[stupac2]

Woofing alert!!  Woofing alert!!!!

Somehow I get the impression that there will be a much stronger impulse to woof at our Rose Bowl opponent than is typically the case for our other foes.  There is a very discernible undercurrent of disrespect toward the Hawkeyes among some of the folks on this board, all couched in the appropriate caveats and platitudes about "staying focused".  And, after all, The CardBoard is just a place to vent normal fan excitement and enthusiasm.  But the parallel dynamics for the players are also in play.  I think Shaw and the coaches will actually need to be very astute to pick up any signs of complacence arising from the pervasive sense that Iowa is not really all that serious a threat.

The reason some of us are confident is that there are tons of indications that Iowa, like Utah earlier in the year, has drastically outperformed their actual ability (being 5-1 in one-score games is a sign of that). For instance, if you look at the FEI ratings for us, Iowa, and the USC team we just demolished, you see:

Team, offense, defense
Stanford, 4, 60
USC, 14, 30
Iowa, 31, 24

Now, there's been a lot of talk about how USC is kind of overrated by the computers, so maybe that's not the best way to look at it. How have we performed against non-USC teams with defenses as good as Iowa's? We did pretty well against #1 Washington. Bad against #8 Northwestern, though we also did pretty badly against #122 UCF for a half, so I think that was more about us not knowing what we were doing then. We also did quite well against #31 UCLA. So we have lots of reason to believe we'll put up points against Iowa.

What about when we're on defense? The teams that have really hurt us are explosive, and FEI has an explosiveness ranking. Oregon is #5, ND is #3, Cal is #16 (they sort of hung with us for a while). Iowa is #33, near #29 USC and #35 UCLA. (As you might expect we're middling at explosiveness, but elite at methodical drives). So they're not exactly weak at generating explosive drives, but it's not a real strength of their offense. I think that plays into our hands.


Anyway, there's a reason that we're nearly touchdown favorites (the lines that have moved so far have moved toward us), we're clearly the superior team and we ought to win.

[stupac2]

Woofing alert!!  Woofing alert!!!!

Somehow I get the impression that there will be a much stronger impulse to woof at our Rose Bowl opponent than is typically the case for our other foes.  There is a very discernible undercurrent of disrespect toward the Hawkeyes among some of the folks on this board, all couched in the appropriate caveats and platitudes about "staying focused".  And, after all, The CardBoard is just a place to vent normal fan excitement and enthusiasm.  But the parallel dynamics for the players are also in play.  I think Shaw and the coaches will actually need to be very astute to pick up any signs of complacence arising from the pervasive sense that Iowa is not really all that serious a threat.

The reason some of us are confident is that there are tons of indications that Iowa, like Utah earlier in the year, has drastically outperformed their actual ability (being 5-1 in one-score games is a sign of that). For instance, if you look at the FEI ratings for us, Iowa, and the USC team we just demolished, you see:

Team, offense, defense
Stanford, 4, 60
USC, 14, 30
Iowa, 31, 24

Now, there's been a lot of talk about how USC is kind of overrated by the computers, so maybe that's not the best way to look at it. How have we performed against non-USC teams with defenses as good as Iowa's? We did pretty well against #1 Washington. Bad against #8 Northwestern, though we also did pretty badly against #122 UCF for a half, so I think that was more about us not knowing what we were doing then. We also did quite well against #31 UCLA. So we have lots of reason to believe we'll put up points against Iowa.

What about when we're on defense? The teams that have really hurt us are explosive, and FEI has an explosiveness ranking. Oregon is #5, ND is #3, Cal is #16 (they sort of hung with us for a while). Iowa is #33, near #29 USC and #35 UCLA. (As you might expect we're middling at explosiveness, but elite at methodical drives). So they're not exactly weak at generating explosive drives, but it's not a real strength of their offense. I think that plays into our hands.


Anyway, there's a reason that we're nearly touchdown favorites (the lines that have moved so far have moved toward us), we're clearly the superior team and we ought to win.