hawkeyecub

This is probably the best thing I've heard about Lou and surprises me a little bit. I still don't want him, but I would feel a little more comfortable knowing that he changes his style based on his players. That's not true for some guys and maybe not Girardi. He's said some good things that I've heard on television like saying it was wise for Leyland to keep the workload down for a young pitcher or talking about a batter's splits as he gets behind in counts and the need to be patient early and the importance of guys getting on base in front of mashers. Overall I still want Bochy first, then Brenly and don't really care between Girardi or Lou. But I guess I have a slightly better opinion of him now than I did a few weeks ago.

How long is he expected to be suspended? The Big Ten is down but it should be exciting at least for the sheer unpredictability of it all. Wisconsin should be the unanimous favorite with OSU second as long as Oden is ready for Big Ten play. I think Illinois is just a step down and then you have have Indiana, Michigan, Iowa, Michigan State, Purdue and maybe even Penn State that are tough to call. It really is impossible to sort through those teams right now.

I'm pretty excited. Iowa obviously won't finish 2nd in the Big Ten or get a 3 seed in the NCAA's this year, but I think we can finish around 4th in the Big Ten and get into the NCAA's. For the first time in four years, no Jeff or Bru in the starting lineup. The frontcourt is the major flaw of this team. Our backcourt could and probably should be among the top 3 or so in the Big Ten. Haluska could be first team All-Big 10 and Henderson is about as good as it gets defensively in the backcourt. They're both good rebounding guards which is needed with our weak frontcourt. Some in the know are saying Tyler Smith is our most talented recruit since at least Ricky Davis and possibly Roy Marble. 6'7 SF who was ranked 30th coming out of high school, committed to Tennessee, de-committed when they fired Buzz and went to prep school last year where he was ranked 41st in the country. We landed him over Kentucky, Pitt and Cincy and need a big impact. Overall the team will be more athletic than Iowa has been in the past. If they can find a way to play defense like last year, they can have a solid season in a down Big Ten. Oh and we do have the 3rd longest home winning streak in the nation to preserve.

Actually, if you really wanted to look at it, Florida probably has just as good a case for being ranked No. 1 as Ohio State does. I'd still rank OSU first if I had a vote, but it warrants mentioning. I don't think so. Florida won by 1 at Tennessee and won a close game at home against LSU. Ohio State won by 3 scores at Texas and at Iowa. The competition level is about the same, but OSU won their games more decisively and they were both on the road. Florida beat LSU by 13 and forced 5 turnovers (3 picks) against a team that almost never has problems taking care of the football. And Tennessee and LSU would both plaster Iowa. JaMarcus Russell doesn't have problems taking care of the football? The guy I've seen does. Regardless I don't know what your point is there. OSU forced Iowa into 4 turnovers (3 picks) when Drew Tate turns the ball over less than Russell. As far as your last comment, I'm guessing you've only seen Iowa play once this year. In that case I wouldn't be impressed either. But remember that we were banged up and Tate hadn't practiced 10 times since the beginning of fall camp and mid-week they didn't know if he would be able to go. We also made a tremendous amount of mistakes that killed us, including a turnover in OSU territory with 10 minutes left down by 14. That's not an excuse at all because OSU played flawless and just beat us up, but when you're evaluating a team you should take that into consideration. They would both plaster Iowa? First of all you missed the point. Going into Kinnick and beating Iowa by 21 is equivalent to beating LSU at home by two scores. Winning those two games on the road is more impressive to me than what Florida has done. You also ignore that we beat Purdue 47-17 last week. How did Notre Dame do with them the week before? Tate was finally able to practice for a full week and it showed. We'll be 6-1 heading into the Michigan game and we'll see how that goes.

Actually, if you really wanted to look at it, Florida probably has just as good a case for being ranked No. 1 as Ohio State does. I'd still rank OSU first if I had a vote, but it warrants mentioning. I don't think so. Florida won by 1 at Tennessee and won a close game at home against LSU. Ohio State won by 3 scores at Texas and at Iowa. The competition level is about the same, but OSU won their games more decisively and they were both on the road.

What's the deal with Manningham? I'm hearing that he may be out 2-3 weeks. They still have Breaston, Arrington (damnit) and probably 10 other stud recievers like always, but that would be a big loss and improve Iowa's chances. What? Damnit. Nothing was reported during the game. The other guys are young and inexeperienced, Tabb is ok but he wont do much. This hurts their deep threat big time. A Michigan fan that I work with told me about it this morning. Now I had time to check out the Michigan board on rivals.com and it looks like they're freaking out about it. I don't know that there's been any announcement yet, but apparently some station out there confirmed that he's out for the PSU game. Most posters are saying he's out for 2-4 weeks with some sort of knee injury. They seem to all think he'll be back for the OSU game.

What's the deal with Manningham? I'm hearing that he may be out 2-3 weeks. They still have Breaston, Arrington (damnit) and probably 10 other stud recievers like always, but that would be a big loss and improve Iowa's chances.

PSU didn't look very good Saturday though and were handed a win at Minnesota. It's hard to get a good read on them at this point. I agree with the sentiment though. I hear all this talk about how this team is different they'll definitely be undefeated heading to the OSU game and in watching them they are impressive. But then I remember that Lloyd is still on top. They're at PSU this week and then host Iowa. If they get past those two, they'll cruise. We always play well against Michigan and play pretty well in Ann Arbor and late October is money time for Ferentz teams.

No they don't. Coordinators rarely get interviewed before their team is eliminated from the playoffs. It happens all the time. Riveria interviewed for the Rams before the Bears home playoff game. They are usually not denied permission. So that means it happens all the time and pretty much every NFL coach will let it happen? No. It's one of the main reasons Brad Childress didn't get a head job before this year, he never got an interview until the Eagles were knocked out. I don't believe any of the Steelers candidates got an interview last year, at least not until after the AFC Championship. I don't believe Crennell or Mangini interviewed until after the Pats were knocked out. Teams couldn't talk to Gary Kubiak last year until the Broncos were eliminated. Tim Lewis had to wait. Those are all just in the last two years. Far more often teams with openings have to wait until their candidate is eliminated from the playoffs.

In fairness they still didn't have their QB situation figured out (their original starter threw 2 big picks), and their stud RB was still not healthy in a game that was very close for a half. They hadn't lost since then and just went into the #2 team's stadium and blew them out.

I think Ohio State would handle just about anyone right now. Playing night games in Austin and Iowa City in the first month and winning both games by 3 scores is incredible. I think they would likely do the same to Tenn. Yeah they blew out Cal, but Cal absolutely killed themselves and played about as bad as possible, most of which was completely self-inflicted. That happens at times when you go across the country to play a game. The following week they were a 2-point conversion away from losing to Air Force AT HOME. Clemson should have had a win at Boston College and then went in and won at FSU. I know FSU is overrated this year, but it was still an impressive win and should have been a blowout. They pass the eye test for me. Maybe not ahead of ND, but ahead of Mizzou at this point. It's not even so much about "who have you beaten" as much as "who have you played"? If you haven't played anyone, it's hard for me to put you near the top 10. Yeah they got a win over a ranked team in Texas Tech, but Tech looked horrible to me. So then you ask yourself who have they played and why where they ranked? Well they beat SMU, UTEP, SE LA, squeaked past an average at best A&M team and were held to 3 points in a loss to TCU. Texas Tech isn't a bad team, but I don't know if they're much better than a Purdue. When you're a team that hasn't really accomplished much in recent years it's just hard to put them around the top 10 when they've had such a weak schedule. Their opponents have a combined 12-23 record. If Pinkel wanted respect he could have not weasled out of the Iowa series and they would have had their chance at some early national attention.

No they don't. Coordinators rarely get interviewed before their team is eliminated from the playoffs.

And as usual they're on crack. What do you see is wrong with it? Just curious. Michigan is a better team than UT right now and I would maybe put Texas ahead of them too. For 3 quarters last night they didn't look that great against a Georgia team that isn't all that good and then had the game handed to them. West Virginia is more deserving than Missouri and Notre Dame. Missouri should probably be higher than 21st based on Saturday's win, but definitely ahead of Louisville and West Virginia. Clemson also deserves to be ahead of Mizzou and ND in my opinion.

And as usual they're on crack.

Impressive 47-17 win by Iowa over Purdue without two starters on each side of the ball. Purdue's defense is terrible and we got 539 total yards of offense. Tate was very good (17-23 for 253, 2 TD's and 0 INT's) but as a team we ran it 40 times for 286 yards. The way we controlled their offense was very encouraging. We held Painter under 50%, forced him into 2 picks and no big plays. Oh and who decided it was a good idea to make Dan Fouts a play-by-play guy? He is absolutely brutal in that role.

I've always considered Bruce one of the top managers in the game. At least in my opinion, he never seemed to do too much to get in the way of the game, has a nice balance between being too hard and too soft with players and doesn't seem to keep talent off the field for the sake of favoritism. I guess I haven't paid clsoe enough attention to see whether or not he abuses his pitchers, but reading the comments and a quick glance at the numbers show that he doesn't. He definitely would be tops on my realistic wish list, followed by Brenly and then Girardi.

Agreed. The depth in the Big Ten this year is as bad as it's been in quite a while. The top 2 are very, very good as OSU is clearly the #1 team right now and Michigan is a legit top 5 team. Admittedly Iowa hasn't looked great thus far, but Ferentz' teams always get better as you get into October and November. They made way too many mistakes last weekend and didn't play close to their best game, but kept it about as competitive as Texas did. I would be very surprised if they end up worse than 9-3 and 10-2 looks very possible. Wisconsin is looking a little better than I thought they would be and Penn State has a very solid defense while their offense should get better as Morelli gets more time. After that you have Purdue who is as enigmatic as anyone and then a bunch of teams that are bad or not as good as they have been.

Twins/Dodgers. Of course all three teams I was pulling for yesterday lost.

It's not that long ago when he was a manager and I don't recall many Cub fans thinking of him as a good manager. He loves veterans and plays old school ball. But then again, I'm one of the few who blames the players we have/get more than the manager. Once again, I'll remind everyone of the 2001 NLDS game 5 when the D'backs were playing the Cardinals. Game 5 in Phoenix, the D'backs have runners on at first and third with one out in a tie game bottom of ninth. Brenly calls for a suicide squeeze with Tony Womack at the plate. Womack bunts through it and leaves the runner out to dry. Runner on first advances to second on the rundown. Womack saves Brenly by getting a two-out hit. Had they not won that game, Brenly would've been called the manager who made the dumbest decision in the history of baseball. Yeah I didn't necessarily think of him as a particularly good manager at that time either. I didn't get that impression that he really had a strong preference for veterans while he was a broadcaster, but who knows. I'm sure he does love old school ball, but I think you pretty much have to concede that when you look at the pool of realistic candidates. I forgot about the Womack play. You're right, that was brutal.

You just answered your own question there. He can win, when he has talent. Alot of managers can do that. You can't be serious. First of all there are no managers that can win without talent and if you think there are, give me an example. The Marlins had plenty of talent this year, at least enough to flirt with .500 in a horrible National League. Just because most of those guys haven't hit their big arbitration years doesn't mean they don't have talent. Here was his pitching rotation in '04: Randy Johnson, Brandon Webb, Casey Fossum (6.65 ERA), Steve Sparks (6.04 ERA), Casey Daigle (7.16 ERA), Edgar Gonzalez (9.32 ERA). Shea Hillenbrand was their qualified OPS leader at .812. That team was awful. Their only decent position players missed huge chunks of the season. Pointing to that as a reason why he shouldn't be manager is ridiculous.

List any honest criticisms/complaints/drawbacks of Brenly's managerial style or negatives on him becoming our manager. More and more I'm thinking he's the best choice in this realistic pool of candidates. He's not perfect, but no one we're looking at hiring is. He has (surprisingly) impressed me a little bit over the last two years with his analysis. He has a good knowledge of everyone after seeing this team everyday for two years and he always seemed fair with his personnel and talent analysis. He would occupy some middle ground between the no accountability/lax atmosphere with Dusty and some fiery, nutty redass general or control freak. I think his style and attitude would be a good fit. He won 92, 98, 84 games in his 3 full seasons in AZ and was fired during that awful '04 season where they had nothing. His pythagorean W/L was identical to their actual record over those 3 years for whatever that's worth.

Yeah that will be a nice game to watch tonight. Good quality SEC game (think it will be close until Auburn pulls away in the second half) on a Thursday night and we'll probably get a decent amount of talk on the Iowa/OSU game. This week is crawling. The worst part will be waiting all day Saturday. Well at least for the players and staff I guess. We'll get a full day of tailgating and basketball scrimmage in Carver to pass the time. Look out for Wazzu hosting USC on Saturday night. You gonna go to Gameday? If so (and I'd imagine it is) what time you getting there? I'm really jealous of all my friends who go to Iowa. They're living a dream this weekend! Yep. The crews just got in today and set up the stages and all of that. The crew is flying in tomorrow morning (I think Corso may already be here, but the other two are doing the game tonight) and filming for an hour tomorrow afternoon. I guess that will just be used for stuff on ESPNEWS and SportsCenter. Saturday morning they aren't allowing people in until 7, but I'm planning on getting there around 8. Then they take that set down at noon and set one up inside Kinnick for the night. I have no idea how they will fit it in there. My brother-in-law who is currently a student and works in the football program ran into Davie and Musberger this afternoon. Fun times in Iowa City.

Yeah that will be a nice game to watch tonight. Good quality SEC game (think it will be close until Auburn pulls away in the second half) on a Thursday night and we'll probably get a decent amount of talk on the Iowa/OSU game. This week is crawling. The worst part will be waiting all day Saturday. Well at least for the players and staff I guess. We'll get a full day of tailgating and basketball scrimmage in Carver to pass the time. Look out for Wazzu hosting USC on Saturday night.

He's had seasons where he has had good discipline though. He's hard to figure out.

Wow, crazy story. Yeah I always kind of knew that Buckeye fans, especially those in the Columbus area, were nuts like that. But I guess that's why I thought they had more of a worship for Herbstreit. Local Ohio kid, captain at quarterback at OSU and then became a bigtime ESPN analyst. I guess they really resent his lack of obvious homerism for OSU.