College football pundits and fans alike have been waiting for this day for weeks: Iowa finally fell. Northwestern topped the No. 6 Hawkeyes 17-10 on Saturday and dashed Iowa’s slim national title hopes.
With that said, there’s no excuse for a loss at home to Northwestern, just as there was no excuse for such a lousy performance against Indiana. It’s not as if the Hawkeyes were playing the world-beaters, and it’s not as if the game were over after losing Ricky Stanzi to his ankle injury. Of course, not having the leader and No. 1 quarterback matters, but 1) Iowa was still winning when he got knocked out, 2) Northwestern also lost its starter, and 3) It … was … Northwestern.
This is a Wildcats team that sputtered and coughed against Eastern Michigan, one of the five worst teams in college football, and this is a team that can’t get a score without it being wrapped in a nice gift basket. If Iowa really were a national title-caliber team, it would’ve pounded away on the mediocre Wildcats D and come up with a point over the final 50 minutes. Pat Angerer and Jeremiha Hunter did their part, combining for 27 tackles, but the offensive line that did such a great job against Indiana struggled to get the running game going and James Vandenberg was miserable in place of Stanzi. And that’s it. That’s the difference between an all-timer of a season and being among the mere mortals.
As the article points out, does anything really change here? Even if Iowa ran the table, it would have had a hard time convincing voters that it deserved to play for a national title with teams like Florida, Alabama and Texas atop the rankings. So now the Hawkeyes can fight for the Big Ten title and the chance to play in the Rose Bowl.
Obviously the outcome today was a massive disappointment. But not all is lost.
