Sorry to interupt you HC speculations, but we have a FOOTBALL GAME to play!

What did y'all think of the beating Ohio State put on Okie State? That darn slow Big Ten team just couldn't run with all of those Texas speedsters!

That was the same Okie State team that hung 35 points on both Oklahoma and Texas, and the Buckeyes stumped them.

That is also the same Buckeye D that Iowa's horrible one-dimensional offense beat 33-7 (it could have been much worse).

LSU definitely has a better D than tOSU, no doubt.... BUT the notion that Iowa can't move the ball against a good defense has been proven wrong all year... and hopefully will be proven wrong in 2 days...

Iowa won't score a ton, but neither will LSU... I'll stand by my prediction of a 19-17 Iowa victory... Iowa certainly has it's hands full, and mostly I'm looking forward to partying with you Tiger fans!

Good luck... this is a fantastic board, by the way!

I almost feel bad--really, I do--that we're mostly distracted with things other than the game. In normal times, I think you'd find a ton of game chatter here on the site.

One last service that I think Saban and his coaches are providing for the players is, basically, to put the game in their hands. Reports of Saban being more relaxed than usual, conducting practice this week more casually, tells me he's challenging the leaders on the team (especially the underclassmen) to step up and take more ownership of the team.

Don't win it for me, he says, do it for yourselves and your teammates. This team needs to continue to mature to live up to its potential in 2005.

Why am I saying all this in this thread? Because, I think you're going to have a heads in the clouds distracted team on your hands for the first quarter or so of the game Saturday.

If Iowa gets out to a couple of quick scores, things could be very tough on LSU; conversely, if LSU hangs tough or takes an early lead, Drew Tate may be running for his life most of the second half.

Wait, wait, wait... let me get this straight....

There's a game on Saturday?

HOLY CRAP!

FH, I think most of us are expecting a good game from Iowa. We know Iowa is tough. But I also think I wouldn't comare OSU/OSU with LSU/Iowa. Our defense will be much better than OSU's, I don't think any LSU has ever given up 50 points in a half like Ok St did this year. The Pokes were on an incredible downturn at the end of the season, the Bucks were on an incredible upswing ever since they decided to upgrade their offense from an old high school attack to a 21st century attack. I was impressed with Iowa's win vs Ohio St, especially since it wa sthe first time you beat them at home in eons. A great win. We had that feeling when we finally beat Bama at home a while back.

personally i thought the tOSU-OSU game was very ugly, Ohio state is a lot better now than when u guys beat them, their D is playing outstanding, and they won with their backup QB, yea i watched that iowa-ohio state game, that definitely could have been worse, Kinnick stadium was too much for osu to handle. but you guys couldn't move the ball at all on arizona state or michigan, anyways i'm pickin LSU 24-17

LOL

So is this guy the "source" ... of the 19-17 Iowa "homer journalist" prediction

Or is he just an imposter predicting the same score as the homer journalist?

So, 19-17, huh ... that's 4 FGs and a td with extra point for Iowa

So, Tate is gonna lead 5 scoring drives against an LSU team fired up 200% and playing over their heads with emotion for 60 minutes :lol:

I say all that talk is doodly-squat ... I say Tate will be lucky to drive Iowa to score anything in the double digits ... maybe they'll get 10 points ... only after LSU has the third string in and the game salted away.

Randall will bring it in his final game for LSU ... Broussard & that OL will stomp all over Iowa for 300+ yards and eat clock and scoreboard (36-42 possession minutes for LSU)

Randall plays like he has been ... AND THERE'S NOT A SINGLE REASON TO BELIEVE HE WON'T ... and it will get ugly ... early

http://www.2theadvocate.com/stories/123004/spo_randall001.shtml

NCAA Total Defense ranking of Iowa's Schedule this year (as of 12/18/04)

Kent St. - 19th (W)
Iowa St. - 35th (W)
Arizona St. - 48th (L)
Michigan - 27th (L)
Michigan St. - 62nd (W)
Ohio St. - 37th (W)
Penn St. - 11th (W)
Illinois - 97th (W)
Purdue - 30th (W)
Minnesota - 86th (W)
Wisconsin - 8th (W)

IMO that the only "good" defenses you've faced all year are Penn St. and Wisconsin.... While you soundly beat Wisconsin (8th in total D), you beat Penn St. (11th) by a whopping 2 points... 6-4

Other than those two, I don't see that Iowa has faced any really good defenses... with all due respect.

I think if LSU doesn't turn the ball over in this game, stick a fork in the Hawkeyes... they're done.

If we do have some mistakes (less than 2) we should still be ok....

One thing to keep in mind as the Iowa Sportswriter in another thread mentioned.. LSU has lost more turnovers than they've gained this year, which in turn means our defense is probably even better than what we're ranked or what the statistics show.

Thoughts?

If he plays like he did against the piggies we win, if he plays like he did most of the rest of the year anything is possible from the best possible scenario to the worst.