Went to one CyHawk in Iowa City and I'll never return....we lost so that sucked but it's just not a great experience if you're a rival fan. I understand rivalries breed hostility and we of course have bad apples too but I really did not enjoy my experience at all.
According to Bill Connelly, Iowa lost slightly MORE production from last year (returning 44% of production) than we did (45%). The difference is all their backfills have been in the program for 1-3 years, whereas ours are mostly new. They were a very old team last year.
Iowa actually returns the fewest number of defensive snaps in the power 4 by a large margin. They’re very inexperienced. And it was 3 OL they lost to the NFL. They have a ton of question marks.
but they will win the super bowl according to many on this board
They play at Michigan, Washington, Illinois, get Ohio State at home. You have to think Wisconsin and Nebraska are going to be better. I do not expect much from NW and Purdue, but it's not really that bad of a schedule. Granted their non conference is weak, but it like that every year under Free Rents.
You’re right, that is a little tougher than their usual schedule. I guess it was just a habit to assume their list of opponents was weak!
I think their conference schedule is going to be tougher here on out because with bringing in the Western schools, it really changed the make up of it getting rid of the B10 least division. Now they are guaranteed to play a few Ohio States, Oregon, USC, Michigan and Penn. State every year and a lot less of the Marylands, Rutgers and Purdue. Now their non conference is still a joke, and will always be as long as the current staff is there.
We all like to rip on the EIU schedule, and they have had some fairly poor ones in the past, but when you are playing Ohio State, Michigan, Washington on the road, and then also have Wisconsin and Nebraska, that is a decent schedule.
But you have to figure that both Nebraska and Wisconsin are going to figure it out soon than later. This upcoming season is going to be huge for both coaches, they go another .500% season and they may be out of a job, especially Fickle. Wisconsin won a lot of games for a lot of seasons to now just go back to what they were before Alveras turned them around.
Iowa is lucky they have only gone through one coaching change. A coaching change in this rivalry normally means at least two losses in a row. With their one change, they lost 4 in a row. McCarney, PR, Campbell all struggled with Iowa out of the gate. The only exception was Chizik with the Shaggy game, but that was one of the worst Iowa teams under Kirk. They were 6-6, didn't play Ohio State or Michigan and lost to Western Michigan.
Meteor. You cheer for the meteor.
Maybe. Nebraska last won 9 games in 2016. They are 67-75 since they fired Pelini. They might get back to winning 8-9 games, but they aren't going to be some power. Same with Wisconsin.
