FOUR FACTORS IN REVIEW: IOWA AT MINNESOTA

I spent a good part of my day Sunday thinking about just writing a review of Too Many Cooks, rather than a review of the game. Because seriously… Would anyone even care, or notice? The parallels are there. Things start out pretty good and has the look of a classic throwback type of deal. You think, okay, this isn’t so bad. Then things go south quickly. And this crazy dude just starts killing everyone and making ridiculous catches along the sideline and in the end zone. And why? Just why does all this awful stuff keep happening? And what is this cat thing with rainbows shooting out of his hands? Then, oh, a girl and hope. She looks pretty good running and might actually get something going here, but then she fumbles just trying to run out to clock to get into halftime and is murdered with a machete. And then things get enough worse and you forget why you are even watching this, and oh god, you’re only like half way through. But you power through it and keep watching even though your lawn is covered in leaves that aren’t going to rake themselves, just because you think maybe they’ll show that blonde with the long flowing hair again (you know which one I’m talking about). And then finally it’s over and you’re left questioning how did something like this happen? How much did these people get paid to make this? Probably like $3 million or something. Fire everyone.

But I thought better of it and decided against doing that. So on to the review!

In Review

Make Leidner Pass

Oops.

Force Turnovers

Nope.

Build on Success in Run Game

Dang.

Don’t Let Cobb go Coleman/Conner/Johnson/THE ENTIRE MARYLAND OFFENSE

Oh well.

Up Next

You could throw out any stat from Saturday to try to illustrate why Iowa lost, but it was just everything. It was one of those games that happens sometimes in sports (it is happening as I'm typing this up Sunday night with the Bears-Packers game), where things snowball and get out of hand. It’s hard to look at anything that happened after midway through the second quarter and take it very seriously. Things look grim, and if Iowa hadn’t done the exact same thing to Northwestern the week prior that Minnesota did to them, then I’d have no hope left as well. But here is the deal: this loss did not impact Iowa’s chances to win the West.

Iowa now sits 3-2 in the B1G. Win out and they’ll finish 6-2 with wins over Wisconsin and Nebraska. So either of those teams would also be at best 6-2 and Iowa would have the head-to-head tiebreaker. The only way Iowa wouldn’t win the West then is if Minnesota is also 6-2 or 7-1. Minnesota’s final 3 games are against Ohio State, at Nebraska, and at Wisconsin. So, they’d have to go at least 2-1 in that stretch, which is not going to happen. Iowa at least has Illinois and then the other two at home.

It is a long shot, and it feels even longer with the way Iowa played Saturday. But if Iowa plays the way it did two Saturdays ago, then there is a chance.

So all I’m saying is, let’s not surrender all hope just yet. Win against Illinois and the West is still there for taking. Can Iowa take it? It doesn’t look like it, but I’m not giving up yet.