Hlas: Big November would definitely define Hawkeyes

"Season-defining" is one of those sports terms that some media mope blurted out, and it was picked up and embraced as something that sounds smart no matter how much it isn't.

Of course, no sports phrase will ever replace the timeless classic, "We have to take it one day/one game at a time." Which means a whole lot of nothing.

With each passing season, I fear more and more I'll never see a team master time-travel and skip ahead to a game three weeks into the future.

Anyway, 'season-defining' sounds serious and important. Except it's often nonsense before a season is actually over and, you know, defined.

'I said earlier in the week that these next two weeks are going to define our season,' Penn State tight end Mike Gesicki said after the Nittany Lions' overtime win over Minnesota on Oct. 1.

Well, the Nittany Lions did beat the Gophers, and then they defeated Maryland the following week. That was a good reversal for a team that had lost at Pittsburgh and got routed at Michigan.

But on Oct. 22, heavy underdog Penn State stunned then-unbeaten Ohio State. That's what will define the Nittany Lions' season above all else.

Unless they get beat by Iowa Saturday and lose again at Indiana next Saturday. That would define the Lions as a club that couldn't handle success and its brief return to the national rankings.

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Which brings us to the Hawkeyes, naturally. It is being said in no uncertain terms that their final four regular-season games will define their season.

They will. ... Maybe.

"We set goals at the beginning of the season,' Iowa senior cornerback Desmond King said Tuesday. 'Having a good season, having a complete season. These last four weeks are going to define what kind of season we have and what kind of team we have.'

It's true. Three of those contests are against ranked teams.

''Unbeknownst to the experts, many of the experts I heard this past season, our schedule looks a little more challenging than it did back in July,' Iowa Coach Kirk Ferentz said. 'I heard a lot of judgment about how easy our schedule is.'

After a year-and-a-half of hearing about their soft schedules, Iowa suddenly is playing a Murderer's Row — ignoring the game at Illinois — that began with a loss to Wisconsin on Oct. 22.

The games will be season-definers, yes indeedy. But so are the home losses to North Dakota State, Northwestern and Wisconsin. They prevented the Hawkeyes from enjoying the kind of Sports Illustrated-cover, College Football Playoff rankings residency high life they were living at this time a year ago.

Still, if the Hawkeyes have a glorious November and sweep their final four games, they're 9-3 and, at worst, the co-champion of the Big Ten West. So it's quite a month ahead, loaded with opportunity.

If Iowa wins Saturday in State College, and beats Michigan in Kinnick Stadium, and wins at downtrodden Illinois, and comes home to knock off Nebraska? Whoa! That would define the season as a whopping success.

But split those four games, or worse? The definition of the 2016 Hawkeyes becomes 'unremarkable.'

It will take two wins over the three ranked teams still on the schedule to alter the overall narrative of the season. Anything less, and the unspectacular first two-thirds of the season is the Great Definer.

And that is the definition of how Iowa's season will be defined.

More importantly, Ferentz revealed how his team should pursue November success.

'Best way to do that is just handle it a day at a time, a week at a time,' Ferentz said.

The classics never go out of style.