hawkeyecub

Yeah this sucks. This past Saturday I couldn't really watch anything but some of UGA/South Carolina at the tailgate and the late games when I got home because Iowa had a home 2:30 game. This week they're on the road and don't play until 9:30 so it's the first Saturday of the year I'll be home watching but this schedule is weak. Gameday is at Clemson/Auburn? Eek. I suppose they probably wouldn't have wanted to be at the Arizona game because of the late start though.

The only positive thing to come out of that ending is that it should get a horrible rule changed. You can hold the ball over 1 inch of the end zone chalk and immediately lose it, but it's still a touchdown. Yet if you catch a ball, get both feet down, get touched, roll, get your butt completely down, all while having full possession it's not a touchdown if it comes out before you finish one of the many moves. I can't wait to hear the term "process" applied to a [expletive] football catch 500 times this week.

Competition hasn't been great but this is the best Iowa has looked to start the year in a while. I guess the only negative is that the games have been decided in the 2nd quarter and they haven't attempted a FG yet. The late game at Arizona next week scares the [expletive] out of me though. If they can win that you have a tune-up with Ball State, then PSU at home and a bye before Michigan. Can Denard Robinson survive a season of being their entire offense? What's he at, like 900 total yards through two games? He's super scary right now but he's going to take a beating if this keeps up in the Big Ten. My only solace is that Jacory Harris looked like a Heisman winner early last year and Tate Forcier was UM's savior at this point last year. Still he gave Iowa fits last year when he came in and ran but had no idea how to throw. Hopefully UCONN and ND's defenses are just bad.

What's the deal there? I thought Neuheisel was a perfect fit out there. Really surprised they're that bad still.

Easily. I have absolutely no idea what to expect of them. 7-9 sounds about right but 10-6 wouldn't surprise me.

That's the [expletive] NFL for you. I thought betting the over was a gimme tonight. If you would've said the Vikings hold them to 14, I would've bet my house that they win. I would have also bet my house that the d-line wouldn't be the worst unit on the field. Good thing I never bet my house. I guess overall it's kind of a positive despite the loss. Missing 2 of your top 3 CB's and you hold Brees and that offense to 14 in their house. No Rice, only 4 WR's, 2 RB's and the timing will only get better on offense. Favre hardly got touched and even when McKinnie went out the o-line protected him. The Saints have a nice o-line but the d-line was garbage and we were still there. The problem is you have to beat Miami at home and win at Detroit before the bye. After that you've got Dallas, @ GB, @ NE, ARI (should be a win), @ CHI and GB. Need to get the offense in rhythm and hope the d-line remembers they're good or you're going to be in trouble by the time the schedule eases up.

Only 3 of their completions have been to receivers. Harvin is no where to be found. He screwed up a route earlier and I don't think Favre has looked his way since I've gotta think it will come. Last year they were on the same page at all times and had a perfect rhythm. With Favre showing up late and Percy's migraines they didn't get much time together. As far as the Berrian stuff, I'm about fed up with him. I don't expect him to be a #1 but show up. Favre threw him a perfect ball that would've gotten us in the red zone on the drive where we had to settle for 3. He cost Favre a pick-6 on a perfect throw in preseason game 3. Two years ago he was a legit deep threat for Tarvaris/Gus with garbage at the other spots. The last 17 games at best he's been sporadic. Oh and I made two centsports bets on the game. One was for the Vikings to win +200 and the other was for the Vikings +6 and the over. Should have put the over with the win outright and had a safe play on the +6.

I think it was something like $1,200 for his Independence Bowl jersey. I wonder what he'd get for a BCS bowl jersey? Can't football players on scholarship still take out student loans to live off for some extra cash? Why don't players just do that, especially ones like AJ green who know that they are going to easily be able to pay it back? I know they can't get loans from private companies and pay it back through their NFL signing bonus, but student loans are legal right? Yes and yes.

As would I but they have to at least try running the ball a little bit I think. While you probably should try to run a little bit it's tough to do on the Vikings. It's pretty much a waste of play from a yardage gained perspective because you just can't run on this team. Oh for sure. and plus the Vikings CB's besides Winfield (Who struggles himself sometimes in coverage) are Asher Allen and Lito Sheppard. Lito actually had a nice half after being horrendous and 4th on the depth chart in the preseason. For being without 2 of our top 3 CB's that was an impressive half against a team scared to run. Honest question, when do we stop hearing about Katrina during every Saints game? It's been 5 years, we're all well aware of the story. Move on already.

And the fact that he made it back week one is crazy E.J. is a bad, bad man.

Hadn't heard "sharps" until last week and I've heard it like 4 times since.

Really though if the Vikings don't get a lot of pressure on Brees it could be a long night. There are 3 healthy CB's on the roster right now. Griffin could be active to be a dime corner but I don't know that he's going to be able to provide much. It's going to have to be a lot of underneath, ball control passing game. Adrian is going to have to have a huge game and I think he will. If the line gives him any room, he'll squash all the Chris Johnson is the best back in the league stuff. He's going to run as angry as ever tonight.

Not jealousy. Just bitter, unbridled hatred.

Now that was good.

I find that people who make broad generalizations about large groups of people are usually more ignorant than the people whom they make such generalizations about. What's the generalization? Louisiana is the 4th most obese and 4th from last in percentage of college educated citizens. How dare someone call it a fat, uneducated state. What's next, impugning the fine reputation of Mississippi?

I guess my point is that Boise and TCU can only schedule the teams that will play them. Telling them to go out and "schedule harder teams" is pretty disingenuous. Harder teams need to be willing to play them to improve the SOS. Like I posted in last week's thread, they turned down 2 games at Nebraska to get 1 at Boise. People saying no one will play them sound like Vitale screaming that no one is willing to play the mid-majors in basketball. Teams will play Boise, but it doesn't make sense for them to schedule a true home and home. When your conference is garbage you need to play a good team on the road.

Vikings and Iowa fan complaining about obesity? I'm not obese and Iowa and Minnesota rank like 20-30 states lower than Louisiana so yeah.

[expletive] the Saints, Sean Payton, Drew Brees, Darren Sharper and that entire wasteland in an obese, uneducated state. Just start this game already and give Cedric Griffin some magical injection so we don't only have 3 CB's.

Seriously this whole "the Saints put out the blueprint for everyone. Get a lot of pressure on Favre and keep hitting him." Well no [expletive]. That's the same story for every quarterback in the history of football. The problem is it's a lot easier said than done and it's even tougher in today's NFL that protects QB's. A few of those hits should have been called, especially when he got blown up 2.5 seconds after handing the ball off. And of course the two other calls that Perreira said should have been flagged. Oh and of course they all forget that the Vikings put up 31 first downs, 475 yards and 28 points on the road. The only thing the Saints did right was tell the Vikings to drop the ball a lot and put 12 men in the huddle. If only the Vikings would have adapted Gregg Williams' master approach. Sure they only gave up 15 first downs, 257 total yards, only 189 to Drew freaking Brees, 3 yards per carry and held Brees to 6 yards per pass. But damn, we really should have let them run up and down the field all game and hope they would drop the ball in the red zone or told the refs not to make a terrible pass interference call or give them an absurd spot on 4th and 1.

Hopefully we see a lot more of this from every team that plays Minnesota this year. I'm really looking forward to the game tonight. I know what a novel idea by Williams and Payton. Hit the quarterback a lot and try to get pressure on him all game. It's amazing no one in football thought of this before last January.

What in the world are you talking about? This isn't hard to grasp. We only have a 1 game season to go on right now, so everyone who won their game has done more than those who lost. As the season progresses you have more teams with losses and a strength of schedule component becomes a greater and greater part of your resume(even in Doc Saturday's Week 1 poll, he gave top billing to those who beat BCS conference teams last week). If Texas Tech plays SMU and Abilene Tech the whole year then they aren't going to have a better resume than other undefeated teams, several teams with 1 loss, and maybe even some teams with 2 losses. it just seems arbitrary to me. he refuses to rank texas because they played a perennial doormat (that happened to go 10-3 two years ago), but then he ranks troy for beating bowling green and texas tech for beating usually-terrible smu. and if every team that won their game has done more than a team that has lost, why are teams with losses ranked ahead of teams that won games in the first week, even if they were against bad i-a programs or against i-aa programs? it seems to me that if you're ranking a team like utah #4 for beating a team that he thinks is good (pitt), then you don't put pitt down beneath teams that beat crappy MAC and WAC teams when they took a good MWC team to overtime on the road. and this statement is absurd: yes TCU playing on the neutral ground of irving, texas, a grueling 15 miles from campus. he then goes on to say that texas a&m beat youngstown state. the entire thing is just riddled with errors and inconsistencies. it's a really poor piece of work. It's Youngstown Stat, get it right. The actual ranking of teams who fit his criteria don't make sense either. Northwestern winning at Vanderbilt is less impressive than ISU beating Northern Illinois at home just because NIU is from a terrible league and went to a terrible bowl so they qualify as a bowl team? Is Mizzou beating Illinois on a neutral field really 7 spots better than winning at Vandy?

No it's not even that. It's mostly a collection of teams who don't have good wins but they fit his subjective opinion of being a better cupcake than others. All teams who beat non bottom feeder 1-A teams at home are ranked ahead of teams who almost beat a top 5 team away from home. Their season has not been better.

oregon st played a very good tcu team tough and only lost by 9 on the road. there is no reason to rank notre dame (who beat a lousy purdue team) ahead of them. Yes there is, although I like the resume ballot personally. Like Doc Saturday's for example. Well that's just a big waste of time.

Any chance Major Wright could be a SS? Wright and Harris seem to be the best tandem or safeties talent wise. I think he could be. He loves to hit in run support. I think Harris at SS and Major at FS makes the most sense at the moment if Wright can get up to speed coming off the injury. Also on this http://www.chicagobears.com/team/depthchart.asp it says Kellen Davis is the backup TE while Manumaleuna and Dez are the fullbacks. That's kinda weird isn't it? Probably because the Bears didn't want to be the only team in the NFL to keep four freaking tight ends on the roster. I'm not sure about anybody else but the Colts have four tight ends. Techically they have 5 listed on the roster but 1 is only the long snapper. But the other 4 will all be used primarily at tight end. The Vikings also have 4 TE's on the roster. Wouldn't be surprising if one of them is released in favor of another WR in the near future though.