4 plays.
Iowa sails a snap over Rhys Dakin’s head, a snap headed toward Riverside, for a safety in a game Iowa loses by 2. Nate Wetjen fumbles at the Oregon 14 on a drive destined for points. Iowa fails on a two-pointer at the very end of the game because a player slips at the back of the end zone and can’t get his foot in for the crucial 2-pointer. Dante Moore completes one huge pass on the game-winning drive.
Is there much more to talk about?
That’s all that separates Iowa from a play-in game with
Southern California next Saturday. That’s it. Four plays in a game with 100+ plays and it comes down to four moments. Flip any of them and Iowa wins.
Is there some curse I’m unaware of with this program? Are we cursed? We’re so damn close yet so far away. Again.
So we continue on as the bridesmaid. Never the bride. We get close. Oh so close. Iowa – yes the team with the janky, amateur offense just two seasons ago – drove 93 yards on one of the best defenses in the country in the final 8 minutes of a game, scored to take the lead, and still lost. Still couldn’t hold on. Iowa allowed one touchdown and three field goals by Atticus Sappington – awesome name – and didn’t win.
Now it doesn’t matter. I hope you pack appropriate medication for next Saturday in the Coliseum, because we’re playing for nothing while SC rolls on to a playoff spot. We go from a playoff spot on the line to…a cool trip to Tampa for the Outback Bowl again? Neat. This team is better than that and it STINKS to write all of this negative, woah-is-me stuff. I hate it because this is a good football team, a playoff-caliber team, that lost a rivalry game by 3, to the now-#2 team in the country by 5, and to the #9 team in the country by 2. All of those games were tied or saw Iowa leading with 2 minutes or less remaining, and Iowa lost all three. Instead of a play-in next week, this team now gets a place on the mantle next to those “What if?” teams in Iowa history (2008 and 1996 are my favorites in that group, teams far too talented to have 3 or 4 losses on their resumes.)
This is the ultimate gut punch loss. Football is a complicated game, but sometimes it’s as easy as one team won all of the high-leverage, tipping point plays and that decides the game. Just…whatever. Have a good weekend and I hope everyone is safe and healthy.
Other thoughts:
- We were inches away from legacy games for Mark Gronowski and Kirk Ferentz. Gronowski, a few early throws aside, was great and this was a Kirk special. Hanging in there against a more talented team, getting something out of a still-shaky pass game, leading with under 2 minutes to go. And they couldn’t close it out. Twice now they couldn’t close out top 10 teams at home.
- Still no wins over a ranked team since October of 2021. Somehow.
- My son wanted to watch a documentary about Ernest Shackleton’s failed 1914 Antarctic expedition after the game so we fired that up on Disney+. That was a more enjoyable watch than the Iowa game (everyone lived, though a bunch of the men on the expedition were drafted into World War I once they were back in Britain and at full strength and…well…ignore that epilogue.)
- Nothing else. I’m down bad so goodbye.
