It's working, you guys!: On Wednesday evening, SMA posited that Iowa fans need not be fearful of sustained success, and should instead expect it. The former is a mindset that usually manifests itself around this time of the year, when Hawkeye fans often admit that they'd rather see the Hawkeyes unranked to start the year--despite the fact that it would be awfully hard for a program to sustain success while starting every season unranked. Embrace the expectations, people! And lo and behold, just 36 hours or so later, those expectations are already in place. It's true! Allow us, please, to bring these exhibits into evidence:

EXHIBIT A: The Daily Iowan puts out an article called Football Four to Watch: Most important players (then lists six players, but whatever), culminating in SPOILER ALERT Ricky Stanzi. But while nobody's seriously going to argue that Stanzi's not important to the team's success, the DI frames the debate as such:

But if the Hawkeyes want to truly take that "next step" and win a Big Ten championship and possibly a BCS national championship game berth, the Mentor, Ohio, native will need to elevate his play to the level we all know he's capable of. It may sound greedy, but Stanzi has to be more than simply a "winner."

[...] We know No. 12 has a big arm, and he's shown before that he's capable of making any throw he needs to.

But in his redshirt senior season, it's time he delivers those throws at a higher volume. If Stanzi can do that, he will truly be the "Manzi."

More importantly, Iowa may go undefeated.

We're going to ignore "Stanzi is the Manzi" getting ripped off without attribution and just commend author Jordan Garretson for turning up the heat. Is it reasonable? Good lord, no. That's the whole point.

EXHIBIT B: As commenter Zulu notes in the FanPosts, he just had his buddy in Vegas lay down a hundy on Iowa winning the BCS title this season. The odds? 8-to-1! Now, is it possible that either the casino or Zulu's buddy is absolutely bilking Zulu in this instance? Yes, it's possible. Would we take those odds? No way. BUT! The expectations are in place now, and it's up to Iowa to rise to said challenge. 

And that's just in the last couple days! At this rate, by the end of next week, Ferentz will have already been fired for not winning a title yet. We can probably get Nick Saban to replace KF, right?

SHORT ROUNDZ:

The UI athletic department put together a 5-minute montage of Kirk Ferentz's career for this weekend's Golden Harvest banquet. It's not embeddable, but you can watch on Engy's. Lots of highlights from alternate angles. Eeeee football.

The Only Colors notices that it's been 1,000 days since Michigan beat State in football or men's basketball. Catty? Yes, of course. Deliciously catty.

Kevin Coble will not return for his senior year, following complications from his recovery from a lis-franc fracture in his foot. Sippin On Purple is crestfallen, and we can't even bring ourselves to mock them, since Coble's a good guy and all.

And finally, this guy does it and he gets a TV show; I do it and now I'm banned from like every grocery store: