First of all, I would like to apologize for my delay. I’m fully aware that this column was supposed to be published almost three weeks ago, but honestly I needed a little break (mentally and emotionally) before I felt comfortable finishing this season. It turns out that the world hasn’t stopped waiting for me, and there have been some pretty big changes since Black Friday, but still, I’m not entirely sure what, if anything, to say about it. I hate this time of year, mostly because I seem to get massive writer’s block during this time between the end of the regular season and the bowl game. Also, things get a little confusing here, so I apologize in advance and won’t be offended if you check out early.

Invoice

I’ve spent a lot of time over the last three weeks trying to figure out what to write about for this year’s penultimate issue of Cheap Seats. I have had many conversations with my son, GlendaleHawkJr. I have made many good suggestions, but none of them resonated with me.

However, I think I’ve narrowed down the reason for this season’s blip: real, actual disappointment. For the first time in a long time, I actually feel like this team is significantly underperforming. Certainly there were big positives and a lot of upside this season, but considering what they’ve accomplished over the last two seasons (three, actually) with almost zero offense, I can see this team improving tremendously on one side of the ball The fact that reliable defense and special teams took a step back was shocking and I don’t think I’ve really understood that until the last week or so.

Watching the Nebraska game on Black Friday brought back a lot of not-so-great memories/feelings from the last two seasons and took me out of the rhythm I had developed this fall (even when we lost). Watching a dynamic (at least by Iowa’s standards) offense turn back into the pumpkin that Deacon Hill/Spencer Petras struggled with in their last few games was almost too much for my brain/heart to handle. Thank God for KJ2, otherwise I might have been lost forever.

Let me be clear: 8-4 is not a bad season, this team didn’t have a bad season, they had a very Kirk Ferentz-esque season. They dropped (at least) two games they had no business losing (pick two from Iowa St., MSU or UCLA) and realistically had a chance to win all but one game they played this season , even if Kirk refused to bench Cade. At its happiest, Iowa is 11-1 (there’s no way they beat OSU) and is hosting a first-round playoff game this week, and that’s not all that hard to imagine. But no, Cade throws a terrible INT and Kirk gets a terrible delay of game penalty and we lose to the Clowns. The defense doesn’t get off the bus, and MSU embarrasses us in East Lansing, and we let UCLA bully us in the Rose Bowl like it’s January 1, 1986 all over again (minus all of our star RB’s blunders). There’s no good reason for Iowa to cancel these games, but now we’re back on the road to Nashville (at least CID fans can get direct flights there).

So yeah, I feel disappointed, and I’m tired of feeling that way when it comes to this team. For the past few years, I’ve tried as an Iowa fan (I know, I’ve been preaching to the choir), but this should be the year that maybe, just maybe, we combine a decent offense with our otherworldly defense and special teams And yet, Iowa isn’t “the fake ID of college football” (I’m still mad at Cowherd for that). But once again, this team (or perhaps this coaching staff) finds a way to game plan their way into losses and shackle themselves with crazy personnel decisions. That’s probably the life of an Iowa fan, the disappointment of a rage hunter.

That being said, I cannot leave this team, this school, even this coaching staff, and I will definitely be leaving on December 30th. Watch what this team looks like without a superstar RB to put the team back on his side. Hopefully we can get some inspiration between now and 2025, no matter the outcome, because I know I could use some.

Review

I’ve been sitting on this post for almost a month now. Not literally, I didn’t write it a month ago just to leave it in the editor, it just took me almost that long to actually decide what to say in the penultimate version of this column for 2024 I want to, and I don’t. I’m completely sure I even know that as I write this.

What I can say is that, perhaps for the first time, I’m truly beginning to understand how fans of elite schools feel when their team underperforms. Listen, I’ve been disappointed by Iowa teams in the past, but I’m not sure it’s ever felt as bad as it did this season. I’ve been a Cubs fan for as long as I can remember and I’ve always told people that learning to deal with disappointment at a young age has made me a better person. The fact that I’m an Iowa fan also helped. Given the many moments of disappointment I’ve experienced in the 40-odd years of Hawkeye history, this season hurt more than any other, and that’s 100% because I forgot to have low expectations.

I’m not saying Iowa fans should have low expectations, quite the opposite. Our university (whether you are an alumnus or just a fan) has spent the last 26 years (if not the last 50) emphasizing the virtues of loyalty, stability and producing good football players and hopefully better men. I think this year, perhaps for the first time, I forgot that these players are not the couriers of my dreams and my desires, but just kids out there doing their best (and probably fighting demons and problems we don’t know about ). have or have the ability to understand something). Unfortunately, I think we’ve missed that particular catch: college football isn’t what it used to be, it’s not what I grew to love, and that’s okay, but it’s going to take a little getting used to.

If nothing else, Tim Lester’s success this season proves one thing: that Kirk Ferentz can change, and that should give us all a little hope, even if we all have no choice but to pray that it moves forward.

Uncertain future

So what can we expect in Nashville next week? Should we expect to be pushed off the field by a Mizzou team that fought its way back into the Top 25 by winning 3 of 4 after losing to Bama? Will we be forced to endure another shutout by a middling SEC team that was 1-3 against ranked teams and lost to Vanderbilt? Heck, should we expect to score at all without Kaleb Johnson in the backfield (after all, he accounted for 43% of Iowa’s yards from scrimmage this season)?

Iowa rolls into Nashville with a QB controversy, no clear RB1 (although it’s Moulton, let’s not kid ourselves) and no obvious answer as to how he’ll generate positive yards. Brendan Sullivan has shown that he can lead this team, but that his emotions may get a little overheated, which can lead to poor decisions. Jack Stratton has a live arm and seems like the right fit for Kirk Ferentz, but he lacks experience and a bowl game is a big deal for these kids (even if it doesn’t really impact the season). The two most important parts of an offensive football team are, well, uncertain, and that unsettles me.

The fact that the defense comes into this game with only one key player down is something of a miracle, and the fact that Iowa only had two players out of this game is, in my opinion, a testament to how positive Ferentz is. That players like Jay Higgins, Nick Jackson, Yahyah Black and Seb Castro (whose names will likely be called at the NFL Draft in a few months) think it’s worth the risk for them to play one more game in the black and gold Team Careers shows you what this program (and this coach) means to you. Yes, Ferentz isn’t perfect, but it’s pretty rare to be proud of pretty much any player who gets to the next level, and we should probably be a little more grateful for that than we are.

epilogue

Honestly, I have no idea what this team will look like next Monday. I’m pretty sure Sullivan will start with Moulton at RB1 and that TJ Hall will start at CB ahead of John Nestor, but I don’t know if they’ll be able to score or stop Mizzou from scoring to achieve. This is a completely different team without KJ, so I decided to see this game for what it is: a victory lap in a season where we won more games than we lost and shared the B1G West crown. Nothing that happens in Nashville can change what happened between September and December (although 9-4 feels a little better than 8-5).

No matter what happens in a week, I would like to thank the following people:

1. Kaleb Johnson – it was a thrill watching KJ2 in the Black & Gold, I can only hope he ends up in Detroit to complete that team’s transformation into the “Liowans” (I don’t actually have an NFL team, but if… he ends up in the same team as Campbell and Laporta, that could change)
2. Tim Lester – for making me believe we can have a fun offense
3. Jay Higgins – for leading this team the last two years, you won the Butkus in eliminations in my head.
4. Ethan Hurkett – It’s possible that I’ve already mentioned that my youngest son was a student of Ethan’s mother about a decade ago, that the personal connection to this team is special to him and that’s special to me. It’s also pretty great that he’s a damn good football player and I can’t wait to see what havoc he and Max Llewellyn can wreak next season.
5. GlendaleHawkJr – yes, my child, who reads every sentence that lands on this website (and gets a kick out of it when I mention it), who writes fan posts that no one reads, and who has become a fount of football knowledge over the last two years is. I’m sorry for turning you into a football fan, but I’ve had a lot of fun the last few years (even though I’ve cursed very loudly and expressed my anger at a lot of Iowa players).

I’ll be back with By The Numbers next week and there will be at least one more Cheap Seat (with a post from a special guest) before next football season, but for now I wish you a Merry Christmas/Happy Hanukkah/Festive Kwanzaa and May you all in experience several Festivus wonders in the coming days.

As always: GO HAWKS!!!