Top Ten Reasons Iowa Will Lose to Arkansas State

[Bumped. Outstanding, sir.--OPS]

10. Shut Your Trap. Next up for the Hawkeyes is Arkansas State, an underrated and under-the-radar team scheduled ominously between two tough conference foes. It's your classic trap game. "I believe in that stuff. I think that's very real," said Ferentz on the idea of a trap game. To Ferentz's chagrin, by mid-week most of the players were proving to be trap skeptics as the vast majority ceased going to practice. When asked why so many absences on the practice field, Pat Angerer said, "Ark State's just Northern Iowa with a worse place kicker, so what's the big deal?" Ricky Stanzi also attempted to tamp down the trap talk, "Actually the player are just trying to focus on our trip to the Rose Bowl, that's gonna be so much fun, and all these questions about Arkansas State only detracts from that." 

9. Jahbari Almighty. "Ark" State running back Jahbari McLennan is a devout man of God and as everyone knows, God hates Iowa---that gay marriage thing being the last straw. McLennan has predicted that The Creator will bless him to the tune of 200+ yards from scrimmage, and consign Iowa to endless torment in a lake of fire.

8. Aggie-nizing. Last year Arkansas State took their radical, ultra-progressive run-based spread offense into hostile Kyle Field in College Station (home of the famed 12th man, no less) and applied a beat down to a good Texas A&M team. So humiliating was the loss for A&M they have since adopted the spread offense for themselves. After Iowa loses to Arkansas State this Saturday expect Iowa to scrap this guy and make a huge play for this guy. 

7. I Don't Believe What I Just Saw! Nebraska faced off against Arkansas State in week two of this season and scratched out a hard fought, down-to-the-wire win with a final score that suggests a more lopsided game than it really was...ignore the stats that show a sizeable yardage advantage for Nebraska too, it just doesn't tell the whole story. The Nebraska game was a lot closer than it looked, even though it looked very much like a blowout. Okay...let's move on.

6. FCS Dominance. Each year there are Football Championship Subdivision (formerly Division I-AA) teams who are paid hefty sums to travel and play teams of the Football Bowl Subdivision (formerly Division I-A).  It used to be that these games were considered warm-up games for the FBS team. Well, no more. Look no further than Iowa's scare in week one against UNI to see that FCS teams play to win and have the horses to do it. And of course everyone recalls Appalachian... Oh, crap! Okay, I just realized that Arkansas State is an FBS school, but they're not a BCS school. I can't keep track of this. Okay, nevermind.

5. Spread the Wealth. No one runs the spread with any more teamwork, cooperation and, er, benevolence than Arkansas State. They have a stable of running backs that in addition to most being social work majors, are 1000-yard capable. The look that will undoubtedly give Iowa fits is their "United Way" formation, where six running backs line up in the backfield. Coach Steve Roberts designed the formation at the player's request so that everyone could come together for a common purpose, and make a real difference in the community.

4. Manos De Piedra. Not since Roberto Duran played flanker at Iowa in the early 1970s have we seen so many dropped passes. DJK has suddenly become Limas Sweed with a fedora. Colin Sandeman has decided that every game is an audition for "America's Got Talent" by spicing up his drops with scissor kicks and pirouettes. Marvin McNutt, meanwhile, has managed to avoid the dropped pass epidemic altogether, by running routes he makes up in his head just prior to the snap. Watching our receivers these days is a lot like watching Shonn Greene do passing drills at the NFL combine...droptastic.

3. Lack of Fan Support. There are apparently numerous tickets still available for this game and one has to wonder if anyone will even show up and support the Hawkeyes and help them maintain a home field advantage. To stimulate fan interest for the Arkansas State game, Iowa Athletic Director Gary Barta had considered using a "Free Iowa Basketball Tickets" promotion where the first 70,585 in attendance would receive four free tickets to the game of their choice for the upcoming Hawkeye basketball season. However, that promotion was passed over after a study revealed you can't even give Iowa basketball tickets away.

2. Y2009K. Not since 12:01am of 2000 have we seen these kinds of widespread computer malfunctions in America. In a chilling reminder of Y2K-type computer error, two national college football computer polls ranked Iowa the best team in the nation this past week. Programmers for both polls were aghast when on Sunday morning their computer readouts revealed the Hawkeyes number one. Said Steve Urkel of the Colley Matrix poll, "it was an unfortunate oversight that will be corrected. As I speak we are reformulating our algorithms to properly reflect more poorly on those teams that earn double digit road wins within conference, played at night, broadcast in primetime against highly ranked teams from Pennsylvania that wear white." Urkel was quick to defend computer rankings though, "Understand that human voters have built-in biases, conflicts of interests or just an overall lack of knowledge whereas a computer is rigorously impartial, beholden to no interest group, and able to draw upon all the crucial statistical data that yields a fair, consistent, and credible outcome. But when we saw Iowa on top we were like, dude."

1. Keenan Davis. Need I say more?