Theres so much to say about this amazing and powerful game, so much passion and pride for the hawks that go beyond football, that it's nearly impossible for me to put that into words, but ultimately it comes back to football, and this was the biggest and most hyped hawkeyes game in my lifetime so far, and in my father's as well from what he said. I was so happy to see iowa was finally getting national respect and credit for the great and consistent program they have become under kirk ferentz and i felt this game was to be a big culmination of his efforts in turning iowa into a national power so that they don't suck in my prime. the hype for this game and the fact that college gameday was in iowa city almost made it too much, trust me it takes a lot to actually make me tired of hearing about my hawks. the most impressive thing to me however was the fans, america finally got to see that we have the best and most passionate fans in the game, we live and die with hawkeye football. the throngs of drunken students and supportive iowans outside the stadium, in the parking lots, and around the famous Nile Kinnick Statue and the college gameday crew was really awe-inspiring and i got goosebumps when i saw Kinnick at the start of the game, every seat was literally filled with gold, towels waving everywhere in sync, with only a few small dots of red. it was beauty to me, and the fans that came out in crazed support really made me the proudest i have ever felt to be an iowa fan. i knew with our boy drew tate, the most competitive guy in college football and most talented QB OSU has had to face, as well as the huge support of the crowd that we would have a chance to make this legendary upset of epic proportions. unfortunately some dreams, like this one, don't turn out the way they should or the way we want them to, as the biggest game in the history of the iowa program became swept up in a sea of disappointment as the hawks failed to win in front of the record-breaking home crowd and we lost the game that could have made us legends. i am still extremly proud to call myself a hawkeye fan and noone can say that the effort and the intensity weren't there, we played OSU better than anyone except maybe penn state, but against a team this talented you cannot make any mistakes and we had to play the perfect game, and we didn't. the crowd was insane to start the game and still made an impact at spots but ohio state made sure to take them out of the game fast and make sure they weren't a factor by making a quick TD drive right after iowa failed to do anything on their 1st drive. the game ball should go to either troy smith or anthony gonzalez, even though antonio pittman was key to the buckeyes win as well. smith finished with 4 td passes and just under 200 yards, but the most impressive thing for me was his poise and amazing confidence in the face of that iowa crowd, it didn't affect him one bit and he seemed cold and emotion-less as he disected our defense. he made plenty of big plays and vaulted himself forward in the heisman race because of his leadrship and poise under pressure. gonzalez had 2 recieving tds, and one big one that broke the game wide-open and seemed to take the heart out of us. he caught the 1st one of the game, an easy slant route from smith taking advantage of the coverage by marcus paschal, our hard-hitting safety not known for his coverage skills. his biggest score came in the 3rd quarter, when he used his speed and elusive running to break a few tackles and make the iowa defenders just look like fools as he rolled all the way down-field after a short pass to get the big play. we still had a chance at this point and we would get some momentum still, but this play made the gap just too large to surmount. our defensive gameplan was all about stopping the dangerous gamebreaking speed of their wideouts and the passing game, because they had a big advantage over our corners and could have torn us up, but because of that they were able to run the ball all over his for most of the 3rd quarter. thats when the life looked like it was sucking out of us, the controlled the clock and moved the ball with ease thanks to the punishing combination of very underrated speedster pittman and freshman banger chris wells. for the 1st half it was pittman, for the 2nd half it was the beast wells who we couldn't stop, and our failure to stop the running game led to our defeat. ted ginn had a few catches but wasn't a big impact. we had our chances and opportunities, we just didn't take advantage of them and we commited turnovers at very bad times that killed our momentum and took points off the board for us, these mistakes are impossible to recover from in a game like this. drew tate took a long time to get hot and the wideous overall had a horrible performance, lots of drops and they didn't help tate get his confidence up or get a consistent rhythm, not that tate needs help with his confidence, but you can't move the ball when recievers are droppin key passes and makin the crowd fall silent. chandler got a few nice receptions but his performance ultimately left a disgusted taste in my mouth, because of his fumble in the 4th quarter when it looked like we had the momentum and potential to stage a comeback, he caught a big pass then fumbled it too easily, and it killed all our chances and looked like it struck tate in the heart. herb grigsby had a nice reception and dominic douglas played nice overall, but both had some drops and andy brodell, who dropped a big one too (story of the night) was the only one who actually got a touchdown. damien simms was clutch in giving us a spark in the 2nd quarter and getting us in scoring position, and while albert young is not having the season expected and has yet to have a 100-yd. game, he did come through with a big touchdown run, so i can't be too mad. our defense played dominant in spurts, so if you only watched some of the game you might think they were great, but they could not make any stops in the 3rd quarter and they ran all over us thanks to our focus on their passing game, and that was a major momentum killer because we hardly controlled the ball then. our linebackers and defensive front looked good at times, tackled well and put decent defensive pressure (for iowa) on troy smith, but the running game just killed us for a stretch there. drew tate will still go down as one of the best iowa QB's of all time, but he failed at his chance to become a college legend. here are the three main plays that killed us:

1)the 1st one was a combination of the failed fumble recovery of ted ginn's fumble on ohio state's 1st offensive play and drew tate's 1st quarter pick. we couldn't do anything about the fumble because it fell right into ginn's hands, but tate's pick killed a lot of the energy and momentum we had going, it was a bad throw and he threw it too late cause the guy was open. it was a bad start for tate too, he needed to get a good start and play perfect to win, and this bad start solidified the fact that he wouldn't.

2)another big play was when we controlled the momentum and got the ball with great field position on the 50 yard line, and we failed to move the ball at all and get any points, so a big wasted opportunity that basically threw our momentum out the door.

3) the final play that put the dagger in the heart was scott chandler's fumble in the 4th quarter, when there was 9 minutes left and we had a 2-td deficit. tate was movin the ball well and had completed a long pass to chandler, who dropped it pretty quickly and couldnt recover. my heart just sank into depression, because i knew this one was over.