Black Friday results will frame the Hawkeyes’ year

IOWA CITY - This really just boils down to the plot of 'Top Gun.”

On one side, you have the Red Menace. Literally. On the other, at least going on their point of view, you have Maverick and Iceman and a whole bunch of guys who could fit the Goose role fighting for the American way.

And, oh, a 12-0 record.

There is no volleyball scene. Quarterback C.J. Beathard won't 'buzz the tower” and flip the bird (he's actually not the lone wolf that Maverick was and is actually very much a team player). And Iowa head coach Kirk Ferentz would never spill his coffee.

This might be the stretch of all stretches, but you do have to agree, what No. 5 Iowa has going on right now will be framed by its encounters with Nebraska, almost exactly the way Maverick's story was in 'Top Gun.” The Tom Cruise character engaged a Soviet jet at the beginning of the movie and then blew one up at the end.

Last year on Black Friday, the Hawkeyes (11-0, 7-0 Big Ten) suffered a galling defeat at the hands of Nebraska (5-6, 3-4). Iowa held a 17-point halftime lead. It gave up a pair of crucial punt returns, allowed a couple of big plays and then had to watch as the Huskers dashed to the south end zone and danced away with the Heroes Trophy.

Cue Kenny Loggins' 'Danger Zone.”

'It's all about us taking ownership,” Ferentz, on Tuesday, said of last season's 37-34 overtime result against the Huskers. 'That game is a centerpiece for it, but there were signs along the way. We lost way too many close games, something we didn't do as a team very well last year. There are a lot of things we didn't do well; you can go right down the list, but that word ‘finish,' it gets thrown out all the time in sports. You can take it game-by-game or you can take it as a season. It just so happens that was our last regular scheduled football game.”

And, for the near future, the Nebraska game will be Iowa's season finale. The Huskers will serve as a frame and, therefore, a measure for what Iowa did right and/or wrong in a given 12-month stretch.

Last season, a lot was wrong.

'I know that Coach Ferentz has mentioned a lot that last year's game did show us a lot of what last season was for us,” running back Jordan Canzeri said. 'We had leads and we let some slide. That was something that we needed to focus on. We had to finish harder. It was something that carried through the lifts, the offseason conditioning to now.”

Perhaps the unkindest of cuts came from Nebraska Athletics Director Shawn Eichorst. In the weekend following Black Friday, he fired head coach Bo Pelini. More or less, Eichorst said the victory over Iowa meant nothing.

'As I looked back at the outcomes, I am trying to look at who are championship level football teams in that moment,” Eichorst said. 'How competitive were we in those games. We were not playing for a conference championship and neither was Iowa. And I have great respect to Iowa, it is a wonderful institution, and a great football program. But in the final analysis, their record was where it was and our record was where it was.”

Ferentz shrugged that off Tuesday, as you would expect.

'I don't think he was the only guy who said that,” Ferentz said. 'It seemed like there was a lot of company on that front. All of us have been looking forward since January. What happened, happened. We take ownership. Anybody who was there, we take ownership, and the good news is we got to swing the bat again and things are working out a little bit better right now. But it's temporary parking, just like all the rankings and all that stuff.”

And now this Friday, 11-0 Iowa will fly into the Danger Zone looking for a 12-0 season. A dirty, ugly, mistake- and angst-filled loss to the Huskers sits on one end of the Hawkeyes' year. And whatever happens Friday will be on the other end. If it's perfection, it's a Hollywood ending. (Maybe the regional cover Sports Illustrated unveiled Tuesday with the Hawkeyes on the cover under the headline 'Iowa Raucous” could play the role of movie poster.)

Nebraska, however, still is Nebraska. The Huskers are in the first year of Mike Riley's structure and there have been snarls. Four of its five losses have come on the game's final possession. Iowa's roster has more than a few players who Nebraska took a pass on. A few Hawkeyes growled Tuesday at the mention of the Huskers.

'Some of the things that are coming out of their camp toward us aren't necessarily the nicest things,” junior wide receiver Matt VandeBerg said. 'We're going to go out and do our job.”

VandeBerg, who's sixth in the B1G with 56 receptions, is from Brandon, S.D., so he grew up in Nebraska's region. He didn't get a look from the Huskers. Linebacker Cole Fisher, who's No. 2 on the Hawkeyes with 92 tackles, is from Omaha. He didn't get an offer. Defensive tackle Nathan Bazata, from Howells, Neb., didn't get an offer. Senior defensive end Drew Ott, who told reporters Tuesday that he plans to apply for a fifth year of eligibility after missing this season because of an ACL tear, didn't get an offer after earning Nebraska high school player of the year honors at Giltner High School.

'I have to be careful about what I say here,” Fisher said with a laugh.

And so, somehow, an 11-0 Iowa team has a core group of players with chips implanted on their shoulders going into Lincoln and Black Friday. Somehow, 5-6 Nebraska is the evil empire.

A final conflict with Nebraska was written into Iowa's season. The Hawkeyes are on high spoiler alert.

l Comments: (319) 398-8256; marc.morehouse@thegazette.com