MyTurn's week 5 CFB (9/28-9/30)

[MyTurn2Raise]

[ QUOTE ]
POTW tOSU -6 @ Iowa

3-1 POTW ytd

[/ QUOTE ]

The most overrated team in the country runs into reality this week.

Seriously, I'm trying to understand how this line is so low. I cannot believe it isn't 2 TDs or more. I've investigated and found no injury rumors on the Buckeye side.

Anyway, here is my take:
just to refresh everyone what happened when these two teams met last year in Columbus:
Ohio State 31 Iowa 6
Ohio St had 60 carries for 314 yards and were 14 of 21 for 216 yards. Iowa had 18 carries for negative 9 yards! Iowa was 22 out of 39 for 146 yards and 1 pick. Iowa was +1 on the turnovers.

2 'Secrets' to this game that should be obvious. First, and most importantly, Iowa is much, much worse this season. On offense, Iowa doesn't have any straight forward rushing attack. Iowa was the first Illinois D1A opponent in 12 games to not average over 4 ypc. Even in Iowa's most impressive game, the 27-17 win verse Iowa St in Kinnick, Iowa's running success came to the outside and not up the middle. When Tate was out verse Syracuse, Iowa couldn't just roll over an inferior Syracuse team.

When it comes to passing the ball, the Hawkeyes also have some issues. There is absolutely no big play potential here. The WRs are not burning anyone deep. Let's face it, if you cannot burn Illinois, you cannot burn anyone. In addition, Drew Tate has not thrown one pass more than 25 yards downfield since his injury earlier in the year....Yikes! Iowa has chipped away with 5-12 yard passes and runs to the outside. Neither of those methods seems to be particularly effective verse tOSU.

Against the Buckeyes, Iowa will not be able to run at all. It seems unnecessary to cover this, but secret #2 is that this year's Buckeye D is top 5 in the nation even with 9 new starters. Let's look at some Buckeye D stats
Opponent-PA:Yards Rushing-Carries:Pass Comp-Pass Att-Pass Yards-INT
NIU-12:155-33:16-30-169-1
Texas-7:186-31:19-32-154-1
Cincy-7:56-22:20-25-216-3
Penn St-6:149-39:16-25-87-3

cliff notes: tOSU is giving up 8 points, 167 pass yards, and 115 rush yards per game while only allowing 3 TDs and creating turnovers and TDs. The Iowa team will not be able to run up the middle here, which is the one chink that has been seen in the Buckeye D. tOSU just has too much speed for Iowa to beat them running to the outside, especially so since tOSU's secondary can come up and aggressively play the run since the threat of the Hawkeyes throwing over the top is minimal. The lack of a deep threat will also encourage Buckeyes to jump the shorter routes that Iowa has lived on so far this year. It will also be interesting to see how the Iowa offense responds to pressure in their own backfield, which is something they haven't faced much of this year. The Iowa offense verse Buckeye defense is a complete mismatch...10+ points would be a victory for the Hawkeyes IMO.

When trying to figure out why the line was so low, one of the few things I could pinpoint was the lack of offense by tOSU verse Penn St last year. I attribute that more to the monsoon than anything else. In the other 3 games, the Buckeyes rolled. That includes a great performance at Texas, whose D has looked pretty good in other games (it's made me $$$ with the Rice under total and Iowa St under total [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]).

Iowa's D has continued its bend-don't-break vanilla scheme with success this year. The problem is they don't have the athletes to keep up with the talent on the Buckeyes side. Iowas returns much the same unit that the Buckeyes torched last year, except that the Hawkeyes lost the heart (Greenway and Hodge at LB) and the corners. This year's replacements are not as good and the unit is down as a result. For one, expect CB Shada to get beat over and over again. He made four pass interferences just this past week against the overwhelming talented WRs that Illinois throws out there. Iowa continues to not really force turnovers. Only against lowly Illinois did it turn their way.
All in all, expect 30+ from the Bucks

OK, so Kinnick is a tough place to play. Dankhank pointed out to me that Iowa is 27-6-1 ATS in their last 34 at home IIRC. Guess there is a systematic bias that underrates Kinnick. Kinnick has just been renovated and is supposedly right up there with Penn St as the second most intimidating road game in the Big10. Well, tOSU is used to this and used to the big stage. I find it hard to believe that the renovated Kinnick is any tougher than the renovated stadium down in Austin that the Buckeyes visited just 3 weeks past.

This game will be ugly...I see 34-10. Iowa gets exposed in front of the nation.