He didn’t look the part of a Big 10 corner when he filled in for Spievey against Arizona? (memory is bad) for a full game. Yes, Spievey is as good as gone and that just flat out sucks balls for the team considering we don’t have a lot of graduating seniors. He baited the QB into throwing his way while his presence alone on the field forced a lot of plays, looks and throws to the other side of the field. Some NFL team is really going to be happy when they get Spievey on their team.

I don’t think so. These things are a joke to me anyway. When Michigan gets Warren on the first team after being shredded for a million passing yards….please.

Ryan Donahue.

Unless the voters wanted to give SOMETHING to Michigan, thus the votes for “Don’t Mess With” Zoltan Mesko. Or this could be a blatant slap-in-the-face to the Wusserines as if to say, “You all sucked so much that your punter should be your MVP.” (yeah, I see Brandon Graham and Donovan Warren there, too.)

This position, while quantifiable through yardage stats, has a lot of “intangibles.” Donahue’s per-punt average is 6th in the league but his gross total yardage is higher than Zoltan’s. However, consider Donahue’s pinning Minnesota deep last weekend, the number of times he swapped poor Iowa field position for poor opponent field position. How many times was the defense given a large field to defend because of his ability?

As an admitted Hawkeye fanatic (and homer), I feel young Ryan got hosed!

If it’s the former, some of the Iowa love makes more sense. If it’s the latter, it’s inexplicable. Dace didn’t even play half of the conference games.

I’m always in favor of positive recognition for Iowa, but too many of these nods seem like career achievement or “hey, we’ve heard of you before” type things.

As far as anyone left out… hard to bitch too much. I thought A-Rob might get a tad more love since he did finish 4th in the Big 10 in rushing despite missing a couple games. And McNutt had a bunch of TDs and the best YPC average of anyone in the Top 30 in the Big 10 in receiving… but there were receivers that put up more catches/yards, so I can kind of see why we didn’t get the nod. Although not even HM? Really?

I can’t believe he didn’t get Big Ten QB of the year! Jesus H. Christ on a popsicle stick!

I’m not that impressed with Murray’s kick-offs. He’d occasionally, with the wind at his back, put the ball in the end-zone, but generally his kick-offs come down around the 10-15 yard line. I’d like to see him land them right on the goal line. And a few of his FG attempts/extra points were downright fugly. Your going to have a few bad FG attempts/extra points a season, so I don’t fault him for those. But he needs to get his kick-offs to at least the goal line (I’d be happy if they were inside the 5 yard line).

So I guess the coaches and media missed the Wisconsin game where Bulaga got destroyed on numerous occasions. Spivery was hosed for sure.

Awards:

One, as I noted during the game Saturday, and as OPS says, where is Bulaga’s dominance? But we must be missing something. Even Griese said (I’ve never felt he wanted to compliment Iowa much for anything) that his film study before the MN game showed Iowa to have perhaps the best O-line in the Big Ten. So either Bulaga and Dace are riding Ferentz’ coattails, or they are getting honored for things they did in the past, or the coaches in particular think we were positively bad in the backfield, which unfairly diminishes the popular, tv-viewing impression of the O-line.

Two, Moeaki disappeared statistically as the season wore on, but the coaches seem to be saying, “That guy will kill you if you don’t triple-team him.” Again, it points to some core deficiency in our offense, because ordinarily we would blow people up if they overcompensated to shut down one guy.

I suppose the offensive deficiency would have to be our injury-whacked running backs, plus losing the Stanz.

OSU gets little respect in these results, but they were the dominant team in the conference. That’s unusual.

Pricing risk: the net present value of an average NFL playing career:

In regard to the three juniors, it would seem to me that unless a guy is going mid-to-high first round, where his total signing package grossly exceeds the available NCAA insurance, it makes more sense to come back (if they wish to). That’s because if you can insure yourself against a Bradford-type debacle and put a $3mm risk collar on the next season, and if the best NFL package you’re going to get is in the $3mm range, or less, it might make more sense to take another year in college in order to have a shot at moving up. Comp is overweighted to the top of the first round, obviously. For a guy like Bulaga, if he’s going late round one, but next year could reasonably target a Jake Long/Robert Gallery package, the difference could easily be 500%. Remember, comp increases nonlinearly as you move up the draft board.

Under this scenario, Bulaga leaves, Adrian stays (because he won’t go high first round), and Spievey stays.

But this is a risk-adjusted economic analysis and these guys are probably not looking at their bodies and careers as a security to be maximally priced. Also, some guys don’t like school and going to class, and some guys need to do stuff for their families. None of the three probably think that they’re going to have a 3.5 year NFL career and never see another contract; they’re kids and they’re still indestructible. I won’t put money on any of the three staying. Thanks, guys, for the special memories.

Other speculations:

Would Wegher make a good Welker? Would we introduce more action for our slots if Wegher slid outside? I would say that Wegher has better hands than DJK, though again, how would I know, I only saw him catch the ball on TV.

We have better linebackers, and more depth, than any Big Ten team, including Linebacker U. This is really pretty incredible. How many times has Iowa been able to reload, instead or rebuild, at a position like linebacker over the years?

I think the coaches decided mid-year that the easiest way to get beaten by Iowa was to throw the ball over the middle. Our takeaways plummeted on a per-game basis after that.

I think the player rankings and all-con teams show an appreciation for Iowa’s organized, consistent, team-oriented, simple schemes. In many conferences the best athletes get a higher percentage of the accolades. I think a lot of people, in looking at Pryor, said, “Great athlete. Glad he’s not on my team.” They’re saying this about the QB of the league champs. Honestly, I never thought he would be able to beat out Stanzi, and further, now I don’t think he could beat out Vandenberg. It would seem a few coaches would agree.

I assume Dace can’t get higher than the third round, because of the gruesomeness of his injuries. Remember, last year at this time he couldn’t, actually, walk very well.

So he would seem to have the most to gain by returning and proving that he can hold up as well as perform while healthy. What’s a third round pick going to get? $700, $800K? Big money, but if he’s all Big Ten again next year he’s staring at $5-$10mm, I would think.

Pro personnel directors do not go out on limbs, and drafting and paying guys with multiple page hospital records is pretty unusual.