Hlas column: Rise up, everybody! The Buckeyes are coming, the Buckeyes are coming!

IOWA CITY - Kirk Ferentz joked Tuesday that he planned to make Oregon's offensive style his own this week until the Ducks were held to 15 points in their win at California Saturday night.

“That isn't going to cut it,” he said. He was being kind of cutting himself.

Ferentz's message Tuesday was, we do what we do. We have what we have. We are what we are. We stay the course, and that's what solid programs do. It's certainly what he does, what he has always done, what he always will do.

That philosophy has built a program at Iowa, a program that has done a lot of things to make its fans very pleased over the last decade. Most of the time. Seemingly impenetrable belief-systems, though, are as frustrating to fans as upset losses when they are penetrated by opponents.

All of which is as newsworthy, really, as a dog barking at a meter-reader.

“I don't want to spend all day talking about last week,” Ferentz said early in his weekly news conference.

That was understandable. But there were some questions about that 21-17 loss at Northwestern that either didn't get asked or addressed in full after last Saturday's game. Like why Iowa's scoring dropped from 34 points a game through the first eight to 17.5 points per game the last two. Or why the Hawkeyes have kind of, well, not been hyper-efficient with a couple of two-minute offenses this year.

They didn't really get answered Tuesday, either. Oh well.

I've had my post-mortems for the Northwestern game in print, and many of you have had yours in various forums, be it message boards, e-mails, tweets, or throwing a shoe at a television. That last option, by the way, remains a classic.

As a professional observer, I'm endlessly curious about how people react to the elation and the pain they invite their favorite teams to give them. The feelings of a fan base after a big win doesn't give tell us much about people. They're joyful, they act joyful, the end. I find reactions to unexpected, heartbreaking, soul-shaking defeats, however, to be fascinating.

Some go all knee-jerk and crazed with anger and frustration about something completely out of their control, while others prove to be beacons of common sense. I've gotten correspondence that was borderline irrational from Iowa fans this week, and I've gotten some that was so rational I wanted to seek counseling from the authors in regards to other areas of life.

When I look back at Iowa-Northwestern, however, I think I'll always remember something that was almost Shakespearean.

On his last throw of the game, Wildcat quarterback Dan Persa threw a magnificent game-winning touchdown pass and suffered a season-ending, perhaps career-changing ruptured Achilles tendon through no fault of an Iowa defender.

You tell me, fans. Would you have taken a victory Saturday afternoon if it meant you'd need a surgery on your Achilles that night? I wonder how many of the players on both teams would have said yes before that game ended.

Darn it! That's what I should have asked Iowa players Tuesday when I had the chance.

I'll pause here and admit this is an obtuse essay. Consider it a bridge to the Ohio State game. Let's proceed.

There will be plenty of off-season left for “what might have been” for the Hawkeyes” or to hear many of you tell it, “what should have been.” Maybe there will be another chorus of it Saturday night. Maybe there won't.

But you know what? It's Tuesday night. The 9-1 Buckeyes come to Kinnick Stadium in less than four days. A game that has been circled on sports calendars around here for many months is upon us. It's possible a game as compelling as the Iowa-OSU 2009 battle awaits us.

In the words of the Partridge Family: C'mon get happy.