Hlas: Final score is Hawks’ unit of currency

IOWA CITY - On behalf of all who don't read the last page of a novel first and never want to see revealing previews for their favorite TV shows, thank you, Iowa football team.

From those who would rather vacation in midtown Manhattan than a cabin in upstate New York and who wouldn't follow a tour group in broad daylight when there are dark corners to explore alone, gracias, Hawkeyes.

Cue Tina Turner's intro to “Proud Mary.”

You know, every now and then I think you might like to hear something from us nice and easy.

But there's just one thing.

You see we never ever do nothing nice and easy. We always do it nice and rough.

So we're gonna take the beginning of this song and do it easy. Then were gonna do the finish . . . rough.

Iowa did things nice and easy early for a change Saturday at Kinnick Stadium. Then it flipped its recent form and did the finish . . . rough. The result was a 24-21 win over Arkansas State that got the term “overrated” tumbling from the lips of football followers nationwide.

The Hawkeyes vaulted halfway up the ladders that are national rankings last weekend after winning at Penn State. They may slip a rung or two Sunday when the revised polls are released.

Kirk Ferentz, who has his program planted on an even keel, won't as much as wince.

At Ferentz's weekly press conference last Tuesday, a television talker asked him something about national-championship chatter associated with his team. The coach tactfully smiled and said he was only worried about being the champions of Kinnick on Saturday.

He wasn't joking, though.

A 5-0 record, Ferentz said after becoming the champ of Kinnick Saturday, “was the goal for today. That's about as good as you can do. We're just happy with that.

“There's no style points in football,” he said for perhaps the hundredth time in public, “so we don't have to worry about rankings and all that other stuff. We can just try to get to six now. It's a good feeling.”

The Hawkeyes aren't as terrific as they were at Penn State and aren't as shaky as they appeared against Arkansas State. They're a good team that, so far, has mostly played to the moment.

That scares fans and irks coaches, or vice versa, but sure makes for interesting games.

Hey, like Northern Iowa, Arkansas State didn't come here wearing a “Road kill” label.

No sacrificial lambs, these Red Wolves. They competed beautifully.

Iowa has had its biggest scares this year with teams from the Missouri Valley and Sun Belt conferences, not the Big 12, Pac-10 or Big Ten. You wouldn't have expected that on the last page of the scripts of these games.

Those who thought the Hawkeyes were great were misguided. But rare is the team at any level of football that brings its ‘A' game every week. Winners win with the occasional ‘C' effort in the right spots.

But ‘C' probably won't get it done again for quite a while. Michigan, Wisconsin and Michigan State are up next.

“I don't want to put anybody down, but I think we could have played harder,” said Iowa cornerback Amari Spievey, always soft-spoken but direct.

“Arkansas State's a good team. Lots of respect to them. But we've got to step it up if we plan on winning out, or beating anybody.”

After 11 years of Ferentz, I find his words to be as good a barometer of where the Hawkeyes are than anything else. He never spouts over-dramatized worry or phony optimism. And he didn't seem the least bit downcast after this game.

“It's early in the season,” Ferentz said, “but we look a little bit more like a 2004 team than a 2002 team. Once we got through the first four games (in ‘04), every week was a three, four-point game, five-point game.”

Those are the two Ferentz teams that shared Big Ten titles. Which suggests he thinks the ‘09 Hawks have a bit of potential.

Would you really want to know how the next seven games will turn out, anyhow? Not that it matters. These Hawkeyes won't let you.