Weekend Observations #2 - Defensive Boogaloo in Iowa City

I wanted to write about the barn-burner in Boone, North Carolina...but holy fuck, Iowa. Are you guys okay?

Hey sports fans, hope you had a nice Labor Day weekend. Can I tell you a story?

I don't remember how old I was when I really started to appreciate football. It was sometime in the nineties, it may have been during the Jimmy Johnson Cowboys era. We were and still are a Colts family, though at the time living at the time near Fort Jackson South Carolina; I don't think the Carolina Panthers were even a team yet.

Whenever it was, whenever that moment came, I do remember it came in the form of a question.

"Why is a touchdown worth six points?" I asked my dad, an Army man.

"Because the rules say so".

"Well how did they decide six?"

"Wish I knew."

Never thought of it ever again. It just became an immutable, unchangeable law of the reality I lived in like the laws of physics or the law that says Drew Lock is never allowed to be on a good football team. Touchdowns are six points. That's just how it is.

The question fades away, Jeff George throws a pick six, dad orders me to get him another beer.

Some thirty years later and I'm outside working on my bike when a friend sends me this.

I'm not sure what I'm looking at for a few moments. Time feels as if it temporarily stops, or at least stretches out as I look at a score that makes no sense. Like a lost memory teetering on the edge of recollection and forever lost, I carefully reach out to grab some comprehension or risk watching it tip over and fall into the abyss of my subconscious where it will eat at me forever never to be fully resolved, no cognitive closure, no lost memory regained. I start looking for clues, and even though they're right there on the chiron, nothing happens. I relent ask my friend for help.

"This is a FOOTBALL score?"

"Yes"

Even the Fox commentary compared the scores to the scores of the Field of Dreams game. I'm suddenly in my father's living room again, the Colts are on, Jeff George throws another pick six. Nobody blinks, nobody sighs. Learned helplessness.

"Why is a touchdown worth six points?"

How  in the hell does Iowa have five total points in the fourth quarter?

Well...

...mathematically speaking, a safety must have happened. Why are safeties worth two points? Who fucking knows.

Oh look it happened again. I'm not sure what this says about Iowa's d-line that they got this much pressure on a 4 man rush against five offensive linemen, or what it says about South Dakota's O-Line that they let a safety happen on a four man rush, but South Dakota QB Mark Gronowski never stood a chance.

And that's how we ended up with a final score that at least resembled something that could-on paper-pass for a football game. Such as it was. What the unfortunate people of Iowa had to witness this year, however set college football back 125 years. Which would probably be to the liking of fans and alumni alike as I'm sure everyone at Kinnick Stadum probably wishes the forward pass had never been created after watching watching quarterback Spencer Petra do this:

Neither team ran the ball any better. Of the seven running backs to touch the ball, not a single one averaged more than 3.0 yards per carry, except for Arland Bruce IV (...Arland?) who actually broke off an 11 yard run. Iowa's longest rush of the day. How many times did he touch the ball?

Once.

Iowa you need to cut entire offensive roster and call the Jets after this embarrassment. You need the players and Zach Wilson needs a confidence boost coming into his second year that can only come from doing the thing that got him drafted in the first place: beating up on FCS teams.

It wasn't all bad for the Hawkeyes, special teams was a highlight. Punter Tory Taylor booted the ball ten times, dropping 7 inside the 20 including a 57 yard artillery strike. So you know...at least we know this guy had something to root for.

I wonder if his moustache can line up under center.

Have a week.