Iowa Highway Ends (etc.)

November 18, 2011

Pat Forde on the etiquette of field-storming:

If your program doesn’t reek of tradition and arrogance and you beat a top-five team, storm the field. (See: Oklahoma State vs. Iowa State last year.)

Then later in the article:

Iowa State (24). The Dash remains a fan of Cyclones coach Paul Rhoads, who finds ways to win big games. Latest evidence, the 9-6 victory over rival Iowa on the road Sept. 8. If Iowa State can eliminate turnovers – the Cyclones are minus-15 over their last 16 games – they’ll put some other big skins on their wall this season. But the weekly competition is tough enough in the Big 12 that getting much above .500 remains elusive. Bottom line: Big 12 pretender.

I think “pretender” tags should be reserved for sorting out teams actually considered viable for the title, and a repeatedly-projected ninth out of ten isn’t going to cut it. (And it’s news to me that Pat Forde likes anything related to Iowa State.)

From the “strange football statistics” department: Northern Iowa and Iowa State both made 49-yard field goals today.

Caught at the bottom of this L.A. Times piece about Notre Dame being* in the ACC is this bit:

Are these rankings for football teams or truck stops? Ken Massey’s early season Bowl Championship Series algorithms are always good for a few laughs. His top five this week: Louisiana Monroe, Iowa State, Arkansas, Iowa and Tulsa. Yes, Massey’s rankings are used in the BCS formula, but it’s still way too early to call the cops.

Iowa State beat Iowa and Tulsa. Arkansas just lost to ULM. My guess is, Massey’s algorithms take strength of schedule and “opponents’ opponents” into account.

*Is there a philosophical/religious sense of “being” that encompasses “except only 5/8-and-bowl-game in football”?

Notre Dame going to the ACC in everything but football (SB Nation). More from ESPN.

ND to the Big 12 was a fool’s hope anyway. But a $50 million exit fee(!) means that Florida State won’t be thinking about it either.

As the first linked post says, the Irish get to have their cake and eat it too. Out of the discombobulated mess that is college sports in the 2010s, the brass ring has kept itself out of everyone’s grasp.

To refresh: Iowa State is one of 10 BCS teams after this year that Notre Dame has never played. (Wake Forest is scheduled for this year.) Virginia Tech will fall off that list eventually as the ACC mandate in Notre Dame’s schedule is phased in.

EDIT: The first ND-Wake game was last year. They also play this year.

This has “bad idea” written all over it.

Which is better: Being a relatively big fish in a medium-sized pond or a guppy in the ocean?

UNI gave Wisconsin a game. It will likely give Iowa a game. But moving up means much, much more time doing that in higher-risk body-bag games. Western Kentucky, for example, played at Nebraska last year and at Alabama this year.

Iowa is already the third-smallest state with two BCS conference teams. Iowa State’s support on that level is precarious even now, especially outside of TV revenue. It was an open question as to whether this state would continue supporting two programs in the top level of football.

UNI barely meets some requirements for being considered eligible for an upgrade. The NCAA requires an average home attendance of 15,000 two years in a row; the UNI-Dome holds 16,324. In other words, UNI needs near-sellouts just to reach the bare minimum. What happens when losses grow in the next level?

UNI wouldn’t be able to get away with repeatedly having Iowa and Iowa State on the schedule. (Three of those wins of that 9-22 record of the past quarter-century are against ISU, by the way.) We’re talking the potential for fan-base-demoralizing losses.

I think UNI needs to concentrate on doing what it does best: Competing in I-AA and preparing for the occasional giant-killing. Given the Board of Regents’ disdain for state support, I don’t fault UNI for looking. I just don’t see it as being a positive change down the road.