It's kind of hard to start this off without shedding a few tears, because even though im happy we got lucky enough to be invited to the alamo bowl, which we don't deserve, this season has not been anything like it was supposed to be or what i expected. the expectations and hype we carried into this year is what makes this wasted season so depressing, and the fact that we played maybe the worst football in the country over the month of november, a shocking opposite from what is usually expected here in iowa city and has been a signature of a kirk ferentz team, that we always play our best ball in the month of november. every year since kirk has come here and rebuilt the program we have been known to get off to slow starts and slowly start to surge and dominate as the season rolls on, but it has been the complete opposite this year, as we looked like a big ten contender early but slowly started unraveling due to countless reasons, some controllable and some not, as we looked like the worst team in the big ten over the last few weeks. it's pretty disheartening for the future as well since we don't have the 5-star recruits that the other schools are getting so if we are playing bad now we might not be able to make the improvements for the future. a crappy season like this doesn't help our recruiting either, as every big win brings in recruits and every big loss shuns them. at least our recieving corps is all young and should improve and get more consistent, as they were a main reason for our failures down stretch thanks to some very inopportune drops that killed our momentum and cost us a shot in games. the thing that really personified the depression of this season and was a culmination of this losing frustration was the benching of our beloved QB, drew tate, in the 3rd quarter of the minnesota game after some horrible throws that were killing our momentum, most notably a pick in the redzone on their 5 yard line when we could have taken our 1st lead. his competitive and intense nature that have so defined him and made him a legendary leader throughout his 3-year iowa career was no hurting him and an object of much scorn as he screamed in his reciever's and linemen's faces and threw his helmet to the ground after bad plays. this kind of heart-on-your-sleeve mentality is praised when the team is winning but criticized when you're losing. injuries also played a big problem in our failures, as we could not stop anyone down the stretch. the only defensive effort i was satisfied with was the loss against michigan. we played with an intensity and toughness not seen for the rest of the year, as you could see the determination on their faces to turn the season around and forget about that shocking loss to indiana. we shut down mike hart for the 1st half and kept our team in the game, since our offense could do nothing, but when mike hart started heating up and our offense kept up its conservative and ineffective ways we couldn't hold on for the win. the biggest injury for our defense was kenny iwebema, considered maybe our best player in the preseason and an all big-ten pick last year. he's a physical freak, a big guy and a pass rusher who enabled us to put the occasional pressure on the QB. he also drew lots of attention and made the other linemen look better, but when he went down he made our defensive line, which was supposed to be a team strength this season, into our most obvious weakness. one our team's keys for winning this year was to stay healthy because we have almost no depth, and since that didn't happen our defense could make no stops down the stretch. norm parker never blitzed because he knew our corners couldn't handle opposing recievers in man-to-man coverage, especially w/out adam shada, and even though it was frustrating to watch below average QBs get tons of time to pick apart our zone coverage and look like stars, he was right. our corners are horrible, especially shada's back-up brian fletcher, whom offenses painfully picked on all year. even our vaunted hard-hitting safeties couldn't cover to save their life. for proof of this just watch the northwestern game, when paschal could be seen numerous times chasing after a reciever with his back turned to the ball and just letting the reciever catch an easy pass. injuries to pashcal for a few games as well as to our blue-collar defensive tacklers mitch king and matt kroul also hurt us, but the main injuries on the defensive end that put the dagger in us were iwebema and shada just because their back-ups were not worthy starters and affected the play-calling with their poor play. maybe drew tate's injuries were much worse than he showed as well, as he hinted at that in the minnesota press conference. if this was a factor, my apologies to drew, and i hope for his sake that the once worshipped iowa star did struggle with injuries and that his poor play towards the season's end was not unexplainable. my last complaint with this season's failure has to do with our coaching, which i wouldn't have dared question in seasons past. the play-calling was incredibly conservative, and though kirk might not admit it it had a deciding hand in multiple games. against michigan we were fourth and inches on the goaline and kicked a field goal when we were down 13-3, and we never scored again. the killer was against northwestern, when we were down 14-7 on there 37-yard line in the 4th quarter and punted it!! kirk really needs to show some heart there. for a while i felt like i was the only one noticing this, but i finally got some support in that area as announcers and fellow iowa fans began to hammer kirk with insults on his radio show at the end of the season. our offense was pretty good, i don't blame the coordinator, but a lot of drives we had were shot because of turnovers. tate threw a lot of bad passes and they were all at horrible times, twice at the goaline this season. we also fumbled too much. the defense was too conservative and we gave opposing offenses too much space, but i already stated that bad personnel forced norm parker to call games this way. ultimately it comes back to kirk. i wouldn't dare call for his head after the amazing rebuilding job he has done here and the success he has had the past few years, but his insistence to play the field-position game against our opponents has been our downfall, as the players lose confidence and momentum. all the good coaches have to take some chances, like bob stoops and pete carroll, and kirk won't step over the hump and gain his player's full trust until he starts to show some fire. it's not really kirk's fault, but someone needs to step up and be a leader on this team and shockingly noone has done so, especially not tate. it eventually comes down to execution, and we have been inconsistent with that all year.

noone would expect any semblance of disaster in our 1st six games, when we went 5-1 with our only loss coming against the number 1 team in the nation, ohio state, but we would fade horribly in our next 5 games, losing 4 of them. the thing that made the losing so shocking was how uncharacteristic of a kirk ferentz team it was to lose games in november and the fact that all the pieces were apparently in place for a successful season, it's pretty sad that drew tate had to end his great career this way, hopefully he can deliver a monster bowl performance (against either texas a&m or texas tech) because im sure he has a bitter taste in his mouth from his benching against the gophers. our wins included an easy one over 1-AA montana, were we did everything we were supposed to and showed off all our weapons on both sides of the ball, looked like a positive beginning to a good season. we needed a miracle goal-line stand in overtime to beat syracuse the next week, but i was more relieved then disturbed because drew tate was hurt and his athletic backup jason mansen has yet to be too impressive in any of his starts, though he didn't play horrible in this game. we beat rival iowa state in a passionate home game, drew tate was an amazing leader and put up a great 2nd half to solidify the comeback. we opened up the big ten with an easy win over the horrible illinois fightin illini, one of the worst teams around even though they have a lot of talent for the future. we played conservatively and our offense frequently stalled but our defense was dominate while there offense was horrible, and we made the big plays to pull away. we played hard but lost the big game to OSU, the talent advantage was just obviously not ours and we committed too many turnovers that killed any momentum we had. we whupped purdue in a great rebound game the next week, our offense rolled thanks to fantastic balance and our defense forced turnovers and contained the boilermakers dangerous speed. unfortunately we only won one game for the rest of the season, against non-conference foe northern illinois, a weak mid-major whose only claim to fame was star running back garrett wolfe, a tiny and versatile speedster who put up monster numbers to start the season and generated heisman hype but who faded big time down the stretch, including this game and thats the main reason they lost. tate didn't play but jake christinsen got the nod and played well, gave the offense some good balance but we were not explosive and still needed a late touchdown to seal it. we lost a stunning game to indiana, who rallied in the 2nd half and became unstoppable on offense with wideout james hardy, we made no stops and lots of key players got hurt as our momentum and lead died, and mistakes basically handed the game to them. we still had a chance at the end but a dropped pass by andy brodell led to a game-defining pick, basically exemplified our season. we would lose a defensive battle to michigan even though we played really hard and tough football, mike hart just broke away in the 2nd half and we could not generate the offense we needed. we would go on to lose embarassingly to northwestern at home, defintily the most embarassing loss i have seen in my years of watching iowa, not only because of how bad the wildcats were this season but how bad we played and lost and the level of futility we had on offense. we played well against wisconsin the next week at home but lost anyway, and then lost at minnesota to close the season and make them bowl eligible, handing them the floyd of rosedale for the 1st time in years and allowing the gopher seniors to beat iowa for the 1st time. some of these losses were just embarassing because of how pathetic our offense was and the turnovers we committed, we truly had no chance in some of these games and looked like the worst team in the big ten by far. we'll see if i can be more positive after the alamo bowl, which ill be heading to. im not sure who we'll be playing, my guess is either missouri or texas tech, but i read on cbs last nite that they have texas in there as a possibility. that would be extremly exciting and should get the black and gold passionate and into their football team again, it would also be a great game for recruting, my only fear is that we would get blown out.

all-big ten: the only hawkeye to garner 1st team honors was offensive lineman mike jones, our massive senior who for the most part was our best and most consistent o-lineman. he's big and he's a senior, but our line was average this year and i dont know if anyone from our squad really deserved these honors. fellow o-lineman marshal yanda, another massive senior and homegrown favorite, got 2nd team, i personally think yanda had a better season than jones but it's probably just because im still thinking about his monster pancake block in the iowa state game i was at. other 2nd teamers were hard-hitting safety marcus paschal, who struck fear into recievers going over the middle everywhere and was equally as menacing smashing into the running back. scott chandler landed 2nd team, and while he was our biggest and most consistent target and he scored the most receiving tds on the team there were stretches were he disappeared. honorable mention guys were our punter andy fenstermaker and kicker kyle slicher. andy was our only bright spot with his excellent punting to end the season while kyle played pretty consistently but missed a lot of big kicks. mike elgin, another solid o-lineman, got honorable mention as well as tackle-machine linebacker mike klinkenborg and defensive end bryan mattison, the only positive on the d-line when iwebema got hurt, as he forced a lot of fumbles and has great instincts sticking his hand up to deflect a pass.