hawkeyecub

And that's saying A LOT. The competition he had to beat out to get that distinction is fierce.

Tarvaris Jackson was the #2 QB behind Brad Johnson. This would only be an issue obviously if Johnson goes down. It would only be an issue if Johnson and Brooks Bollinger go down. He hasn't been the #2 QB since the first week. They don't want Jackson to have to play at all during his rookie year and Mike McMahon was awful during the preseason. So during the last pre-season game they traded for Bollinger. Tarvaris was the backup for the Washington game because Bollinger wasn't ready yet, but since then he's been #3.

Speak for yourself. I think the interest level in basketball at Iowa is much higher than football at Illinois.

How are the Redskins "a joke so far"? We're two flippin games in! They played a tight game with the Vikings at home and trailed the Cowboys by 7 heading to the 4th quarter at Dallas. That makes them a joke? gflore, Portis played against the Vikings and played most of the game so get that right. As far as the Panthers go, you're basically taking last year's offense substituting Steve Smith for Keyshawn Johnson and adding in DeAngelo Williams who is a stud. Yes they haven't looked good, but maybe the Falcons and Vikings have pretty good defenses? For crying out loud people, the Bears are the favorite and they should be. Leave it at that. It's just stupid when you try to spin that the Panthers and Redskins are on equal ground or not much better than the stinkin Lions and Packers. Use a little common sense. The Panthers without Steve Smith are a mediocre football team. The Redskins look weak this season. You talk about the Skins playing a tight game with another mediocre team in the Vikings, but then write off the Lions, who played a tight game with the reigning NFC Champs. I think you're the one who needs to use a little common sense. The point is, it's two weeks into the season. Use some common sense in looking at what the teams did last year, what they did in the offseason and the talent/coaching they have in place. Saying that the Redskins are a joke is nuts. They've been competitive in their two games with decent-playoff caliber teams. Have they looked as good as expected? No, but they're far from a joke. As far as your Lions comparison, the Seahawks haven't looked that impressive (especially offensively) yet either. Again, I'm not saying the Vikings are better than the Bears. We'll see how Sunday's game goes. But if you think the Lions and Packers are equivalent to the Panthers and Redskins, I think you're just spinning it in your favor. Now I'm sick of arguing about how good the Redskins, Panthers and Packers are.

How are the Redskins "a joke so far"? We're two flippin games in! They played a tight game with the Vikings at home and trailed the Cowboys by 7 heading to the 4th quarter at Dallas. That makes them a joke? gflore, Portis played against the Vikings and played most of the game so get that right. As far as the Panthers go, you're basically taking last year's offense substituting Steve Smith for Keyshawn Johnson and adding in DeAngelo Williams who is a stud. Yes they haven't looked good, but maybe the Falcons and Vikings have pretty good defenses? For crying out loud people, the Bears are the favorite and they should be. Leave it at that. It's just stupid when you try to spin that the Panthers and Redskins are on equal ground or not much better than the stinkin Lions and Packers. Use a little common sense.

What I find interesting is while the Vikings have seemingly improved while playing two teams who, at the moment aren't much better than the Packers and Lions. The Bears have "only" played two lowly teams and haven't shown any improvement over 2005 at all. That's just wrong. The Packers and Redskins are far better than the Packers. The Packers at best are maybe the 30th best team in the league. The Lions are a 6-10, maybe 7-9 team. The Seahawks game was a bit of a fluke and the Seahawks haven't shown that they're clicking now either. I just can't wait until Sunday so I don't have to keep telling people that playing at Washington and Carolina at home is much tougher than at Green Bay and Detroit at home. Use some common sense people. Still, the Bears are the better team and with no hesitation I would bet on them going farther than the Vikings and being the favorites for the North.

If he did, why make such a claim? I would think a coach in his position should be above the usual car salesman pep talks to alumni and boosters. Charlie really isn't as much of a Belicheck guy as some people think or expect in many ways.

Come on man, that's some flawed analysis. Washington and Carolina are a big step up from Detroit and Green Bay. You're comparing teams who went 10-6 and 11-5 last year to teams who went 5-11 and 4-12. Most analysts felt that both Washington and Carolina improved themselves in the offseason. Detroit may have improved themselves slightly but are at best a 7-9 team while Green Bay is one of the worst few teams in the league. We also played Washington in a tough Monday Night road game where Portis made an impact. Carolina didn't have Smith, but that defense is still nasty and it's not like Delhomme, Keyshawn, Foster and DeAngelo Williams aren't chopped liver.

Chavous is a likeable guy, but he was no loss. He's lost more than just a step and for someone who studies film as much as he did and is as smart as he supposedly is, he would get caught out of position way too much. Slow and out of position isn't a good combination in the NFL. There are only a couple secondaries in the league that are better as a whole than Winfield, Smoot, Sharper and Smith.

Michigan is notorious for getting the most breaks when it comes to officiating in the Big Ten. Some of it is probably sour grapes because they've been at the top nearly every year (plus officials give them the benefit of the doubt for that reason) but I think it's almost a unanimous opinion in the Big Ten. It's not even just the lack of penalties called against them, but some of the strange calls that go against their opponents. I think any UM fan would admit that the first half of the Iowa game last year was out of control.

I'm just giving you guys a hard time. There's so many of you here you need some people to keep your feet on the ground. You guys should win 8 games, maybe more in that league, I just thought the Gameday stuff is a little bit unrealistic. As far as the scheduling issue, I'd like to hear what any of you guys have heard down there. When Mizzou backed out, there was a lot of speculation and rumors which all had the same tone, but Bowlsby (our former A.D) kind of gave the full story on his way out to Stanford, so I'll give you that. Both Iowa and Mizzou thought it would be beneficial for both teams on many levels. Heading into '03 there was a lot of optimism in Mizzou and fans were pumped about Pinkel, Smith and the direction of the program. '03 was a decent season but not as good as it could have been or some fans thought it should have been. '04 was a disaster and Pinkel knew he needed a bowl game (maybe bowl win) and big season in Smith's senior year to keep his job. They weren't really expecting Iowa to be coming off their 3rd straight #8 ranking in the country to finish the season. It was a likely loss. So they called Bowlsby's office and said they had to drop out of the '05 game because they wanted to play Arkansas State at Arrowhead, a great opportunity. Of course they said they would be glad to honor the rest of the schedule (2 home games at Mizzou, 1 at Iowa) if we wanted. It was all last minute and pretty low class. Iowa had to move Ball State back a week and add Northern Iowa last year and then Montana State this year. It makes it look like Iowa is just adding 1-AA creampuffs when in fact they were willing to go on the road and have a 4-game series with a decent Big 12 program. Plus it hurt us in prep for the Iowa State game last year. Instead of having a solid look the week before, our starters could only play a half in a 56-0 rout of Ball State. I don't hate Mizzou and always pulled for them against just about everyone in the Big 12. But Snyder and Pinkel just...blech

On the Mizzou end, the Colorado game next week will be on FSN in many regions, which is good news($$ and exposure). Unfortunately it means another 11:30 start for those attending. Also, the Mizzou website lists the following two games(@ Tech, @ aTm) as TBA, but ESPN has them as 7 PM and 2PM EST starts respectively. Could be good news for Cubbies75's hope that the Tech game is national. Congrats on your hot start TT! When does your team play a divison 1 team? :D After each win the better the exposure. If you guys can continue to go undefeated soon enough you'll have Corso gracing your stage. Corso said something this past weekend along the lines of: "Watch out for the Missouri Tigers." It'd be awesome if we were playing well enough and could get them here for the OU game, if not sooner. Yeah I bet Gameday is just drooling to get to any of those Missouri/Colorado, Mizzou/Texas Tech or Mizzou/A&M matchups. I know you guys are excited about being 3-0 but you aren't going to get much national attention until you play a good team and beat them. Looking at your schedule (wow), you don't get many chances. Gameday doesn't come to watch two unranked or barely ranked Big 12 teams play each other for a game on a regional sports network that isn't available to large parts of the country. You guys could have had your shot to get some major attention nationally and a ranking if Pinkel and your A.D. wouldn't have weasled out of the series with Iowa. Instead you chose Arkansas State last year and Murray State this year. I said OU has a chance on GameDay, not TT, CU, or A&M. Look at the bolded part. I took "if not sooner to mean" TT, CU or A&M. Still, you guys aren't even ranked in the top 30 yet and won't really have any chances to get big wins before that to shoot way up in the rankings. OU already has a loss, is ranked 17th, and may likely get their 2nd loss in a week. You guys have beaten Murray State, Ole Miss and New Mexico (by 10). Talk about jumping the gun.

On the Mizzou end, the Colorado game next week will be on FSN in many regions, which is good news($$ and exposure). Unfortunately it means another 11:30 start for those attending. Also, the Mizzou website lists the following two games(@ Tech, @ aTm) as TBA, but ESPN has them as 7 PM and 2PM EST starts respectively. Could be good news for Cubbies75's hope that the Tech game is national. Congrats on your hot start TT! When does your team play a divison 1 team? :D After each win the better the exposure. If you guys can continue to go undefeated soon enough you'll have Corso gracing your stage. Corso said something this past weekend along the lines of: "Watch out for the Missouri Tigers." It'd be awesome if we were playing well enough and could get them here for the OU game, if not sooner. Yeah I bet Gameday is just drooling to get to any of those Missouri/Colorado, Mizzou/Texas Tech or Mizzou/A&M matchups. I know you guys are excited about being 3-0 but you aren't going to get much national attention until you play a good team and beat them. Looking at your schedule (wow), you don't get many chances. Gameday doesn't come to watch two unranked or barely ranked Big 12 teams play each other for a game on a regional sports network that isn't available to large parts of the country. You guys could have had your shot to get some major attention nationally and a ranking if Pinkel and your A.D. wouldn't have weasled out of the series with Iowa. Instead you chose Arkansas State last year and Murray State this year.

I imagine Herbstreit will fly to E. Lansing, but I can't imagine Gameday going to Columbus next week. They're going to Columbus this week. Ohio State plays at Iowa the next week and they've told the people in Iowa City that they plan to come to Iowa City for that unless there's some major change. Apparently they won't go to the same site twice, but it still seems odd that they would be at an OSU game 3/4 weeks.

Why is Gameday going to Columbus this weekend? I thought they were going to have to go wherever Herbstreit was doing his game. Are they just going to have his portions from East Lansing or is he flying to Michigan right after the show? That would be strange if they went to OSU games 3 out of 4 weeks. Iowa/OSU will be the biggest game next week provided they both win, and they've already picked out a location and begun marking things out.

I think you proved how much that means at this point when I see him edging out Batch, Carr, Rivers and Pennington. At most one of those guys will be in the top 5 at the end of the year. Go Vikes! The Bears have looked damn good in the first two games, but this should be their first actual test. The Bears arent going to test the Vikings. When you have a team like the Bears who are clearly better than the Vikings, you dont call that a test. You call that a mismatch. The typical Bears fan. You're right, I don't think the Bears will be tested all year. They're clearly better than everyone in the league. Rex Grossman has to be the favorite to win the MVP. How about waiting a few weeks to make those calls? You've played the friggin' Packers and Lions. The Packers are either 31 or 32 in the league and the Lions are a 6-10 team. The Bears are the better team at this point and should be favored. But the Vikings are very well-coached and don't resemble any of the recent teams under Tice and even Green. They aren't going to make stupid mistakes and will force you to beat them. They also seem to have a little bit of resiliance and discipline which we haven't seen in years. Goony was partially right that they don't do anything great at this point, but they also do everything well. Solid offensive line, very good defensive line, very good secondary and better than expected linebackers. The running game is coming along and Johnson has been effective. The Vikes have a chance if they can win the turnover battle and I think that's possible in the dome. Who knows where this team will go. I think they can be a 10-11 win team if they get the running game going and the defense (which has the potential to be very good and has already been solid) continues to come together.

It's 21.5 already so I definitely wouldn't be surprised if they cover. It always seems like it's super windy at Champaign when we play there. I'm not quite as worried after seeing that Syracuse handled them fairly well at home on Saturday. Iowa and OSU should take of business this weekend, setting up a big matchup on the 30th at Kinnick. #1 vs. #12 or so, primetime game on ABC, Gameday coming to town...

I think you proved how much that means at this point when I see him edging out Batch, Carr, Rivers and Pennington. At most one of those guys will be in the top 5 at the end of the year. Go Vikes! The Bears have looked damn good in the first two games, but this should be their first actual test.

Jamarcus didn't look all that bright on that last drive. Taking a sack when he had tons of time to throw the ball away and then throwing the ball to the 5 yard line on the last play of the game? As a Vikings fan it was like watching Daunte out there all over again. Huge QB, all the skills, horrible decisions.

I don't think anyone knows at this point. Apparently it's been lingering for a while and got worse this week. Rest is really the only cure so it's pretty likely that it will linger throughout the year.

They'll be OK if the defense can improve week-to-week. They've lost 6 really good linemen/linebackers in the past 2 seasons and are very young there. Today was definitely ugly, and I don't expect it to be the norm. They've struggled like crazy in September for the past few seasons for whatever reason and turned it on when it mattered. They'll have a really good run if they beat Iowa State next week. The defense is fine. We threw 4 interceptions on Saturday and the defense only allowed 13 points. Granted, Syracuse's offense is horrible, but the defense was solid this week. It's pretty simple, we need Tate or we need Manson to get more comfortable. Syracuse was putting 8 and at times even 9 men in the box on Saturday to stop the run and force us to air it out.

I hope Ohio State wins so they can be #1 when they come to Kinnick (although they won't be #1 after they leave) on September 30th and bring Gameday with them. Actually their offense looked pretty scary on Saturday and that defense can fly with a couple of tough lineman up front. Unfortunately I won't be able to see that or hardly any other games on Saturday because of a stupid wedding that I'm in.

Supposedly Toledo's wideout dropped a wide open pass in the end zone, which would've tied it. Tough break for the Rockets. It wasn't really wide open. Well he was open but the QB had to throw the ball off his back foot so he got too much air under it. The safety arrived at the same time as the ball to break it up. That tight end who they threw to had something like 13 catches for 140 yards on the night too. Stupid Iowa State.

The Iowa game is on ESPNU also, although that shouldn't be as competitive as NU's game. They're trying to force cable companies to add it and most companies aren't budging yet. This is what ESPN2 did when they were in the early stages and eventually it worked. They had nothing but billiards and extreme sports on, then started adding some ordinary college football and basketball games until it eventually moved to marquee games (Duke/UNC basketball). Hopefully ESPNU doesn't move that far. I'm strongly considering a switch to dish to get ESPNU and the NFL Network.

They do have two very good teams. It's after those two teams where they can't compete with the Big 10, SEC, ACC, Pac-10. Plus one of the biggest reasons people give for picking WVU and Louisville so high is their weak schedules. West Virginia especially.