Journey

I'm gonna do something a little different. I started this blog mainly as an Iowa Sports blog. Ok mainly an Iowa Football blog. But now that the football season's over for the most part, I'm going to change directions a little. I'll still talk about Iowa sports like the Outback Bowl and Iowa basketball. But I'm also going to talk about a little more.

To start out with, I'm going to talk about the new Journey CD. Steve Perry left the group a few years ago saying he refused to work with them. And since him and his voice basically was the band, he ended it. That is unless they could find a new lead singer with a similar style and voice as Steve. And amazingly, they found him. How did they do it? YouTube. His name is Arnel Pineda and he is Philippino.

When you first hear him talk, you would think no way. He has a small voice with a heavy accent. But then he opens his mouth and sings. When i first heard him, my jaw dropped. Some songs sound exactly like Steve Perry, or just as good in his own way.

The CD includes 2 CD's and one special edition comes with a live DVD of them. The first disk on the CD is 11 new songs. I only liked a few select songs of these, but the ones i did like sounded just like the classics. And in my opinion just as great as them. The second disc is 11 of their most popular songs, rerecorded with Arnel singing.

For 12 dollars, this is a great buy for any Journey fan. The classics sound great, some new songs sound great, and the DVD is awesome.

Inside Laughter

This week, ISU coach Gene Chizik left ISU for Auburn. Apparently he also lied about going before he did. He denied that he would be leaving, but the moment they offered him the job, he left. Now I know that this is a very bad situation for ISU,and i'm a little upset about it. On the outside at least. On the inside, I can't help laughing hysterically at them and their misfortune. I hate ISU, i just try not to show it out of respect to other fans and Iowans. But every time ISU's program gets a little worse, my smile gets a little bigger. Sure i do hope they get a coach, I just hope he's not a very good one.

Shonn Greene highlights

highlights for the season

part 1



part 2

Confirmation!

The Hawks were selected to go to the Outback Bowl. After USC defeated UCLA, Ohio State's spot in a BCS bowl were secured which allowed Iowa to go to a January 1st bowl. That bowl just happened to be the Outback Bowl in Tampa Bay, Florida, where they will be facing South Carolina.

Postseason Hopes

Iowa succeeded in winning their last two games to bring them to have an 8-4 record. They beat Purdue 22-17 in a game that was way too close. Then they crushed Minnesota 55-0. And Shonn Greene continued is incredible performance rushing 211 yards against purdue an for 144 yards in the first 3 quarters against Minnesota. After that he was taken out and the backups came in. Now Greene is 5th on the Heisman watch list and could be heading to New York for the Heisman ceremony. Now the Iowa football team is either going to the Alamo Bowl or Champs Bowl, or depending how other teams do, could go to the Outback or Capital One Bowl. Oregon State lost to Oregon this past weekend so now Ohio State has a much better chance of getting into a bcs bowl. As long as that happens Iowa will go to either the Capital One Bowl or the Outback Bowl.

Future

This victory was a major victory for the Hawks. Shonn Greene got the National Player of the Week Award and Norm Parker got the Defensive Coordinator Award. It generated buzz everywhere and Iowa was even declared the National Team of the Week. It completely turned their season around and somewhat made up for their other losses. Now they can look to go 8-4 and have a very good season. If they do finish strong and win the next two games, they will look for a good bowl bid and set themselves up for next season when they should be very good. I was looking at bowl projections and one expert had them in the very good Outback Bowl against South Carolina, and the other had them in the Champs Sports Bowl against Virgina Tech. I don't know if they predicted different records or what but that's a huge difference. If they win the bowl game, depending on what bowl game it is, they could start next season out in the top 25 rankings and become the team they were a few years ago. And if Shonn Greene does decide to return next year, though doubtful, they would be a team to reckon with and would possibly be one of the strongest Hawkeye teams we've seen in a long time. And it all started with this win. This win showed it was possible to do and that this was a great team with missed oppurtunities. It gave the confidence and hope all across the state to be able to do great things and now has high hopes for what's to come.

Miracle

It couldn't be done. That's what everyone thought about Iowa beating Penn State. If you look at my last post even i said it. Penn State was ranked number 3 in the nation and Iowa was unranked. Penn State was dominating everyone and was undefeated while Iowa had lost 4 games. But on that cold afternoon, everything felt different. The Iowa players were pissed and you could tell. They had lost 4 games this season by a combined 12 points and they were sick of it. A good family friend had talked to defensive tackle Matt Kroule on the phone earlier in the week and he had told him that all the players were pissed off and were ready to play and win against Penn State. And that's exactly what they did. In the first minute you could tell the mood they were in after they burst through the line to crush the quarterback, Daryll Clark, two plays in a row. On the second hit they managed to knock the ball loose and though it looked like Iowa got it in the endzone for a touchdown, Clark had somehow managed to get it back. They punted but Iowa got it on the 35 yard line with great field position. And two plays and two great runs later, Shonn Greene ran it in. The game was looking great. Then Penn State finally started playing. They drove on Iowa over and over again but Iowa wasn't giving up anything only allowing field goals. Then Iowa had two turnovers, a fumble and an interception, that gave Penn State great field position both times and led to 10 easy points for them. It wasn't looking good at 16-7 when in the 3rd quarter, Ricky Stanzi found DJK in the endzone on a long pass. Penn State scored again on the next drive to make it 23-14. Then Iowa struck again in the fourth quarter to make it 23-21. With about 6 minutes left in the game, Penn State started driving again until Iowa managed to stop them on their own 35 yard line. They went to punt but an Iowa defensive player somehow brushed by the punter drawing a bogus roughing the punter flag giving Penn State the first down. All of a sudden, a game that Iowa had a sure shot at, just got harder to win and everyone thought it was over. Penn State continued to drive and got in field goal range. Iowa's only hope was for a turnover, or hold them to 3 points so they only needed a touchdown to win. That's when Tyler Sash picked off Clark and it was a whole new ball game. This time Iowa began driving. On 3rd and 14, Stanzi through an incomplete pass that drew a pass interference flag and gave them a first down. Then they got in field goal range and made the field goal a lot easier after Stanzi completed a pass to DJK on the 15 yard line. After two more runs by Greene to get in premium position for the kick, Daniel Murray came out. There was six seconds on the clock and he was ready. After a timeout by Penn State to ice him, he kicked a perfect kick right throught the uprights. 24-23. Penn State was stunned. Iowa fans started to rush the field but there was still a second left so they had to be forced back off the field so Iowa could kickoff. Iowa kicked a squib kick that was perfectly covered and they ended the game. Iowa fans and players rushed the field once again and the celebratin began. They had done it. They had done the impossible

Hawkeye Penn St. Preview

Well i'm about to leave for the Iowa game and thought i would give a preview before i left. Penn State is 9-0, and iowa is 5-4. But like i've already said, 12 more points and this is a different season with a 9-0 Hawkeye team. Both defenses are very good with Penn State's a little better if you look at the stats. Penn State's defense had given up an average of 11.1 points a game and Iowa has given up 13. Offense is a little different though. Penn State has a very dominant offense averaging more than 225 yards rushing and 230 yards passing a game. That is very diverse and also a lot of yardage. The Iowa offense on the other hand is a little banged up with star Shonn Greene having some problems with his ankle and also a few problems with the O-line. Seth Olsen might return from a sprained ankle and his backup, Andy Kuempel, is probably not going to play because of a shoulder injury. This is not the game to be banged up. But even with that, a few experts who pick who's going to win have picked Iowa as the victor since they are two very close teams, and Iowa needs the win.

Illinois

Well don't really want to talk to much about this game. It sucked. That pretty much wraps it up. We lossed if you couldn't tell or didn't already know that. It was a key game for both teams but Illinois won, propelling them ahead and holding Iowa back. This was a much needed game since it is probably one of the easiest games they have left. Now they have to play undefeated Penn State next week. They also have to play Purdue, Minnesota. Minnesota is also a very good team and will be a very hard win, but they should win easily against purue. Now if they do what's expected, which is to lose to Penn State and Minnesota but win against Purdue, they will be 6-6. That's as good as last year which wasn't good. If they had just won the illinois game they would have at least been 7-5 and possibly better. But the hardest part about this loss (minus the fact that i hate illinois) is that it was by 3 points. 3 POINTS. They had missed a field goal ealier in the game and failed to score a touchdown twice in the redzone and had to settle for fieldgoals. It was an easy win, a sure win. Yet somehow they managed to let it slip through their fingers and they lost it. Sure their errors for a "young" team and its just helping them learn. But we won't have a lot of our good players for long and fans are wanting results now. Iowa's last 9 losses have been by 3 points or less. That means we gain a few more points every game and we're contending for the national championship. That's the hard part of accepting this loss.

Loss

Loss is never something that's easy to deal with. Whether you lost someone you care about or it's a team of yours. The latter is obviously much less important but it still sucks none the less. It's even worse when you're school's team is the one thats losing. That's exactly what happened last night at Cedar Rapids Xavier played my school, Cedar Rapids Kennedy. It would have been a great game to any spectator not heavily supporting a certain team, but for any dedicated student with high hopes for the season, it was not a fun night. It started out ok with both teams doing ok. Kennedy definitely looked better and had some steady drives going but had two turnovers that really set them back. But they were in the lead 10-7 heading into halftime and it was looking alright for us except one of our top recievers, Max Martino, was taken out of the game with a concussion. That's when the second string runningback and kick returner, Josh Simmons, hopped off the field after falling awkwardly on his leg. It was broken. Now we had two big time players out with injuries and it was starting to feel much similair to the Kennedy-Xavier game held earlier in the year. We had our starting quarterback, Derek Thomas, and again Max Martino knocked out of the game from big hits. We went into halftime leading but when we came back out, things started looking even more downhill. On one of our first possesions in the 3rd quarter Derek Thomas was sacked for a safety. 10-9. They then managed to score again to put it to 10-16. But the game wasn't over yet and Kennedy managed to get the ball back with 49 seconds left after they stopped Xavier with a 4 and out that only took 20 seconds. But it had also taken all of our timeouts and we were now on our own 8. The following plays included a couple of very long throws that were somehow miracuously caught. Derek Thomas managed to get one more completion to get the ball to the 12 before he had to spike the ball with 3 seconds on the clock. This was the game. They hiked the ball and Derek dropped back to...... lob it to the corner to a reciever who is double covered and the ball is almost intercepted. Game over. End of season.

Being a fan

Well, with the Hawks having a bye week this week, there hasn't been much to talk about. So I'm going to drift away from the regular Hawk Talk and talk about something different: what it means to me to be a fan. I'm a fan of many sports teams. They include the Kennedy Cougars (obviously), the Iowa Hawkeye's, the Minnesota Vikings, the Chicago Cubs, and occasionally the LA Lakers. But I've been coming across a problem lately. I'm seeing that I'm sort of a fairweather fan. Now when it comes to Iowa basketball and football i will always be a good fan, but with the other teams my expectations are a little high. As i was growing up and i really started to watch sports, my teams were doing very well. Much above their previous standards. The cubs almost went to the world series in 2003 and that gave me the image that they were a very good team. I expected that from them almost every year but when it didn't happen, i lost interest in them. That is until this year when they were candidates for the world series champion's. But once they lost, i found that I again lost interest in them and don't have much hope for them as a team. The same happened with the Viking's when they were the favorites for the super bowl in 2000 and they collapsed in the NFC championship game. I am still a fan, but a very undedicated one and when they lose, i just sigh and look the other way. The only team i still truly root for is the Hawkeye football team. I have grown up honoring them and being proud of them as a symbol for the state. They've never been a total powerhouse, but in the last 6 years have had a very good campaign and this keeps me hopeful for them: maybe one of the only reasons i'm still a fan of them.

Heisman Hope

After 8 games, it's finally happened. After 1,154 yards, 10 touchdowns, and an average of 6.5 yards a carry. And more than anything, after eight consecutive games of rushing 100 yards or more, it happened. Shonn Greene is on the Heisman watch list. This may not be extremely significant since it doesn't mean he wins or anything like that. But it is the first step and also finally recognizes him on the national level. The watch list puts the top 15 candidates for the Heisman trophy on a list and ranks them. He's 10th. In order to be even close to winning, he's going to really have to step it up and put on quite a show. He's already doing amazing, but he's going to have to be spectacular. And the candidates in front of him are going to need to have one or two off games, but with the way they've been playing that doesn't look likely. But if Shonn Greene remains perfect, and maybe even above perfect, and the quarterbacks ahead of him start declining, he has a real shot. The key game is going to be Penn State. They haven't played any exceptional defenses yet to really challenge him. After the Penn State game we will really know his potential and how good a chance he has at getting the trophy.

Wisconsin Wrap-up

Wisconsin started out the year ranked in the top 10 teams in the country. They won their first 3 games with a very good start. That's when they lost to Michigan, Ohio State, and Penn State in that order. Ohio State and Penn State are both very good teams but Michigan is not at all. So Wisconsin came to Iowa, they were in a slump but were also determined to get out of it. They started out with the ball surprising Iowa. But they couldn't do anything with it. Then when we got control of the ball, we trotted 70 yards down the field where Greene finished off the drive with a nice 12 yard touchdown. The next quarter Greene scored again in an amazing , 34 yard run. He got a huge whole to run through on the right side and shot through to the secondary. From there he juked a Wisconsin defender who managed to get a hand full of his jersey and spin him around. This slowed him down enough for another defender to get to him and get a hold of him. But Shonn just shook him off and kept running. He then avoided two more Wisconsin players on the way into the endzone. This run mainly occured because of poor tackling but it was still amazing none the less. It is considered one of the greatest if not the greatest run in Hawkeye history. It also got Heisman hype going and got people really talking about putting him on the lists for the Heisman candidates. After the half Iowa started to seem lifleless and you could see the momentum drifting towards Wisconsin. It looked like the game could be on the line and Wisconsin was ready for a comeback. That's when Shonn took a draw up the middle and broke away for a 52 yard touchdown. Then the after that the game was effectively finished up when Iowa's Paki O'Meara blocked a punt. Ricki Stanzi finished off the drive by throwing a touchdown to tight end Allen Reisner who had an amazing one handed catch to add 6. In the fourth quarter Greene had another big run of 34 yards to add to the scoreboard, and his total yard. He ended the day with a career high of 217 yards and 4 touchdowns. Pat angerer ended up with 16 tackles and 2 interceptions in a row which is beastly. All in all a very very good day for Hawkeye football

Shonn's Future

The biggest story this hawkeye season has definitely been their outstanding running back Shonn Greene. Every game they have played so far he has had over one hundred yards rushing and is the 3rd best back in the nation. He has run over and through all defenses and has yet to be stopped. When Iowa played Michigan State, Shonn outran Michigan State's Javon Ringer, who is a heisman candidate, 134-91 yards. This has also brought up talk about him potentially leaving Iowa to go pro after this season. He is currently a junior and definitely will go pro at some point. It's just a matter of when. He's already 24 which is old for a junior in college. He won't have as many years as most running backs in the NFL would because of his late start. This late start happened because after high school he didn't immediately go to college. But he went to Iowa in the 2005 and 2006 seasons. He got a few carries there but was only the backup running back. Then in 2007 he had to leave Iowa for academic reasons and went to a junior college to get his grades back up. After he succeeded in doing that he came back to Iowa in the fall of 2008 and immediately started playing and lighting people up. He has impressed with his quickness, awareness, and most of all his strength and toughness. He continues dishing out hits while also taking them. This gives talk about him leaving. He already has a late start on his NFL career. Why wait longer to get started? But me and Hawkeye fans everywhere are praying that he stays. He's been the most exciting player to watch since Brad Banks in my opinion and i also think if he stays he will be a major heisman candidate next year. When asked about what he's going to do he said he doesn't know yet and he's not concerned about it. He's taking one game at a time and just putting all of his focus toward those games. If he does decide to stay next year, he will make a good improving team next year even better and give us the team we've been looking for the past 3 years.

The rise begins

The Indiana game was a very pivotal game for the Hawkeyes season this year. After routing the hoosiers 45-9, the hawkeye season is starting to look much brighter after 3 straight losses. This game was a needed win, especially since it was a descent opponent with descent players. They weren't a nobody team like most of their wins have been. But shonn greene continues to impress and the defense continues to be impenetrable. The big factor in this game though, was the turnovers, or lack of them. All three losses the Hawks have suffered they have lost by a combined 9 points. And in two of the losses they were in scoring position several times only to turn the ball over. If they had simply managed to hold on to the ball and get at least a field goal they would be 6-1 or 7-0. In the Indiana game however they had no turnovers and it showed in the score. Next week is another must win against a Wisconsin team that was ranked among some of the nations best early in the season. If we play like we did against Indiana with no turnovers and a solid defense, we have a very good chance of winning. After that there is a tough road game against Illinois. Following that is the big game. It's the home game against Penn State which is currently ranked 3rd in the nation. They have top notch athletes and will easily be the toughest opponent of the year. If our top notch and highly ranked defense can find a way to stop their great offense it will give us a much better shot. And if greene continues to take charge and gain a massive number of yards this could be a very good game. But there are a lot of if's there and they will all need to click together to get the result that Iowans want.

First post

Hey not sure where this blog is going yet. I'm pretty sure it will be mostly about the Iowa Hawkeyes and Hawkeye sports. So stay tuned for more