Tennessee Tech-Iowa: Lore is highly unlikely

I'm conflicted.

Part of me wants to grab the low-hanging fruit and yet again criticize and ridicule FBS (I-A) football programs for playing games against FCS (I-AA) teams. There are so many games across the country this week that will be ugly, tedious FBS-FCS mismatches. Perhaps Tennessee Tech-Iowa will be among them.

But I also know from plenty of eyewitness experience that FCS football is good ball played by good players and coached by good coaches.

I covered the 2005 I-AA championship game won by Appalachian State over Northern Iowa. There was so much talent on the field in Chattanooga that night, on both sides. That was two seasons before Appalachian State won at Michigan and became the nation's shining example of what an FCS team can do on a huge stage.

I covered Delaware's 39-27 FCS quarterfinal upset win at UNI in 2007. It was the first time I'd ever seen Joe Flacco play. You didn't have to be a superscout to say “There's an NFL quarterback” while watching him pass for 312 yards. He and the Blue Hens beat a Panthers team that had been 12-0.

So, while most of these FBS-FCS games are competitive shams, it's often only because of the built-in advantages the bigger programs own, not superior brainpower or devotion.

Iowans, of course, don't need to be told this if they've paid any attention whatsoever to what Northern Iowa has done over the last two decades. But it bears reminding sometimes, and you can bet Iowa State is taking the Panthers seriously this week in preparing for their Saturday night clash in Ames.

Tennessee Tech isn't in UNI's class, at least not yet. It's a program that sounds like it's on the rise, but it takes a lot more than that to walk into a good Big Ten team's stadium and play that team head's up.

Iowa Coach Kirk Ferentz will always have the 2009 UNI-Iowa game to tap others' brakes when it comes to mocking an FCS club's visit to Kinnick Stadium. That was a 17-16 great escape by the Hawkeyes, and it is easily the most-memorable home-opener of the last 15 years at Iowa if not well beyond that.

Ferentz played at Connecticut when it was a I-AA program, and was the head coach for three years at I-AA Maine. So he is more likely to leave Iowa to coach the Miami Hurricanes than he is to belittle FCS teams.

“Watching (Tennessee Tech's) conference, it's good football,” Ferentz said. “On a national level, (FCS) is awfully good. You see guys getting drafted from those schools.”

Iowa senior wide receiver Marvin McNutt said taking TTU seriously is “not difficult at all, especially being part of that ‘09 team. We know what's at stake. Every game matters.”

But now I come back to that low-hanging fruit. While the UNI-Iowa game is part of Hawkeye lore, tell me what you remember about Iowa's 37-7 win over Eastern Illinois last year, or its 46-3 victory over Maine in 2008, or its 41-7 win over Montana in 2006.

They were sunny days and breezy routs. They were meaningless other than to pad the win totals. They gave us nothing to indicate what kind of team Iowa really had those years.

Tennessee Tech has played six FBS teams over the previous three years and lost them all by a total score of 285-34. Ewww.

The Golden Eagles may be improved this year. But if this is a 17-16 game, something has gone shockingly and horribly wrong with the Hawkeyes.