Ranking The Iowa-Penn State Wins, No. 1: 2008

But even he was insanely happy when it went in. There were high fives all around.

And Derrick Williams was a problem. I wonder what would’ve happened if JoePa didn’t abandon the use of him late in the game?

I think even Penn State fans have accepted that Scirotto’s pass interference was a legit, routine call at this point, so there’s probably no point in fighting that battle again.

I think most of us have accepted that it gets called every time, but no one likes the fact that it gets called every time.

And Iowa is cool, but Daniel Murray can still suck it.

I still wonder how (or if) Clark recovered that ball. But all’s well that ends well.

….but I predicted before the Illinois game that Iowa would probably lose to that crap team yet beat Penn State. They’d show how they had the talent to hang with a lot of teams but still had the inconsistency to actually do it.

I felt both good and bad about getting that prediction right.

is that they all show a ton of faith in his players. It’s like he’s getting his guys pumped without even having to speak a word to them.

but man it seemed like Iowa got the lion’s share of em; especially the call on Sandeman roughing the punter.

At that point, those of us in the student section had already crammed into the bottom rows of the stands. My mom simply wouldn’t quit talking, so to get her to stop I announced that I’d just removed my pants in preparation for storming the field after the greatest win I will ever witness. To this day, she still thinks I attempted to tackle Ricky Stanzi sans pants.

That was awesome.

(We’re at the end of the top 8, I had to figure out a way to weave that in. It was one of the most devastating hits I’ve ever seen outside a video game. Absolutely unabated to the QB, full speed shot to the chest. Unreal.)

on my way to a sports bar, when the only other person in the place wearing an Iowa shirt, a woman probably in her 50s, ran out of the store right behind me. She yelled at me, “Go Hawks” and then “Cheer for my nephew, he’s number 36.” I yelled back that I would, and took my seat just in time for number 36 to give the clearout block for Greene to score the first touchdown. Seen a lot of Mr. Morse since then.

Another really big play was the third down call on the final drive when we were entering field goal range but ran two conservative running plays before. I don’t think anybody expected us to pass, but Stanzi threw a pretty rollout to DJK on the sideline for critical additional yards and a first down. To me, one of the biggest playcalls of the Ferentz era.

In the last 6 years. That fact makes me extremely depressed, but the fact THIS was the game is amazing. Was sitting 50 yard line two rows from the top.

The thing I remember most is being shocked that we were throwing out patterns to DJK with 20 seconds left to get closer. I thought for sure we would run up the middle a few times then kick it. Little did I know…

Fitting it’s #1, it was an all-around great game and was a program-changer for Iowa…

I said “Hell no, look at that mob.”. We waited for the initial banzai charge to ebb, before taking the field. We saw Stanzi run over and hug his Mom. And as the players filed off the field,Clayborn walked by me and I said to myself that’s one big dude. Little did I know.

and I’d been drinking all day. I was shivering uncontrollably, and finally after the score went to 23-14 I decided that enough was enough, and headed for home and hot cocoa. I was walking up the hill to Finkbine Commuter and suddenly cheer after cheer starts wafting out over the walls of Kinnick. At that point I mustered what little energy I had left and ran back to my car, zoomed home, and flipped on the TV just in time to see the final drive.

I coach rowing in Florida, and I was stuck at a regatta for this game. I was getting updates via my mobile phone application, which I kept having to refresh. At the time of the game, I was pissed and was starting to wonder if Farentz was the right coach for Iowa. We had too many close games, and I thought at least two of those were his fault (why put Christensen in the Pitt game at the end?). I didn’t find out till later what happened in the last 5 minutes of the game because the application seemed frozen. Then suddenly, I hit refresh again and saw we won. I wish I had seen this game.

I had several Gator friends over watching the game as well. They were desperately hoping Penn St would lose since they already had a loss to Ole Miss and were 4th or 5th at the time. That final drive we were all standing and shouting at the tv with excitement. After we scored I couldn’t stop jumping up and down and actually hit my head on the ceiling fan.

I stayed up till like 3 that night refreshing Google News reading reports of the game as they were published. I probably played the Junior Senior vid on BHGP at least 20 times.

And as we watched the final drive, we saw a coach give word to Murray that he would be kicking. Mossbrucker looks dejected, and Murray is the only one who is now kicking into the net. I had been standing the entire game, but once I saw him warming up to take it I sat down and came to terms with us losing. I had been on his back the whole year, and I remember asking my friend, “Why the hell is Murray kicking!?” I sat down through all the time outs before the kick, right until he kicked it.

Daniel Murray, I apologize.

so I got a front row seat for the final kick and the pandemonium that ensued. Without a doubt it was the most exciting game I’ve ever seen (I was at the Mich St. game last year too). And holy shit I’ve never been more cold at a game in my life. I definitely underestimated how cold it was going get that night.

The whole bend but don’t break philosophy and the toughness inside the 20’s. Spent most of the game yelling and screaming about how can you let them gain yards like that play after play. Then when they held to a field goal it was a coming to terms. Then next possesion the same thing all over again.

my living room in SoCal. The one thing I remember is the nano-second the FG was declared good my phone rang and a drunken USC fan I know slurred/screamed, “‘S ’bout time Iowa did something fuckin’ right!” And hung up.

Helping USC’s National Championship Dream was the only downside to that PSU victory (and I could certainly live with that).

which had a full catholic mass, i had already had the best man in the wedding talking shit to me about how Iowa would get killed, but what the fuck does he know, he played fucking golf in high school and was a Michigan fan, so fuck him. Anyways, I’m getting text updates from my dad and checking the play by play, then Murray connects. I proceed to go up to the head table, because I’m an usher I don’t get to sit up there, and tell the best man, Iowa won 24-23, suck an that douche bag! Needless to say I was already pretty hammered and proceeded to talk shit the rest of the night, best celebration I’ve ever had without actually seeing one snap of the game.

Once Murray hit that era-saving-field-goal, I tore down my Iowa flag and ran outside onto a busy street in Philly. I was running up and down the median holding that flag high.

When I was done and came back to the apt, all my friends were laughing at me and taking pictures. My neighbor then came out of his house and laughed at me too. He was a Penn State fan and congratulated us on the win. Classiest fans I’ve ever met.

Go Hawks or Castration

I became very angry and lit up a cigarette in the student section, not caring if they kicked me out. When Sash got that interception, my friends and all the people around us ended up in a celebration dogpile. When that kick went through one of the strangers standing next to us embraced in a bear hug with him yelling, “I don’t even know you but I love you!” that pretty much sums up the feeling in the stadium. Also, while rushing the field I somehow split my chin open and bled all over my green shirt for the “Greene out” but I couldn’t care less.

In our duck boat on a marsh off the Mississippi. What can I say? With those cold winds it was very ducky weather. Around the start of the fourth quarter was sundown and we had to pick up and head back to the ramp. Flipped off the radio resigned to the loss. As we were loading the boat on the trailer, Sash made his interception and we listened to the finale on the drive home. Beautiful day all around.

As we walked out of Memorial Stadium-ish Place, I turned to my brother-in-law and said, “We’re going to beat Penn State next week.”

It has less to do with the game, and more to do with the circumstance surrounding it. Earlier in that day, I had been reflecting on the root of my Hawkeye fanhood: my grandmother, who died from lung cancer in 1996. My father grew up in Iowa City, and his mother and brother first bought season tickets in the late 60’s. By the time I gained childhood awareness in the early 90’s, my grandma’s home was like a goddamn Applebees, but with only Hawkeye stuff. An epic trove of hella old, now-badass Iowa Hawkeye paraphernalia (there’s a fucking ‘r’ in that word?). These surroundings, in addition to attendance at Spring Games and my father’s stories of sitting through twenty years of suckass followed by Hayden and Chuck Long, had indoctrinated me in the way of the Black and Gold by about, oh, age seven.

Fast forward to game day, wherein I was a now-independent, 23-year-old AmeriCorps volunteer in the Twin Cities. The job sucked ass. The pay sucked ass. The cold sucked ass. My apartment sucked ass. Iowa games, however, were a bright spot in this bleak life, and having suited myself in the honor of three generations (get it!?) of Hawkeye fanhood through thick and thin, I was steeled to stand with the Hawks as they attempted to David Goliath.

I watched the game with my cousin’s friend bellied up to the bar at the Loop with a couple hundred other Hawkeye faithful, and we rode the roller coaster with a few million friends worldwide. We were stoked at the start, we were crushed at the fumble, we were fucking pissed off at the roughing call, we were elated at the pick, and we were one at the kick.

That night I re-learned the meaning of “rejoice.” I have never loved the Hawks more, and all I could think was: thank God my grandma was a Hawkeye fan.

Don’t have a particularly memorable story about the game: was watching in my apartment with a few friends. Got dizzy jumping up and down in celebration immediately after the Murray kick. Shotgunned three beers in a row immediately after the game. etc.

Was in such a good mood that night, and was drunk enough, that a trip to the local gentleman’s club, Paper Moon, seemed like a brilliant idea. And, in general, it was. At least until the stripper giving me a lap dance found out I was a lawyer and then proceeded to (1) ask if I could help out her mother who was facing charges for distributing meth in South Carolina and (2) proffer her “services” at a local hotel in the most blatant way I’ve ever experienced. Granted, no one has ever accused the dancers of being subtle, but at least some discretion is the game. This girl simply listed acts/services and named a price, and told me that I could get a special discount on anal because she liked it so much. I’ve never been so happy with my foresight to leave the ATM card at home as I was that evening.

But I have the game on DVD. My father, who died in June 2009, DVRed most of the 2008 season and sent the DVDs to me. The fact that this is one of the last things that my father made for me, out of love… (ah shit, the tears are coming).

I miss you Dad. Thanks.

listening to the game on my computer with headphones in because my roommate and one of our friends were watching a movie. When the field goal went through I yelled “Fuck yeah”. apparently my friends thought I was watching the movie with them and not listening to the game. They were watching 300 and it was the part where Leonidas’s wife was getting “raped”. Needless to say I got some awkward stares.

I’m kind of late to this thread, but oh well. This was my first game in Kinnick for probably five or six years—went with my dad, and of course it was amazing. The field goal kick will forever remain burned in my memory as one of those once-every-few-decades (or maybe even once-in-a-lifetime) moments, especially when it’s seen in person, and with my dad…I’ve noticed a theme from a number of posts along these lines. My dad has had season tickets for close to 20 years, and even he said that it was the best Iowa game he’s ever been to in his life. So glad to have been a part of it, and with Iowa’s current success, it may have been a truly historic turnaround moment in Iowa football.