{"id":1637,"date":"2012-04-25T13:10:32","date_gmt":"2012-04-25T18:10:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/?p=1637"},"modified":"2012-04-25T13:10:32","modified_gmt":"2012-04-25T18:10:32","slug":"a-drive-by-thats-grudgingly-accurate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/2012\/04\/a-drive-by-thats-grudgingly-accurate\/","title":{"rendered":"A drive-by that’s grudgingly accurate"},"content":{"rendered":"

Noted Iowa State hater Pat Forde is at it again.<\/a><\/p>\n

What about the move to outlaw 6-6 teams from bowl games: That will definitely spur some discussion and debate. In that scenario, several bowls likely would be put out of business.<\/em><\/p>\n

On one level \u2014 the Vanderbilt\/Washington State\/Syracuse\/Duke\/Indiana\/Iowa State level \u2014 getting to 6-6 and going to a bowl is an accomplishment. Commissioners are cognizant of that and don’t want to keep their lower-echelon programs from hitting a high point on occasion.<\/em><\/p>\n

Iowa State went 6-6 in the regular season last year, and Paul Rhoads got a contract extension<\/a>, so this isn’t a random point. Remember, Rhoads is one failed two-point conversion away from being perfectly mediocre in the regular season for three years. (He’s 18-20 overall.)<\/p>\n

I don’t particularly like bowls for 6-6 teams either, and I say that as a fan of one of the major beneficiaries. However, when there are so many bowls that it is imperative to a coach’s job that six wins be attained in some manner, it’s inescapable. It also leads to a nonconference schedule of Iowa, a I-AA team that more often than not is UNI, and a non-BCS team. The home-and-home with UConn and the 2002 Eddie Robinson Classic against Florida State have been the only regular-season games against any BCS opponent not named Iowa since Minnesota in 1997 \u2014 and before that, TCU and Rice when they were still in the Southwest Conference. A nine-game conference slate isn’t going to change that any time soon, although Navy’s move to the Big East will happen before a home-and-home with them in 2018-19<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I think the number of bowls should be cut such that even some 7-5 teams stay home, as long as<\/em> coaching contracts and ADs and fans recognize that that doesn’t automatically mean someone should be fired. That may be the biggest mental block of all.<\/p>\n

But all that is tangent to my original point of contention: Lumping us in the same football category as\u00a0Duke?<\/em>\u00a0That hurts. (Counterpoint:\u00a0The Blue Devils actually managed to win a couple of conference championships.<\/a>)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Noted Iowa State hater Pat Forde is at it again. What about the move to outlaw 6-6 teams from bowl games: That will definitely spur some discussion and debate. In that scenario, several bowls likely would be put out of … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1637","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1637","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1637"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1637\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1639,"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1637\/revisions\/1639"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1637"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1637"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1637"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}