Justice Is Served

Shonn Greene honored as Best Running Back in the nation by winning the Doak Walker Award. Well done Greene. Thank you for putting together the best season by an Iowa back in history...

I'm back

Alright bitches, i'm back and better than ever. Been traveling a lot lately, and as a result my writing on this site has been infrequent. And by infrequent, i mean non-existent. 

Anyway, i'm back now and ready to write. The Suns and Coyotes are starting up, the baseball off-season is in full swing, and the college football season is getting to the good part. I'll be back in the following days with write-ups about all of them. For now, i'll leave you with this image from the Iowa-Penn St. game i was at this weekend:

Iowa 24, Penn St. 23. That's what i'm talking about. On Iowa!

End Of An Era

Those of you who follow this blog know i'm a die-hard Hawkeye and try to keep my eye on what's going on back in IC. Today, an Iowa City icon has come to an end.

The Press Citizen is reporting that famed Hawkeye football tailgating spot Olive Court has been sold and will not be open this fall, or ever again, for tailgaters.

According to the report the lot has been sold to a developer who plans to build condo's on the site. While long-rumored and considered inevitable the last few years, it's still a shock to see a place i spent many, many drunken saturday mornings at closed up forever.

With the building up of the Fieldhouse parking lot, and other lots near the stadium having been designated alcohol-free long ago, the places for tailgating close to the stadium are dwindling for Hawkeye Fans. The Dental lot is still there (i believe?), but is either reserved or costs a boatload. I have a feeling the Finkbine lots will be where the party moves, but at this point it's hard to tell.

I only wonder what this will do to all the vendors along Melrose, including the 'Big-Ass Turkey Legs!' guy.

R.I.P. Olive Court. You will be missed.

Iowa Hawkeye News

Interesting story over at Hugging Harold Reynolds, via the Daily Iowan, about the alleged sexual assault by members of the Hawkeye Football team from about six months ago. Not a good sign, nor is the state of the Hawkeye football team in general the last few years. Captain Kirk needs to get control of his program back, and quick.

Because i'm lazy, i haven't put any thoughts about last weekend's NFL draft down here. The Vikings made a huge trade for Defensive End Jared Allen before the draft, and as a result didn't have many draft choices (just 5 total). As a result, i wasn't nearly as excited as i was last year when the drafted Purple Jesus at No. 7.

Anyway, there's a decent run-down of Hawkeye's that got drafted or signed over at BHGP. As always, it's a great site that's way funnier and way more knowledgeable than me...

21st National Title

Before the individual NCAA Championship matches even begin, the University of Iowa has already staked claim to the team title, courtesy of dominance throughout the tournament.

With the individual championship matches set to begin in just a few minutes, here's a look at how some of the other Iowa wrestlers did:

Jay Borschel (Soph - 174) finished third.

Matt Fields (Senior - Hwt) finished fifth.

Charlie Falck (Junior - 125) finished sixth.

Phillip Keddy (Soph - 184) finished sixth.

Those matches were all decided earlier today in the consolation brackets. Tonight in the title matches Iowa has three wrestlers competing:

Joe Slaton (Soph - 133) is seeking his first National Title. (Update: Slaton was pinned in the first round and finished second)

Brent Metcalf (Soph - 149) is seeking his first National Title. (Update: Metcalf was taken down twice early and fell behind 4-1, then stormed back and won 14-8 to win his first National Championship)

Mark Perry (Senior - 165) is looking to defend his National Title. (Update: And he did it! Perry wins 5-2 to defend his Championship!)

With their first team title since 2000 already locked up, the Iowa team has reclaimed it's spot atop the standings. Watching on tv, you can see quite a bit of support in the stands in St. Louis for the Hawkeyes, as well as the announcers saying repeatedly that the buzz is back about the program. Coach Tom Brands has done a great job returning the Hawkeyes to a Championship caliber team.

Iowa Wrestling

For those of you who don't know (see: everyone reading this), the NCAA Wrestling Championships are this weekend in St. Louis. And, again for those of you who don't know (again, see: everyone reading this), my Iowa Hawkeyes are the odds-on favorite to win this year. This is significant for two reasons:

One, the Hawkeyes are back to their dominating ways, returning to the form they held when Dan Gable was the coach from 1976 to 1997. Coach Tom Brands returned to Iowa last year, and in just two years returned Iowa to the Championship form they had slipped from under former coach Jim Zalesky.

Two, because of this story, about 5 kids who have followed Coach Brands from Va. Tech to Iowa just to wrestle with him. It's a great story and incredibly shady what Va. Tech did.

Most of you will never understand how big wrestling is in the state of Iowa. Former coach Dan Gable is a legend in Iowa, having led the Hawkeyes to 15 National Titles and 21 Big Ten Championships in 21 years, a run unparalleled in any other sport. The Iowa dominance was a thing of state pride; as a result the sport of wrestling became huge in high schools and below in the state. It became a self-fulfilling prophecy of sorts; the dominance of the U. of Iowa led to all the best wrestlers wanting to wrestle here, many staying in Iowa after their collegiate career and coaching at high schools around the state, forming the next generation of great wrestlers.

When Gable left the program, it slipped just a tad, ultimately resulting in the best wrestler in collegiate history, Cael Sanderson, going to Iowa State and helping their already strong program, where he is currently the head coach. When Brands, who along with his brother Terry were great wrestlers at Iowa, returned to coach the Hawkeyes he brought Gable back as an assistant. Together the two have quickly returned Iowa to national prominence, culminating in a 21-1 dual record this year and Championships in both the Midlands Championships and the Big Ten Tournament.

This weekend they will attempt to score the trifecta, and claim their first National Championship since 2000.

Big Ten Tourney

I could write about the atrocity that is the Big Ten Tournament, or about how Iowa bowed out ever so (not) gracefully on the first day, but why would i do that when it is so eloquently recapped here.

It's long been known this season that the Big Ten was down, but jesus i didn't realize it was this bad. Here's a tip to all you bettors out there- No matter what Big Ten teams make the tourney, bet against all of them, with the possible exception of Wisconsin. They play such a slow-down style that it keeps them in games with anyone. In their case, always bet the under.

H/T to BHGP

Jake Christensen

This post over at Black Heart Gold Pants is pretty mean, yet i find it wildly hilarious.

And yeah, i've been linking over to BHGP a lot lately, but they're a way better source for Hawkeye news and crude humor than i am. What can i say, i'm lazy.

State Of The Hawkeye Football Team

Yes, i realize this is two posts in a row about the Iowa football team, but all things considered i don't write about them all that much. And, you know, this is my blog, so F off.

Outgoing senior running back Albert Young, who has been around the program for seemingly forever due to red-shirting, had some choice words about the program to the Des Moines Register:

"Things definitely have gotten out of hand. There is no way around it," Young said. "And it started happening even before the season."

He goes on to say it's a problem all over the country, not just at Iowa, but definitely did not blame the coaches:

"The coaches preach the right things. There is no reason players shouldn't know right from wrong, so if people are blaming the coaches or the university - that's just not right," Young said. "I am not going to name names, but I have seen guys act one way on their recruiting visit, then act a whole other way once they get here and start school. How can you predict that? You can't. It is not only happening at Iowa. I am sure it is happening all over the country."

It's an interesting insight, coming from someone who has been on the inside of the program for the last five years. It's encouraging that he doesn't blame the coaches, but it's still not exactly a stunning recommendation of the program. If nothing else, it's a bit frustrating that we keep getting stuck with 'bad' apples...

Hat tip to Black Heart Gold Pants, again, for the find...

Doug E. Fresh Is A Moron

For those of you who don't know who that is in the above picture, it is Dominique Douglas. He was a stud true freshman receiver with the Hawkeye's last year. Unfortunately, as you can see in the above picture, he had other, umm, priorities, than playing football, and got kicked off the team. He's immensely talented, but also apparently a retard. More pictures and story over at Black Heart Gold Pants...

Iowa's Justin Johnson Goes Nuts

In the last 1:49 of Iowa's game against Indiana, Iowa' Justin Johnson goes off, hitting 6 treys, including a 40-foot bank shot.

Iowa Hawkeye Basketball

Again, i try not to be homerific on this blog, but this warrants mentioning. My Iowa Hawkeye men's basketball team played a game tonight against Southeastern Louisiana. Despite their recent struggles, the Hawkeyes won the game. But there is an interesting story within the game tonight.

Iowa went 13 minutes in the first half without scoring a point. 13 minutes! They went up 5-0 45 seconds into the game, and didn't score again until there was 6 and a half minutes left in the half. 13 minutes! They took 1/3 of the game off! And still won!

I'm not sure which is worse, that they took 1/3 of the game off, or that they still won...

Iowa Bball

I try not to be too much of a homer, and write excessively about the Minnesota Vikings or Iowa Hawkeyes. This post, however, is all about the Hawkeyes basketball team...

In 1999, i started college at the University of Iowa. Iowa had just hired new coaches for both its football and men's basketball teams. In football, they hired Kirk Ferentz, who at the time, was an unpopular hire. Hawkeye nation wanted Bob Stoops (who turned out to be a pretty good coach for Oklahoma). They got Ferentz, who in retrospect turned out to be a pretty good coach. Despite the last two years struggles by the football team, Captain Kirk has put together quite probably the greatest run by an Iowa football team ever.

On the flip side, the basketball team hired Steve Alford, a young up and comer fresh off a Sweet 16 run with Southwest Missouri State. Alford was considered one of the hot coaching prospects in the country, and got a lot of looks from big programs. When Iowa landed him, it was considered a big-time hire.

I remember sitting in the student section at an Iowa football game, in the middle of a 1-10 first season under Ferentz, when they brought out Alford for an interview on the sideline right in front of the student section. He received one of the biggest and longest standing ovations i've ever seen, long before he had ever coached a game. When he opened that season later in the month with a win over defending national champion UConn, Alford was the toast of the town. It was a short lived toast.

7 years later, despite seeing some of the best talent wonder through Iowa City since the BJ Armstrong, Roy Marble, and Ed Horton days, the Hawkeye basketball team was a perennial underachiever. The final straw, despite Alford lasting one more year, may have come in the 2005-2006 season when a senior-laden team, which had played well enough throughout the season to garner a #3 seed in the NCAA Tournament, lost in the first round on a last second shot to Northwestern State.

Those Iowa teams, along with off the court troubles (Pierre Pierce anyone?), were known for one thing by anyone who watched them consistently: Bad coaching. Whether it be bad defensive positioning, bad offensive sets, or lack of discipline, Alford was never known as a good in-game coach.

And nothing personified this better than their inability to break a press. I had season tickets for two years while I was in college, watched them religiously the other three years i lived in Iowa City, and watched them sporadically after i moved away. By that point, I couldn't bear to watch them anymore. Any team that played the Hawkeyes needed to have only one blueprint for success: Play a full-court press. It did not matter if the Iowa team had four senior starters or three freshman starters, under Alford they had a complete inability to break a press. Anytime a team played a press, Iowa looked like a bunch of 4th graders. Watching it made me want to ram my head into a wall; it shouldn't be that hard. Spread the floor, find the open man, advance the ball. It seems like a simple concept.

Yet no matter how many times or how many years other teams did this to Iowa, they never seemed to learn. After a while, you could only point to one thing: Bad coaching. Alford came in to Iowa as a supposed renown recruiter, but his coaching was suspect at best. When he feebly left Iowa to go to New Mexico (New Mexico!), Alford was known as a so-so recruiter and a bad coach.

That leads me to new Iowa coach Todd Lickliter. Lickliter's reputation was as a tough defensive coach and systematic offensive scheme, albeit with a fair amount of three-pointers launched. Through 4 games this year (3 of which i've been able to watch, thanks to the wonder that is the Big Ten Network), Lickliter's Iowa's teams have been just that: Tough defensively, systematic offensively, and with a propensity to shoot a fair amount of 3's. They haven't allowed a team to reach 50 points yet, but they haven't exactly been lighting up the scoreboard themselves.

But until tonight, i still wasn't sure about Lickliter's ability to coach. That is, until late in the 2nd half against U. of Maryland Eastern Shore, when that team started pressing Iowa because they were behind. Faced with a full-court press, this year's Iowa team did something i have not seen since the Tom Davis years: They broke it with ease. Not only did they break the press, but they broke it quickly, they broke it with good spacing, they broke it with sharp passes, and they broke it so well it led to layups and dunks. And as i watched, all i could think about was how well-coached this team looked.

I don't know how well this Iowa team will do. They are very young, and very green. They are playing in what is looking to be a very tough Big Ten Conference this year. And they are playing short-handed at the moment with their starting point guard Tony Freeman out with a broken wrist for the next month. But from what i have seen so far this year, the future looks bright. And unlike 8 years ago, when that future looked bright because of good players, this time it looks bright because of good coaching.

And i think that sets up the program for more success...

Sayonara

I try not to be too much of a homer on this blog (it doesn't always work), but i don't think i talk about iowa too much. This entry will be about iowa, iowa football to be specific. So if that doesn't interest you, move on. No hard feelings...

Why, when you are known as a power running team, known for being physical and playing smash mouth football, when you had success just last week against a ranked team running the ball, when your top 6 receivers to start the year are all out, when your quarterback is a sophomore first-year starter, when your two running backs are both seniors, WHY IN THE HELL WOULD YOU PASS 70% OF YOUR DOWNS ON THE ROAD AGAINST A GOOD TEAM?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?

I do not understand Iowa's play-calling or coaching anymore, nor have i really the last two years. We have gone away from our identity, and consequently have lost too many games in the last two years. Head Coach Kirk Ferentz has done enough over the years to make me trust him, but i am on the brink of starting to question him. For now, i seriously question the Offensive Coordinator, Ken O'Keefe. I know he has been there all along and he is one of Ferentz's guys, but he has to go. He has to go. He has made some terrible, terrible play-calling decisions, not the least of which cost the Hawkeye's in the Alamo Bowl last year (Behind by two, 4 minutes to go, in Texas territory, running the ball down their throats, and we try a trick play that is stuffed for an 11 yard loss. I will never get over this call).

I love iowa football, and i love Kirk Ferentz. But it may be time for a shake-up with some of his coaching staff...

College Football Week In Review

Wow, wow, wow. I now look like a complete moron, thanks to Michigan's total and utter collapse. And make no mistake, that's exactly what it was. What a disaster, not only for Michigan (who promptly dropped from a #5 ranking to out of the Top 25), but also for the Big 10. Thanks for making us look weak Michigan, the rest of the Big 10 thanks you. Worthless...

As for the rest of the country? Loved Notre Dame getting blown out. I didn't talk about them in my previews because their football team isn't a part of any conference (don't even get me started), but what a joke. They are going to be TERRIBLE. Three different QB's in the first game? And now they announce the freshman Jimmy Clausen as the starter? Notre Dame will be lucky to win 5 games this year. Mark it down. This week in Happy Valley against Penn State? Another blow out. I can't tell you how much i despise the Irish...

Cal looked good beating Tennessee, avenging their dismantling last year. I was not impressed by Auburn, who was taken to the wire by Kansas State. K-State is on the rise again (I love their coach Ron Prince), but come on. Auburn should have won that game by at least 20. I didn't get to see a whole lot of games, because i was tailgating at and attending the Iowa-NIU game, in which my alma mater rolled to a dominating 16-3 win.

On another note, the Big 12 never fails to disappoint. This week, it was the joke of a team they call the Iowa St. Cyclones. The CyClowns somehow managed to lose to college football powerhouse Kent St. By 9 points. At home. Welcome to LAmes Gene Chizik, hope you enjoy your stay. Good luck putting together a winning program.

Most of my League MVP picks looked good this week, with the obvious exception of Michigan's offense. The Steve Slaton/Pat White combo went for a combined 206 yards rushing and 5TD's. White also threw for 192 yards on just 18 attempts. McFadden from Arkansas, my Heisman favorite, went for 151 yards on 24 carries and one TD, a rather pedestrian effort (his backup also went for 129 yards). John David Booty was 21-32 for 206 yards, with 3 TD's and 1 INT. McCoy from Texas was 22-33 for 223 yards, with 2 TD's and 2 INT's, another pedestrian effort. One Heisman hopeful i didn't mention is Colt Brennan from Hawaii, who was 34-40 for 416 yards, with 6 TD's and no INT's. Oh, and that was only in the first half. That guy is kinda good...

Week 2 Preview:
Game of the week is LSU-Va. Tech. An early match up of top-ten teams, i love this in college football. If you're supposed to be good, i want to see you play some good teams out of conference, not some patsies like Appalachian St. Ha ha ha, sorry Michigan fans, couldn't resist. By the way, i think it's funny, but i'm still pissed you're making the Big 10 look bad. LSU should take this game, but i think it will be close.

I'm also interested to see Miami at Oklahoma. Miami is not ranked, but always dangerous. Oklahoma is at home, but their quarterback is untested, and if the Hurricanes can get pressure on him early and often, this could be a game. Look also for South Carolina to put up a good fight at Georgia. I'm sure Spurrier has a few trick plays up his sleeve looking for an early season upset.

On a finishing note, Iowa plays Syracuse in a late game (7pm Iowa time, 5pm AZ time), and looks to play better against them than they did last year when they escaped with a win in overtime after a goal-line stand. Though i wasn't impressed with Iowa's passing game last week, their defense and running game was stout, with both Albert Young and Damien Sims going over 100 yards. That will be enough for the Hawkeyes to overcome a weak Syracuse team, while their passing game will have another week to come together and get precise. On Iowa!

Worthless...

Jesus, what a terrible game i went to in Wrigley Field between the Cubs and Astros. I did still manage to have some fun though so don't worry. Anyway, tomorrow is the Iowa-NIU game in Soldier Field. You all have fun now, and believe i will be watching the game unfold from the nosebleed section. On Iowa!

Two Days!

Only two days remain until the return of every one's favorite past time, football! Football that counts! In four games, there are four Top 25 teams kicking off, including Va. Tech, Louisville, and Rutgers. For those three, the race to their conference and possible National title hopes begin. None of the four games look to be difficult for the ranked teams, but you never know. That's why i love college football so much. Screw a playoff, it's a 14 week playoff, with every game counting!

I'll be back either today or tomorrow with my final two conference previews on the SEC and Big 10. After that, i'm off to Chicago again for opening weekend of the Iowa Hawkeyes! It's Hawkeye weekend in Chicago, with Cubs game on Friday (BJ Armstrong singing Take Me Out To The Ballgame) and the Iowa-NIU game on Saturday at Soldier Field. Should be a drunken fantastic time. Catch you all later!