Penn State wins, Iowa does too !

by Joseph Birmingham

Sunday October 25, 2009 

Penn State wins, Iowa does too ! thumbnail

It was a turbulent weekend in college football.  But, as expected,  Daryl Clark fired 4 touchdowns to lead the Lions to an impressive win, and, in addition,  Iowa surprised many in college football by winning a critical game against Michigan State.  Right now 3 teams in the big ten are ranked in the top 25.

All Paterno and his Nittany Lions can do is win out and hope someone else falters.  It looks to me like there will be some 1 loss teams in BCS contention at the end of this college season.  If Iowa loses late, it will bolster Penn States chances at being considered, especially when you view their strength of schedule, which is increasing as the season progresses.

At the start of the season, pundits proclaimed the Lions had a creampuff schedule with the absence of their expected game against Alabama this year.  It may be a good thing the game got pushed back to the 2010 season because I don’t believe the Lions would have any chance at beating the Crimson Tide this year.

The Lions won by 25 against a good Michigan team and the Buckeyes only beat a lesser Michigan State by the slimmest of margins.   Right now Iowa is ranked 4th, while PSU is 12th and Ohio State 17th in the most recent BCS poll.   The fact that Iowa drops to 7th or 8th and the other 2 ranked Big Ten teams dont move in the other major polls shows that Iowa is playing above it’s own ability.  The computer can’t see it, but the fans can.  They know that one slip and Iowa drops ten places.

With 7 undefeated teams and 5 or more to go, the Lions need a lot of help.  But as I stated in an earlier post, it is better to have one loss early and have to fight your way up, then get beat one time late with a high ranking and see your stock plummet with no time left to recover.  If Iowa and Penn State both finish with 1 loss the BCS will certainly rank the Lions higher.

The BCS is imperfect, and this may be the year where there are 4 or more undefeated teams and someone gets left out of the title game that deserves to go.  If there is only one undefeated team left, there will be 1 loss teams that get left out that deserve to go.  But until college allows a playoff system, which is something I don’t expect to see in my lifetime, we will have inequities to discuss in the final selection process.

For now, Penn State football rolls on, and they are currently playing for at least a chance to tie for the Big Ten title.  What happens after that will be left up to the computers.  I believe they are a top ten team right now.  But when you look at Alabama, Florida, Texas, USC, Cinci, LSU, Oregon, and yes, even Iowa, it is hard to justify ranking Penn State any higher than 9, even with optimal circumstances.  Also, one could argue that both TCU and Boise State are ranked ahead of the Lions, and they do have perfect schedules, but they are simply not in the same league as the other teams I mentioned above.

Incidentally, the above list is how I would rank them, with Alabama 1st, Iowa 9th and PSU 8th.  Other than that and the two Cindarella undefeateds that will surely not finish that way, I think the BCS list is mostly a fair assessment of this year’s college talent.  Feel free to post your top ten in the comments below.    Once again, I have it

1. Alabama     2. Florida    3. Texas    4. USC    5.  Cincinnati

6. Oregon    7. LSU      8. Penn State    9.  Iowa   10  Boise State

Filed Under College Football

Comments

One Response to “Penn State wins, Iowa does too !”

  1. Rick on October 27th, 2009 3:37 pm

    Penn State keeps giving itself a chance. BCS would be great but if not I would like nthing more than a game against overrated Notre Dame!

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