I would like to announce that my buddy and your friend Mach is now my editor. He will be all the behind the scenes dirty work and I will put a title on the actual blog sometime in the near future. Who knows, he may write a couple times for us. Also my other buddy JS who is a student at the University of Iowa asked me to do a write up for the big Saturday Night showdown against Penn State. Me being a man of the people I have done that for him.
First off, if you were a top 10 team would you be regretting playing any games on Thursday night? Look how many times teams have fallen from their top spots when they have played on the prime time Thursday night spot. Usually they are on the road, and its really never ends well for them. For example, the ones I can remember is Ole Miss last night, USC last year, Louisville a couple years ago, and Oregon with Dennis Dixon. Those teams all had National Championship aspirations. WSSP 1250 Mike Wickett who I enjoy was tweeting throughout the game and said that the Rebels had to be the most overrated team in the NCAA plus Snead seemed rattled the whole game. Knowing the Thursday night aspect, I knew it would be close but I didn't think South Carolina had enough to pull it off.
Now on to the Iowa-Penn State preview when I first saw this as the prime time game, I felt it had blowout written all over it. The reasons were rather simple; Happy Valley is a tough place to play in daylight but when it goes dark, its a whole another animal. The revenge factor plus a tenacious defense. But the week has progressed, I began thinking this could end up in Iowa's favorite even in Happy Valley. Here are three good reasons why this game will be close...
The first would be that Sean Lee, the leader of the Lion defense is out with injury. When you lose a guy like that in major college football its tough to make up what he brings to the table every game he plays. The Hawkeyes should be using their tight ends and running backs in pass plays to disrupt the linebacker crew.
I believe Daryll Clark's decision making may be a problem. You might feel that this is an advantage to Penn State but hear me out. Clark talking to whoever wants to listen about how much redemption he wants from this game and that he broke down crying the day after the lost to Iowa last year. Something tells me that Clark may try a bit too hard especially in the beginning of the game, that it could be a couple turnovers.
A lot like Ole Miss, Penn State played one of the softest schedule, you would think they were playing the Charmin Bears. They haven't been tested while Iowa dismantled a pretty good Arizona team at home and after that near disaster against Northern Iowa, they seem to have got their shit together on the defensive end. The first four drives whoever has them will set the pace.
JS, I would love to take the Hawkeyes but I cannot do it with this team at home. Its going to be a battle to the end and a great Big 10 defense kind of game. I think the Nittany Lions win on a very late field goal. Expect a classic. PSU 16-13
-Charlie.
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