2007 Recap

2007 Record: 6-6 (4-4)

Oh how the mighty have fallen. It seems like yesterday Iowa was capping off their third straight double-digit-win season with an impressive win over LSU in the Capital One Bowl. That is if 2004 feels like yesterday to you. In 2005 the Hawkeyes slipped to 7-5 and in 2006 they fell to 6-7 failing to live up to their lofty preseason rankings. But hey, everyone goes through rebuilding years. Certainly Ferentz would get things turned around in 2007, wouldn't he? Hello?

To say the 2007 season got off to a disappointing start would be pretty accurate. A less than impressive 16-3 win over Northern Illinois was followed up by a 35-0 win over hapless Syracuse. And then the wheels fell off the season. Narrow losses to bitter rival Iowa State and #9 Wisconsin were followed by demoralizing blowout losses to Indiana and Penn State giving Iowa eight conference losses in a row dating back to 2006 and putting the Hawkeyes at 2-4 in danger of not making a bowl game.

Is week three too early to start thinking about next year?

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I ran out during my lunch hour this week to get my copy of Phil Steele. I've been pouring over it ever since trying to take it all in. My mind is pretty much in information overload right now. Kevin came up with the idea of reviewing Phil's All Big Ten team. He took the defense. I'll do the offense here. Here is the list if you haven't seen it already.

Of course the first thing I looked for was the Penn State representation. In all eight of our eleven projected offensive starters appear on the list. Only Norwood, Wisniewski, and the starting quarterback failed to make the list. But our first team representation was limited to just A.Q. Shipley, and I'm ok with that. However Andrew Quarless on the second team makes me scratch my head. That's high praise for a player that only caught 14 passes and grossly underachieved in most people's opinion.

But on the flip side, Deon Butler must have spit in Phil Steele's Wheaties or something to get fourth team status. Butler out-performed second teamer Greg Mathews and third teamers Kyle Jefferson and Andy Brodell in catches, yards, and touchdowns last year.

And Arrelious Benn a first teamer? That makes me do a double take considering he only caught one touchdown in conference play last year. And had Penn State not missed six hundred tackles on that play he wouldn't have even had that one.

Everyone is riding the Curtis Painter train this year. (Get it? Boilermaker? Train? Aw shut up.) I'm just not sold on him as the best quarterback in the conference. Yeah he had a ton of yards and a bunch of touchdowns, but my God, the kid threw the ball 569 times. I think I could throw for 3000 yards in Joe Tiller's offense. I'm more impressed by passing efficiency where Todd Boeckman blew the rest of the conference out of the water. He deserves to be on the first team more than Painter despite what Mel Kiper says.

Other than all of that I think it's a pretty good list.