Last night, I think during the Boise State/Fresno State game, the announcers listed the most losses by a NCAA football champion the year following their championship. In 1938, TCU won the national championship, then went 3-7 in 1939. In 1983, Miami won the championship, then went 8-5 in 1984. They showed LSU tied in losses with that Miami team for 3rd place. I've been searching the web to see which champion was in second place with losses behind TCU... does anyone know? On the brightside, Jimmy Johnson came back after his 8-5 season in 1984 to put up some big win numbers, including a National Championship in 1987. So I wouldn't let this one bad season make me leap from the train... easy for me to say, I know... but I would guess this season is just a speed bump on football's Autobahn. I also would guess the sloppy play against Arkansas is more representative of expectations gone bad than anything else. Frustration is a hard thing to "coach up" as a season wears on. You'll be back. :thumb:
Thanks Hawker! Some of us feel the same way (I do). I expected to drop, we are 1 or 2 games worse than I figured. Losing our projected starter at QB hurt us. We had to go with a soph. who had walked on, then a RS frosh, then a true frosh. We messed up our QB recruiting a few years back apparently. Then we got the defensive coordinator thing. But coaching issues can be fixed in the off season, and freshmen QB grow up to be sophs, and juniors, and we'll be ok. Are you guys still happy with Ferentz? LSU was interested in him at one time. Seems you guys have slipped a little the last couple of years. What's your outlook next year. Is Ferentz seat hot?
Glad we're not the first this has happened to. Still doesn't make me feel any better, though... :geauxtige
Stupid penalties in the 4th qtr is where the Arky game was lost. Kicking the ball off the field, and the several other personal fouls that gave Arky life after a 4th and 29 insiode their own 5 killed us... we gave away 10 pts as an early x-mas present I guess. What's sad is as I was leaving War Memorial... there was a guy selling Beat LSU/ LSU Sucks t-shirts outside... and yet we lost 2 back to back games to Arky by a total of 3 pts.
There were a few people who realized how devestaded our team was following the large number of entrants into the NFL, the QB debacle, and other problems some of us may have chose to overlook. 5 losses actually won me money in our pool at work. I thought we would lose that many but I put Auburn as a loss and not Arkansas and I put Troy as a possible loss. We had a rough off-season. This team is strong and will come back next season. We have a good bunch of players on this team that will solidify a great comeback season. Most of the experts will over-look us and put us finishing 3rd or 4th in the West next season but most of the "experts" are dumb as can be and don't have a clue anyway. With a more experienced QB and a better focused defense we will fight our way back into the mix. Alabama is strong and their defense will continue to be great, we will have to find a way to overcome that. The SEC is the best conference for a reason. Championships aren't given, they are earned. We will have to earn ours again. Thank you Les Miles and the 2008 Tiger football team. I know you had a hard road but you gave your all.
In some ways (not many) we have had the same fate. The Tigers put their recruiting "marbles" on RP and he didn't pan out, leaving you with some problems at qb. We put our marbles on Jake Christensen and he wasn't the answer, either. Getting a leader at qb in the recruiting process is vital... and when one doesn't pan out and your other choices are so-so, you're gonna struggle. Still, here we are, 8 years into the decade of the 2000's and the Hawkeyes are 3rd in the Big Ten in in-conference wins, behind OSU and Michigan and 5 wins ahead of both Penn State and Wisconsin. So I don't think Ferentz is as much on the hotseat as some folks think. Our four losses this year were by a collective 12 points... and all four losses had some really bad choices from our qb. As we say, we were a qb away from being very good. Our defense and special teams are outstanding... and Shonn Greene may be the best running back in the country. Our expectations are different than those at LSU. Sometimes having two crystals can be a curse, as your fans expect you to be "fully accomplished" every year. It's a good curse, but a curse indeed!!
There's alot of truth to this but is doesn't make it easy to watch your season unravel stitch by stitch every week. It isn't necessarily the lossses, its how we've looked when we lose.
