INPIYL2I Is Talking A Good Game

NOTE: Be sure to get your picks in for the BHGP College Pick 'Em if you haven't already.  Yahoo! has updated the spreads since earlier this week.

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It's Ricky Stanzi's America; we all just live in it.  What better way to kick off the weekend than this?

(TFJ to commenter The Final Gun and the video's creator, iowahawk19)

O'Keefe and Parker: Uncensored.  Iowa's coordinators speak to the media only sparingly, so it's usually interesting to hear what they have to say (and try to ignore the typos) when they do answer questions.  KOK offered compliments for Ricky Stanzi and Brett Morse, discussed the progression of The Polish Hat, and discussed how much of Iowa's offense is scripted; go give it a read.  Meanwhile, with Norm still laid up, Iowa's other defensive Parker (Phil), fielded the defensive questions.  Aside from praising newcomers like Micah Hyde and James Morris and harping on tackling and leverage as areas of improvement, he also answered a few questions about Iowa's next opponent:

Q.  Have you had to defend anybody like [Denard Robinson] the last couple years?

PHIL PARKER:  Randle El from Indiana but that’s been a while.  We’re trying to figure out who was our scout team quarterback at that time.  That’s what we’re trying to look for right now.  That’s something we’re going to have to figure out who we’re going to get back there to simulate what he does with the ball, and I don’t think we    he can just go drop a guy out of the team to do that.  He’s a pretty good, special player.

Q.  Would you have seen anybody like him from Randle El you’re saying?

PHIL PARKER:  I think he’s been probably the quarterback at that position that can run the ball a little bit and throw the ball.  I remember us putting the defense in and putting Bob Sanders in and putting him on there, tracking Randall El, and I think Bob came up with about 25 tackles that game.  But we don’t have Bob Sanders, so we’ll do with what we have.

EEEEEE OH GOD NOT RANDLE EL.  Before James Hardy and Kellen Lewis gave us reason to fear and loathe the Hoosiers, Antwaan Randle El made a career out of torturing Iowa defenses at the turn of the last decade.  My memory is still scarred by the sight of him shredding Iowa in 1999, 2000, and 2001.  If Robinson is the second coming of Randle El... gulp.  On the other hand, those Iowa defenses didn't have Clayborn, Ballard, et al, either.  That's what I'll tell myself for the next week anyway.

Caring creepily.  Not to be outdone by their hoopyball compadres this week, the football team landed its 15th recruit, Texas LB Melvin Spears.  Spears was a universal 3* guy from the recruitniks at Rivals, Scout, and ESPN, and while he had a fairly uninspiring collection of offers from mid-majors (Arkansas State, SMU, Minnesota), we should hardly need reminding of Iowa's past success with guys like that.  Mike Daniels' only other offer was Villanova, after all.  Also, Spears has a goddamn great name for a linebacker, so we've got that going for us.

Victory over the bye?  Sure, no problem.  Victory after the bye?  Well... Per the always sunny Mike Hlas, Iowa's record under Ferentz after bye weeks:

1999 – at Michigan State   L 49-3

2000 - Western Michigan  L 27-21

2001 – Penn State  W 24-18

2003 – at Ohio State  L 19-10

2004 – Ohio State  W 33-7

2008 – at Illinois  L 27-24

That’s a 2-4 record for a program that is 86-56 under Ferentz.

Mind you, the '99 and '00 teams were so bad the bye weeks probably had little to do with their respective failures.  Likewise, winning at the 'shoe in 2003 would have been a difficult task regardless of the presence of a bye week.  And as far as the '08 Illinois game, well as we noted yesterday, Iowa was snakebitten in close games until that magical game against Penn State.  As Hlas notes, it's just data -- it doesn't mean anything.  But in the boredom that is the bye week, we cling to any morsel of information we can get.

Crazy is as crazy does.  Remember that other all-conference defensive end Iowa had in the Ferentz era, back in the days before Adrian Clayborn?  His name was Matt Roth and he was a fucking loon.  It's nice to see that even now, six years into his career in the No Fun League, Roth remains as nuts as ever:

Browns tight end Evan Moore(notes) spent part of his summer getting beat up daily by Roth in camp. Moore was getting abused so badly during contact drills and got so frustrated that he couldn’t block Roth that he finally asked his teammate for some advice.

"I asked him, ‘What am I doing wrong? I can’t block you,"’ Moore said. "He said, ‘No tight end will ever block me. You’re not doing anything wrong. It’s just not going to happen.’ So I said, ‘Well, you can’t guard me, so I guess we’re even."’

Roth has a unique coverage style. It’s called bump and can’t run.

"My whole philosophy is if I can knock them on the ground, I don’t got to cover them," he said. "It makes my job easier."

As much as we love the current defensive line (and oh we do), we'd be lying if we said we didn't miss the unhinged insanity of Roth just a little.  Sure, he was basically guaranteed a personal foul penalty a game, but he ate up so many Big Ten quarterbacks and did it with so much style that we can forgive a flag here and there.  If BHGP had existed six years, it's pretty much a lock that The Matt Roth Chronicles would have torn your face off on a regular basis.

POSTCARDZ FROM THE EDGE:

• Our future conference mates were in action last night, kicking off the first leg of their Fuck You We're Outta This Shithole Tour 2010 in Manhattan, KS.  Led by Taylor Martinez's absurd 241 yards and four touchdowns on the ground, Big Red laid waste to Kansas State, 48-13.  No confirmation that they also took their women and children and poisoned their wells and salted the fields on their way out of town.
• Doc breaks down the travel budgets for Iowa (and a slew of other Big Ten teams); strangest detail?  OUR MOST HATED RIVAL Purdue sometimes drives to games and then flies home.  What a bunch of fucking weirdos. 
• Hey, people are actually buying tickets to Iowa hoopyball again.