Pete's BLOG-Day 26,313. No Bowl Game for Hawks.

Today is Monday, December 3, 2012. My stats today: 10 Minutes of yoga, 10 minutes of lifting weights and 47 minutes of walking = 2.6 miles for a December total of 4.8 miles. My weight was 163.6 pounds.

QUOTE from Tom Hanks: "Help publicly. Help privately. Help make sense where sense has gone missing. Help science to solve and faith to soothe. Help, and you will abolish apathy - the void that is so quickly filled by ignorance and evil."

My THOUGHTS today. While reading the sports page this morning I had an empty feeling about the BOWL match-ups this year. In the BIG 10 five teams are going bowling: Minnesota(6-6), Michigan State(6-6), Purdue(6-6), Michigan(8-4) and Wisconsin(8-5) - but no Iowa, Penn State(8-4) or Ohio State(12-0). The latter two are inelgible for bowls due to NCAA penalties. And the Hawks aren't going bowling because of losing their last 6 games and going 4-8 for the season. It is only the second time since 2001 that we haven't gone to a bowl - the other was 2007 when we were 6-6. We aren't elgible for a bowl with only 4 wins and we don't deserve one anyway.
Coach Ferentz played a  lot of freshmen, redshirt freshmen and sophomores this fall. My hope is that by getting these young guys some experience this year it will make us a better team next year. If we don't go at least 6-6, 7-5, or 8-4 next year the radicals will be screaming for Ferentzs' head. I'm a Ferentz supporter and I know enough about football history to realize there will be down years for a team like Iowa. We are not Alabama, LSU, Ohio State, Oregon etc. It is hard to recruit to Iowa - we simply cannot get the 4-star and 5-star athletes that these other schools get. With that hindrance I strongly believe Ferentz has done a great job in his 14 years at Iowa.
The only Hawkeye football highlights this year were beating Minnesota, Michigan State and Northern Illinois. Northern Illinois went on to win 11 straight games and is playing in the Orange Bowl. At least we had we had a little something to cheer about.