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Iowa Hawkeyes giving college football no choice but to buy in
Here's a sentence you never thought you'd read while brining your Thanksgiving turkey: Undefeated Iowa is two wins away from competing in the College Football Playoff.
It's the last place anyone outside of Iowa City expected to see the perpetually mediocre Hawkeyes in late November, but while their road to a Big Ten West title hasn't always been dominant -- and while the Hawkeyes are still far from a lock to actually play in a national semifinal on New Year's Eve -- the season to this point has still gone exactly according to plan.
"When you set off, playing your first game, your goal is to win every single one of them," Hawkeyes senior running back Jordan Canzeri told FOX Sports on Tuesday. "Obviously that's the mindset of every single team going out there, but it's what you do from there that will make that possible. So for us, the whole offseason was just about focusing on finishing, doing those little things right every single day over time, and that will lead to success."
Given the last few years, it's understandable how the Hawkeyes have flown so far under the radar.
In the five seasons between 2009's Orange Bowl run and the start of the current campaign, Iowa went 34-30. During that span, head coach Kirk Ferentz's teams perfected the art of unremarkable football, and even though his teams have reached a bowl in four of those five years, there's a thought that Ferentz's albatross buyout is the only thing that has saved his job to this point.
For at least this season, however, it appears Iowa is getting its money's worth out of Ferentz, who, after the retirement of Virginia Tech's Frank Beamer, will stand with Oklahoma's Bob Stoops as the longest-tenured coach at the FBS level. But for Ferentz, an Iowa assistant in the '80s and the head coach since 1999, his team's slog to the top of the polls isn't about proving anyone wrong.
"It's never been about that," Ferentz said Tuesday when asked about silencing critics. "We've tried to look forward, and that's what we encouraged our players to do back in January. I've said this many times: If you're going to compete as a player, as a coach, you'd better be able to take the heat as well as all the other stuff that comes with winning.
"That's part of the terrain," Ferentz continued, "and really, rather than worry about all the emotional stuff that gets involved with that, probably the better course is to try to figure out what you have to do to get better."
The most obvious place where Ferentz's Hawkeyes have improved is in close games -- and when you play at Iowa, you're going to see a lot of them.
Iowa's 7-6 record last season was somewhat deceiving, the team's blowout loss to Minnesota and TaxSlayer Bowl loss to Tennessee notwithstanding. The other four defeats came by a combined 15 points, and three of them came by a field goal or less, the most crushing an overtime loss to Nebraska that saw the Hawkeyes lead 24-7 late in the third quarter.
This year, Iowa is 4-0 in one-possession games and hasn't trailed at all since the first quarter of a 29-20 win over Illinois on Oct. 10. In total, Iowa has only trailed in three games this year, and never in the second half. That being said, Iowa knows that Hawkeye football doesn't necessarily lend itself to Big XII-esque routs, so rather than fret about style points they'll never earn, Ferentz's players have simply focused on staving off defeat.
"That's really the history of our program, at least the last 16, 17 years," Ferentz said. "When we have a good team, typically we find a way to win close games. We don't lead the country in 5- and 4-star recruits, so we typically don't blow folks out; that's just not our DNA. When you play here it's a little bit more like being in the NFL. You're going to be involved in a lot of close games and you've go to find a way to be successful in those games."
The next challenge on the Hawkeyes' quest for perfection will come Friday in Lincoln, where Iowa will aim to redeem itself after last year's meltdown against the Huskers.
Given all the attention Iowa has received for its surprising play, it would be easy to overlook Nebraska, which comes in at 5-6 in its first season under Mike Riley. But looking ahead to a likely Big Ten championship game would be unwise considering that the Spartans' only loss this year came at Memorial Stadium earlier this month.
"Right, wrong or indifferent, I've never been one to circle games or red letter them or whatever those terms may be, because I think that just kind of belittles the other games on your schedule," Ferentz said. "And to me, if you're going to go compete and if you're going to do something like this, you'd better treat every opportunity like it's important -- and if you don't, chances are you have outcomes like we did last year too many times."
Added Canzeri: "Everyone's thought about (a championship), and that's exactly what you want to do. That's the dream. But we have that right mindset of being focused on putting the work in and understanding that we have to win every single game to put ourselves in that position. We know the big picture, we understand the big picture and we realize it, but that's been pushed to the back of our minds because we know we have to put everything in on Nebraska and focus on nothing else, because they're the first step."
Should the Hawkeyes come out on top -- Iowa has beaten Nebraska twice in 10 tries dating back to 1979 -- they would reach 12 wins for the first time in program history. Iowa has done it with a respectable but nondescript offense, led by Canzeri and quarterback C.J. Beathard, and a stingy defense paced by Desmond King, who is tied for the FBS lead with eight interceptions.
Iowa is above-average nationally in virtually every measurable category on both sides of the ball, but despite its credentials, will likely be the underdog regardless of its opponent in the conference championship (the Ohio State-Michigan winner could still sneak in with a Michigan State loss to Penn State). It might sound like an insult, but to some degree, that's just how the Hawkeyes like it.
"A lot of people that are out there that talk, they just don't understand the competition of football," Canzeri said. "It doesn't matter how good a team is, if they come out there and don't have the right approach, they can lose.
"We don't listen to the doubters or people who have the negative things to say about us, or arguments about what place we should be in," Canzeri added. "We know if we win every game, nothing can be said. It's just about what we do. So we don't think about it much, don't talk about it much. We just want to go out there and play our best football, win each game and let the results talk for us."
And if the results keep talking like they have, eventually we'll have no choice but to listen and buy what the Hawkeyes are selling.
"It's pretty easy at the beginning of the year to probably pick five or seven schools where if you went out on a limb and said, 'These guys are going to finish in the top 20,' I don't think you'd really be risking too much," Ferentz said. "I don't think that's ever going to change, but I think what is unique to college football -- and I'm not so sure it's necessarily new today -- is that there's always room and opportunities for stories to emerge."
Iowa has certainly been one of those feel-good stories this season, and while the Hawkeyes still have more than a share of doubters, they believe they're capable of continuing to show them wrong.
""With our confidence in each other, the work that we've put in and the trust factor between coaches and players, we feel that we can accomplish great things," Canzeri said. "So when we have a team put in our way, we're going to put everything in our power into preparing for them and giving them everything we have. And when we have that confidence in each other and we put in the work, we know it can put us in a position to beat anybody."
You can follow Sam Gardner on Twitter or email him at samgardnerfox@gmail.com.
