It's The Orange

While some Hawkeye fans may feel slighted by being passed over by the Fiesta Bowl, I am ecstatic. There is no good that can come from playing Boise St. or TCU. If you beat either of these teams, then you just beat a non-bcs school. If you lose, well then you just lost to a non-bcs school. You are either did what you were supposed to or embarrassed yourself.

From a recruiting perspective, Florida is one of the key battlegrounds for the Hawkeye coaching staff. The exposure derived from participating in the Orange Bowl is invaluable for this process. Contrarily, Arizona is not a source of future Hawkeyes.

Kirk Ferentz said he couldn't remember the last time he had to prepare for a true option team. The Yellow Jackets are actually 3 1/2 point favorites which is laughable to me. Stormin' Norm's defense is built on fundamental gap responsibility that relies on its front four to wreak havoc. As a result, defending the option should not be too tall of a task for one of the best defenses in the country.

Here is a link with some interesting perspective on the offense.

The most impressive part of all of this is that Paul Johnson calls all these plays without the use of any kind of a cheat sheet. He literally stands on the sidelines and just tells an oncoming player the play.

Don't get me wrong, GT has an outstanding football team and this will be a great challenge in what I believe will be the best BCS game of them all, however, the matchup seems to favor the Hawks. The GT secondary is suspect and with the emergence of McNutt In Ya Mouth and the steady play of DJK/Stross/Moeaki with a healthy Rick Stanzi throwing to them, Iowa will put points on the board.

Win this game against a top 10 BCS school on a national stage (only game on Tuesday night) and Iowa will assure itself of a top 10 preseason ranking next year.

This will be the final game for guys like Pat Angerer, Tony Moeaki, AJ Edds, Kyle Calloway and most likely Bryan Bulaga and Amari Spievey. Let's send them off with a big W.