions Smelley threw against their stellar D. I mean Wofford is an NFL DB factory, everyone knows that. To hang a 10-point home field victory over them sent chills down the spine of not only your SEC brethren, but all across the college football landscape, and even up to little old Iowa City; and, as it turns out, that 10 spot was a solid 7 points more than James Madison (the college! not the Twinkie bakery you silly) hung on Wofford recently.

So, clearly, your offense is a passing textbook, while our defense is an undersized, slow, overly plodding morass of cornfed dumbass. Go easy on us, okay?

Of course, considering the King weighs around 260 pounds, I’m guessing he’ll be unable to tackle Mike Davis.

Either

worst. sarcasm. ever.

or

RRROOOFFFFLLLMMMAAAOOOOMITCHKINGWILLDESTROYYOUWITHTHEFURYOFATHOUSANDSUNS

I come to GarnetandBlackAttack.com and find a bunch of Iowa fans talking trash.

Iowa.

Iowa, people. Jesus, I’d tone it down bigtime if I were you.

You cannot understand the Iowa defense unless you understand its objective.

It’s objective is to make opponents execute 12-15 consecutive offensive plays without a screw-up. Our coach, who is ex-NFL, doesn’t think college offenses can do this, and he’s usually right. It’s a very unusual D. We rarely blitz, and in our best years, even with Brad Banks (#2 in the Heisman), we were often out-gained. We don’t care, because the scoreboard measures … points, not yards.

Our second objective is to control the LOS with four linemen. This is very rare in college football. The constraint theory of football offense depends on defenses having to cheat pass coverage to beat the run, or cheat run defense to beat the pass. If we control the LOS with four, there is no constraint play available to an offense. (cf. Chris Brown, Technical Football blog.) There was only one game this year in which we did not dominate the LOS on both sides of the ball, and it’s arguable that we at least held our own. (Evidence: Shonn outgained Royster. And, uh, we won.) Then, Minnesota, and the day after we destroyed them they fired their O-Line coach. It was a lot like your Wofford game, except that we a) won by 55-0, and b) Minnesota is a major college football program going to a bowl. As I recall, you start an O-lineman from British Columbia, and the O-line is currently orphaned, coach-less. So, I guess this means, after the game, you have no one to fire except the players.

Our third objective is sneaky. We have one of the best red zone defenses in the country (you can look it up). So sure, you can dink and dunk your way downfield (you will not run, sorry, against this D), while your speed is negated by a properly played cover-2 and good tackling. Eventually the field is compressed, and your best outcome is a field goal. Congratulations. PSU ran 19 plays in one drive against Iowa — and got 3. BTW, we’re not fat anywhere on this defense (we really do have a DT, Karl Klug, who appears to have a 34 inch waist), so we don’t get tired.

The problem for y’all (did I spell that right?) is that your coach is starting a QB who, he told national television, hasn’t played much because he “only knows one play”. I hope it’s a really good play, and you can run it successfully 15 consecutive times. Before you kick a field goal.

You will win this game if you can blow us off the LOS, or if you can reapeatedly isolate your wideouts against our 240 lb human who plays weakside linebacker and has brutal coverage responsibilities in our D, or if the crafty OBC invents some new shit that our safeties can’t understand (i.e., if the crafty OBC rolls out the Gimmicks from Hell). If we get a push against your line, though …. could be seriously ugly for you. Remember, although King was defensive lineman of the year in the Big I0, this may well be his last game unless someone wants to try him out as a rush linebacker in a 3-4. (That’s right: he may be quick enough to play OLB in the NFL. I doubt even he is quick enough or strong enough to play interior line at the next level.) Since he’s white, everyone says he’s “really coachable”, a “natural leader”, possessing of “a great motor.” Actually, this is one instance where the stereotype is accurate, rather than just coded racist condescension. I think he’ll play hard.

All the stuff about our being white and midwestern is true of course. We really do train our linemen, in part, by throwing tractor tires around in the summer. We find it amusing to be so ridiculed. We enjoy it very much when we break the stereotype and the other team is standing there going “Wha-a-a-a-t happened”, their mouths agape like little goldfish. Or, put another way, Greece beat an NBA all-star team one Olympics ago. This stuff about racial superiority is BS.

BTW, our “slow” white guy on the outside had his career game against two first-round NFL cornerbacks in our Texas bowl game a couple of years ago. Might be a data point on this coded racial determinism the entire world practices, in regard to team speed.

In sum: our defense appears to be simple (it is); it appears to be archaic (I suppose it is); it is predicated on controlling the line of scrimmage and maintaining lane and coverage discipline (few college teams do); it frustrates opponent QBs (we get a lot of picks); it exploits the compressed red zone field like a good pro team, and forces you to run for touchdowns (see first objective: control LOS). Pick your poison.

So, I hope young Garcia learns a second or third play, and that they are true gimmick-monsters. That might make it a game. Otherwise we will have to experience an ugly series of Stanzi-balls, or mess up our kick coverage, to lose. Only a smart offense well-led beats this D.

Bubble screens and slants don’t work against this D; they are constraint plays that target rush-hungry linebackers. We don’t play that way.

Posts and deep crossing routes have worked for teams, as they do for anyone against the cover-2, unless Ed Reed is playing safety or Urhlacher is playing MLB. We don’t have Ed Reed or Brian Uhrlacher. We have a walk-on playing free safety named Greenwood and an MLB named Anger-er. If we don’t get a pass rush and Garcia is accurate, you’ll need to go over the LBs with these patterns, and if you can, you can gash us.

You’ll be able to throw 5-7 yard outs all day. Please do. Then you’ll be in the red zone, and we have given up seven red zone rushing touchdowns all year.

That Illinois TD was a busted coverage. I believe we blew coverage that badly once all year. Oh well. I don’t think there’s anything in the Illinois game to help you game-plan us. The only team that got our heads spinning on D this year was Northwestern, and we were dominating them physically and ahead something like 19-3, before the Stanzi-balls got us, and they gave our RB a concussion with a helmet-to-helmet. But if you can become one of the best spread O’s in the country in the next few weeks (if Mr. Garcia can learn a second or third play, to the OBC’s satisfaction), we may lose, no question.

When Bellanca schools people before 8am

Iowa’s RB rushed for 1,700 yards this year…….with at least 100 in each game.
We have second rate High School bench warmers at the QB position.
We have no running game.
We’ve looked horrible lately.

I think we’re in trouble.

We only lost for two reasons, this year.

a) QB transition/Stanzi-balls. The kid is very cool, though. Has a short memory for screw-ups, like a relief pitcher, and goes from scary to Elway-esque with no visible effort. And, of course, our HC doesn’t humiliate his players on national TV, so he gets credit publicly for the good without being ridiculed for dropping snaps every other game.

b) Our idiot-savant/autistic OC found a couple of games on his hands that did not resemble the script he wrote on Tuesday night. This is my biggest fear. Football coaches with gameday cognitive dissonance are frustrating. But maybe we’ll get the savant side of him Jan. 1.

We’re also a little young in the kicking game, although our punter was 2nd Team All Big Ten. Our kick coverage has been mostly good, but has cracked a couple of times.

Your defense will have to step up, be the first to stop Shonn this year, blind-side Stanzi a time or two into fumbles, and Mr. Garcia will need to take his confidence pills. Maybe one of your whoo-whoo-whoo S-E-C super-fast! players will break a kick or punt return. We have a lot of walk-on small-town Iowa-type boys on our cover teams. I’m sure they’re genetically inferior, having mispent their youth playing “in doors”, being Lutheran, and walking beans.

That’s right: I’m saying your offense can’t beat us. Just your defense, our own mistakes, and a special teams big play.

One thing is true, however. Our guys have incredible momentum and confidence right now, they like themselves and they love their coach. Strength and conditioning is so important to us that we pay our S&C coach a base of $220,000. Not all of our assistants are NFL-quality, but he is, and he’s transformed the culture. If I were on your side I would be really wondering if my club had the confidence to handle a physical, confident club on a streak. We are just going to come out extremely physical. We do not believe that you appreciate how physical, which stokes the fire. You guys need a quick start or who knows what will happen. Minnesota kept it close for most of a quarter and then it was a pathetic beat-down. They had negative rush yardage until garbage time in Q4. Minnesota is in a bowl at 7-5.

I live in Loudoun County, VA so Spurrier was a neighbor and sent his son to the local high school. His fascinating candor made him a fascinating study.

In his second year with the Skins he lost interest in the job, lost interest in the players, just lost interest. And it showed. He offered the same weird comments about Patrick Ramsey then that he seems to be providing now about Smelly-Garcia-Vegas. Is he still interested in the SC job? His body language in the recent interviews expresses withdrawal and boredom, borderline depression. Seriously. If this guy were a foreign head of state, 20,000 U.S. intelligence analysts would be signing memos saying, “No threat.” Is he emotionally engaged in winning and if so, how does he win if he doesn’t respect his own players?

Good defense, good running game with a solid O-line. But, yes, they are slow, they have no playmakers on the outside and both of their QB’s are knuckleheads who will turn it over. They are exceptionally strong at home, damned suspect on the road (no, Kinnick North doesn’t count!) This will be an ugly, low-scoring affair, and I don’t think their O-line is going to overpower you. Greene will get his, but the first team to 14 wins.

/tortured by the Big Ten network

But I wouldn’t say Minnesota was “decent”. Maybe at the beginning of the year against their patsies. But by the end of the year they had serious issues.

(though not surprised if someone did and I missed it since I was drinking at 8am again)

One totally blown coverage is not evidence that the DBs can’t run. The safety screwed up. No one get’s that open on raw speed in a college or higher level game.

The spread right now on this game is Iowa -3.5 and it should end around -5 or so. But, that is largely based on the betting public. Iowa is a thinking man’s pick in this game and the reason the spread is so close is hype and ignorance. It happens. Lots of money to be made on the Hawks in this game.

I believe weare going to kill this team. Next year I believe weare going to tie for the Big 10 conference championship (w/ Penn State most likely). We defy statistics in so many ways as a team…Bellanca is right, on paper we look like a 10-2 or 11-1 team. We lost for reasons that might not happen again for years.

First, the Pitt game. Coaching decision loss. Plain and simple, and I think Ferentz knew he fucked that game up by not going back to Stanzi. We dominated that team and missed field goals, allowed shocking things to happen. We would beat them now 9 out of 10 times.

Second, Northwestern. Fumbles. Turnovers. Mistakes. Low-self-esteem. Injury to all our best players, in game. We beat them 9 out of 10 times too. This is the kind of game in most years we would win despite all the chaos that occured. But we didn’t.

Third, Michigan State. Offensive coordinator had a bad game. Fumbles. One bad call away from that win. I can live with this loss. MSU was playing lights out at the time and escaped with a victory. Also, and this is important, we took a lot out of that team. We hit them so hard they were not the same after we left town. Record proves it too.

Last, Illinois. God, this one shocks me the most. Inexplicable that Illinois played its best game of the year against us and we played like we were tired—and we still should have won. Had we closed out on that third down play on the last drive, we win. Such is COLLEGE football. Young teams (and we are the youngest in the Big 10) make dumb mistakes and play very emotionally. We have matured A LOT since then. We have the swagger of a 10-1 team. This USC team has the swagger of a 7-5 team.

Once last thing, in Bowl games things break down. The team that wins has things they can fall back on. I just don’t see a way that USC can be in this game after the third quarter.

Also, Iowa is going to play this game with so much emotion that I can’t really see USC mathing us there. I expect Iowa to show as much, if not more, emotion than any other Ferentz team has…this is just a special team. To have the start they did and finish like they did. Very special.
My prediciton is something like 31 – 14 (with a late, meaningless USC TD).

I have to watch their game tapes; I can’t figure out how any DI team scores one rushing touchdown every other week and wins 7. They don’t block, run or pass. Their coach ridicules their QB on national television. How did they win 7? It’s a mystery and we have three weeks to unlock it.

Anyway, these coaches love to break down a season. In college there are three four game seasons. What happened, happened, and it’s already last year. We controlled the LOS in every loss, and if our OC weren’t autistic, we’d be 10-2, easy. On Jan. 1 he’ll either be a savant, or an idiot. Meh. I don’t think there’s a four-loss team in the country, including GT, that the elite 5 would less like to play. We will hit you, and we will play smart. (cf. 9 interceptions in a QB transition year.)

Of course, none of that is any match for S-E-C S-P-E-E-D!

Anyway, if we lose to a team that scores a rushing touchdown every other week, it’s time to drop football. This game doesn’t deserve to be played.

At least until it gets punched in the mouth.

Is the average SEC team faster than your average Big Ten team? Yes absolutely. But that only gets you so far. Especially against a team like Iowa. Listen, we’ll let you get 5-7 yards on outs and quick slants all day long. It will kill those of us watching the game. But that is part of the plan. As Bellanca has so elegantly put it, our defensive philosophy (entire game philosophy actually) is built around controlling the LOS. And we do this with only four lineman, we don’t blitz, we are in no way “exotic”. By controlling the LOS with the 4 DLs, we play a very vanilla Cover 2. You can dink and dunk underneath (your WRs will take punishment when you do though) but you cannot go deep on us. You will gain a ton of yardage, assuming your QB is not running for his life and it happens, again with only 4 rushers, but you will not beat us deep. You get to the redzone and all of a sudden, all that alleged SEC speed doesn’t do you jack sh*t, there just isn’t the room to exploit it.

One thing that hasn’t been mentioned is why our DTs are rather undersized. There has been a conscious effort on the part of the coaching staff to get smaller and faster the past few years, especially on the D line. Call it the anti-spread, but this D is built around contain and control, we’ll give up a few pounds along the line, but we will out hustle and out-execute you. When we do, we win. Simple as that. You will NOT run between the tackles on us. Much better rushing teams have tried, and failed. We encourage you to do so, however, as it is the easiest way to 3-and-out.

Also, are CBs do not have all-world speed, but they are much faster than you think. And they hit. HARD. You do not get many yards after contact with one of our DBs. That said, tackling has been one of our D’s weaknesses this year, especially amongst the linebacking corps. Early on, we were trying way too much arm-tackling/strip attempts, with bad results. Fortunately, this has been an area of improvement as the season progressed and less of a problem now (though not entirely gone).

Which brings us to our one, fundamental, weak-link: the starting strong safety, Brett Greenwood. He is the reason stereotypes about Midwestern football players exist. He plays with a lot of “intensity” and a whole host of other adjectives used to describe the athletically-challenged. Around the friendly confines of BHGP, a defensive “EPIC FAIL” is known as an “EPIC GREENWOOD”, as he is usually “involved” in the play that blows up on us. If your offensive coordinator is smart, he will target Greenwood exclusively all day long.

In short, unless your QB turns into the second-coming of Derrick Williams, it will be a long day for your offense.

The Hawkeyes for bandwith ;) I jest. This is pretty good shit.