Proud. Frustrated. Frozen. Iowa.
Iowa can go toe-to-toe with the nation’s best — it just hasn’t been able to finish the job
If English were German, there would be some super long word for feeling great pride and profound sadness simultaneously.
Bitterstolzfreudeschmerz, perhaps. Or Hochstolztraurigkeitsgefühl, maybe.
At any rate, as I slowly dried and thawed out after last Saturday’s grinder of a Big Ten ground war against Oregon, those were the two competing emotions fighting it out in my head.
Just like against the current No. 2 Indiana Hoosiers, the Hawkeyes had Oregon on the ropes and needed one single stop to send the Kinnick crowd into an absolute frenzy.
And just like in that close-but-no-cigar loss, the Iowa defense failed to make key stops, allowing the Ducks to drive down and hit a game-winning field goal that kept their College Football Playoff dreams alive.
A good friend of mine once told me the most frustrating aspect of being an Iowa fan is seeing your team always being the “worthy adversary” in another team’s dream season. Think of the 2015 Big Ten Championship Game, for example. Michigan State fans will forever remember that as overcoming a defensive juggernaut to achieve their long-awaited championship.
Now Oregon joins the list of teams that survived scrappy Iowa on the way to bigger and better things.
The Hawkeyes are the penultimate boss in the video game that is college football — never the final villain, always the one you have to beat to even reach him.
Oh Lord, when will our time finally come!?
Despite the frustration of being tantalizingly close to fighting their way into the thick of the championship race, there was still much to be proud of in the wake of Saturday’s disappointment.
The team fought like rabid dogs, trading blows with one of the best teams money can buy. Mark Gronowski again proved himself a gamer — the 93-yard lead-taking drive showcased his skills as he punched in the go-ahead touchdown on a three-yard run. And the fans were absolutely bonkers, not letting the relentless stinging rain and cold wind dampen spirits or quiet voices for 60 full minutes.
The most maddening aspect of both this loss and the Indiana loss, however, is both teams “out-Iowa’d” Iowa.
Typically, it’s the Hawkeye defense that makes the late-game key stop. Saturday they could not, allowing a preposterous 24-yard completion up the sideline that helped set up the game-winning field goal.
Typically, it’s the Hawkeyes’ special teams that shine in tightly contested ballgames, with a long return for a touchdown or a key field goal block or a booming coffin-corner punt. Saturday, it muffed two basic punt snaps (albeit in tough conditions), the second of which led to a safety and the ultimate two-point differential.
And typically, it’s Iowa that rides its ground game to a close victory. Yes, Kamari Moulton had an impressive 87-yard day on the ground supplemented by Gronowski’s 25 and a touchdown, eating up seven more minutes of clock than the Ducks. But it was Oregon’s 261 yards on the ground that impresses more — against a usually stout run defense.
To me, the craziest thing about the loss is that Iowa choked it away after taking the lead. After scrapping and clawing all day long, it never felt like Iowa would relinquish a lead once it earned it. Credit to Oregon for persevering when the weather, the crowd, and all the odds seemed stacked against them.
It’s easy to be down now that Big Ten title and CFP dreams are effectively ruined. But lost in the despair is the fact Iowa has achieved a very important goal this season: it is no longer getting pushed around and humiliated by Top 10 type teams. It has not figured out how to actually get over the hump and win one of these, but it has massively closed the gap between it and the elites. And that counts for something.
I will be curious to see if Iowa bounces back and plays a good game on the road in Los Angeles against USC after this heartbreaker. A better bowl position and pride are all Iowa really has to play for in its last three games.
Something tells me that pride is a pretty big motivator for this flawed-but-oh-so-close team.
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Sorry, Tory! That was a tough game to watch; even as I’m down south.