Monday Hawkeyes Reading Room - Could a 10-2 Iowa go to a BCS bowl?

All right, before we proceed please note that I'm not assuming an Ohio State victory over Iowa Saturday. (Not in print, anyhow. Not in print with five days before the game, anyhow.)

So when I cite a scenario or two that have a 10-2 Hawkeyes team in a BCS bowl, don't shoot the messenger. In fact, don't shoot anyone. This is a society built on laws.

Hawkeye Nation's Jon Miller thinks the Big Ten is in a good position to place two teams in BCS bowls even though a second BCS team from the conference would have two losses.

Miller sees a second Big Ten team bringing a lot more fans to a BCS bowl than a second team from another BCS conference, like Miami or Pittsburgh. That's reality. He also doubts both Boise State and TCU would both get BCS bids. Writes Miller at this Hawkeye Nation post:

If Iowa is 10-2, the problem it will face is (hypothetically, I am not giving up on the Ohio State game) losing two of its last three. But Rick Stanzi will be healthy for the bowl game, as will Adam Robinson and possibly Dace Richardson.  Iowa is one of the most bankable bowl schools there is; among the Top Ten. But so are Wisconsin and Penn State. Wisconsin will have a tough time getting past Northwestern in Evanston; you may want to root for the Wildcats there. Given what I witnessed from Penn State on Saturday, they may not have an easy time with Indiana and I think their game at Michigan State will present from problems for them, too. So go Sparty!

What we do know is this; it's going to come down to November 21st, the final day of the Big Ten season. There will be some serious scoreboard watching going on that day, unless Iowa beats Ohio State this week.

But do not just dismiss Iowa's chances at being an at large selection to the BCS. One final tumbler that would have to happen; they would have to be ranked in the Top 14 of the final BCS poll. The computers will likely prop them up enough for that to happen.

Jon's an unabashed Iowa fan, but he's also a realist. I hadn't even considered Iowa as a BCS team at 10-2 until I read his piece and then looked around a bit more. Like at the thoughts of Ted Lewis of the New Orleans Times-Picayune, who wrote this here:

Orange Bowl – Georgia Tech vs. Iowa. The Hawkeys probably can forget about beating Ohio State. But if they can get past Minnesota on Nov. 21, they'll get the nod ahead of Penn State. Otherwise, this berth goes to the Nittany Lions.

Mark Schlabach of ESPN.com has a Fiesta Bowl matchup of Iowa and TCU in his weekly bowl projections. He also has Iowa State facing Northern Illinois in the Little Caesars Pizza Bowl. Schlabach's partner, Bruce Feldman, has Iowa against Gene Chizik's Auburn team in the Capital One Bowl, and Iowa State vs. Idaho in the Humanitarian Bowl.

Matt Hayes of The Sporting News says Iowa plays Boise State in the Fiesta Bowl.

College Football News, meanwhile, is going with Iowa vs. USC in the Fiesta Bowl in its weekly bowl projections.

There's talk of both Boise State and TCU going to BCS games if they win out, and I'd be surprise if both don't. Win out, that is. Boise State took a mass quantity of fans to the Fiesta Bowl three years ago. But TCU is a BCS bowl's nightmare. The Horned Frogs drew just 33, 541 for their last home game, against UNLV, and has averaged 34, 269 for its four home games.

But last year, TCU played Boise State in San Diego's Poinsettia Bowl. Granted, it was a pre-Christmas game. But it pitted two teams ranked in the Top 11. Attendance was 34, 628. A week later at San Diego's Holiday Bowl, Oregon and Oklahoma State brought in a crowd of 59,106. Neither team was ranked in the Top 11.

We know the BCS is about commerce, not art, so if a BCS game is given an actual choice between a 12-0 Boise State and a 10-2 Iowa . . . wouldn't that be interesting?

David Jones of the Harrisburg Patriot-News agrees a second Big Ten team has a good shot at a BCS bowl, but he thinks it's Penn State if it goes 10-2. An excerpt:

A decisive Iowa loss at Ohio State might be helpful.

But it probably doesn't matter. No matter the result in Columbus, a competitor of PSU's is hurt. A decisive loss for the Hawkeyes almost certainly dumps them out of the top 14 and out of eligibility. A loss for the Buckeyes gives them three defeats.

And even if a 2-loss Iowa recovers to rout Minnesota and regain eligibility, Penn State's fan support and TV clout trumps the Hawkeyes, too.

Jones called Jerry Palm of collegebcs.com to ask him what Penn State's chances of making a BCS game would be if Oklahoma State - which Jones thinks has the inside track of a Fiesta Bowl berth right now - loses again.

“Ninety,” he said. “I'm really confident that if Penn State wins out, they'll go. They're just too attractive from a TV and fan-support standpoint. I can't see the Orange Bowl passing on Penn State.”

“Boise is Boise. They're not good television. People like to talk about them. But once they're on TV, they don't watch.”

Brad Edwards of ESPN.com isn't so high on the Big Ten right now, as you can see here. Edwards writes:

Until Saturday, the Big Ten seemed like a good bet to get its usual two teams into the BCS. But Ohio State and Northwestern may have combined to cost the league about $4.5 million (the payout for a conference getting a second BCS team).

BCS bowls love to extend at-large invitations to programs like Penn State and Iowa when they close the season with momentum, but late-season losses have a way of making major bowls look elsewhere.

The Orange Bowl may not give a hoot about late-season losses. Its last three matchups were Louisville-Wake Forest, Kansas-Virginia Tech and Cincinnati-Virginia Tech. From a New York Times story on the Cincy-Va. Tech game:

The actual attendance was 57,851, well below the paid attendance of 73,602. The discrepancy came because the Orange Bowl forced local fans wanting to attend next week's national title game here to buy Orange Bowl tickets along with their title game tickets. That left waves of open seats at Dolphin Stadium, including numerous sections covered by tarps.

I don't know if a 10-2 Iowa team would deserve an Orange Bowl, but I do know this: Land Shark Stadium (formerly Dolphin Stadium, formerly Pro Player Park, formerly Joe Robbie Stadium) wouldn't need to cover empty sections with tarps if the Hawkeyes were invited.

Nor would University of Phoenix Stadium if the Hawkeyes somehow secured a Fiesta Bowl bid.

Now for a little other stuff. Lake the Posts, a blog devoted to Northwestern sports, recaps the Wildcats' win at Iowa with perspectives you won't find in Iowa. A snippet:

Let's face it. To paraphrase Fitz from earlier in the season, this upset was hardly a Picasso. Perhaps the lack of beauty in this game led to it feeling more like a hang-on-for-dear-life as opposed to one you could enjoy, but regardless it is THE signature win of the Fitz era. When you end the nation's second longest winning streak (Iowa had won 13 straight) and win against a team with the best record your program has upended since Cal in the 1949 Rose Bowl, who cares what it looked like.

A bit about Ohio State to start the week. Doug Lesmerises of the Cleveland Plain-Dealer says in his blog that OSU Terrelle Pryor at 80 percent healthy (he played with a bad left ankle in the Buckeyes' 24-7 win at Penn State) may be better than Pryor at 100 percent. A passage:

Pryor was heaped with praise after the win, and he ran just five times and completed just eight passes. Only one of those runs was called, a 24-yard quarterback draw on third-and-5 that kick-started what turned out to be the game-winning drive in the second quarter, when a field goal put Ohio State ahead, 10-7. Maybe smaller doses will help create bigger plays.

Finally, the timing may not be the best for this given the grumbling about the play-call against Northwestern in which Iowa quarterback Ricky Stanzi got clobbered and had his regular-season ended. But here's a story from The Villages Daily Sun in Florida on Hawkeye offensive coordinator Ken O'Keefe, quoting his mother, Helen. She lives in The Villages, self-described as Florida's premier active adult retirement community.

The last couple of weeks the first thing out of Helen's mouth when she picks up the phone in her Orange Blossom Gardens home is, “I don't think my stomach can handle much more of this.”

Ken's reply: “How do you think mine feels?”

About the last-play win at Michigan State:

“We were going crazy,” said Dean Tilton, president of The Villages Iowa Hawkeye State Club, who watched the game with his wife Karen. “That game taught us to never give up.”