Hlas: Hawkeyes stayed on course, wrecked MSU

IOWA CITY - Roller coasters don't rumble through Kirk Ferentz's Iowa football program.

Wild, screaming ups and downs are for the outside world, people with no influence over how the Hawkeyes think and prepare. The team didn't feel like it was circling the drain after their draining 31-30 loss to Wisconsin a week ago, and probably doesn't feel flush with joy today after its 37-6 decimation of No. 5 Michigan State.

“Every week we approach things the same way,” said Iowa quarterback Ricky Stanzi. “It's a business-type approach.”

“Coach Ferentz is always cool, calm, collected,” Hawkeye defensive tackle Mike Daniels said. “His methods are second to none.”

After Iowa's 44-7 loss at Arizona State in 2004, strength and conditioning coach Chris Doyle brought a commode to the team's weight room to make a point.

“You've got to flush things down,” Ferentz said Saturday.

Now I'll seek more-pleasant imagery, and not a moment too soon. How about a possible Big Ten title tie?

If the Hawkeyes play through November the way they went about their business on Halloween Eve in Kinnick Stadium, 7-1 in the conference is more than viable.

“They're the best team in the Big Ten,” Lansing sports media veteran Jack Ebling said with certainty after the game.

They sure were a lot better than the previously unbeaten, BCS-dreaming Spartans. For a game of alleged heavyweights, this was George Foreman against George Will.

Iowa seemed to have a coaching staff and team with purposeful anger, mad for letting that Wisconsin game get away, but harnessing the emotion into smashing Michigan State's spirit.

Iowa called two timeouts in the final seven seconds of the first half with a 30-0 lead. It didn't have the ball and would have needed something incredibly dumb by the Spartans to give away the ball for another Iowa score. It didn't matter. The Hawkeyes had come to play.

Up 37-6 early in the fourth quarter, the Hawkeyes tried a reverse pass that Marvin McNutt overthrew at Derrell Johnson-Koulianos. Yes, a Ferentz team threw a long pass off a reverse with a 31-point lead.

“We were trying to score a touchdown,” Ferentz explained. Obviously.

Stanzi played the entire game. Was his coach afraid of a miracle MSU comeback otherwise?

“Maybe we are gun-shy right now,” said Ferentz.

Or maybe it was the opposite, and maybe the Hawkeyes kept punching like George Foreman after two straight weeks of George Will-conservative offense in the fourth quarter.

No one wearing black was complaining here, that's for sure. About anything.

This was a glorious performance for this program. People across the country were watching to see what Michigan State really had. They got a full view of the Hawkeyes blowing up MSU's chance of a BCS title-game berth.

If the Spartans win their final three games for their own Big Ten championship-share with someone or ones, it might have to come with an asterisk after this whomping.

This wasn't an upset, but it definitely was jarring. No anger was involved, according to every Hawkeye player you asked. Just determination.

“I wouldn't say we were angry,” said Iowa defensive end Adrian Clayborn. “I'd say we were more focused on details.”

“We knew we still had a good football team,” Hawkeye safety Tyler Sash said. “It was 11 guys watching tape this week.”

It was the culture of this 12th-year program. You grieve over gut-wrenching defeats, but you don't miss time from work because of it.

“I'm sure all of us were bleeding a little bit,” Ferentz said.

“You've got two ways to respond, when you lose a game. ... You get in the fetal position; you come out and start playing again. That's what our guys did, and so I'm really proud of them.”

The manhandling, the execution, the force behind it - it looked like Iowa was playing Ball State again instead of Michigan State. This was a Hawkeyes team in full, not one left to rue special teams blunders or a defense getting shredded at moments of truth.

No, this was a team that looked like it had taken on a full tank of gas and four new tires for the rest of this race.

“Everything we do is like we're pushing to the month of November,” Hawkeye defensive lineman Christian Ballard said.

November, for all practical purposes, is here.