Hlas: This isn’t Greg Davis’ first Rose Bowl rodeo

LOS ANGELES — The moments Greg Davis has had in the Rose Bowl are as big as they get in college football. One was as good as they get.

The trick is to transfer some of what he has felt here to a group of Iowa players who have never been in a game of the magnitude they will experience Friday when they play Stanford.

Davis was the offensive coordinator at Texas from 1998 to 2010. On New Year's of 2005, the Longhorns beat Michigan on a last-second field goal, 38-37. That was just a warmup act for the following year, when the Horns downed USC 41-38 in the Rose Bowl/BCS Championship game, one of the most-memorable contests in the college game's history.

Four years later, Texas fell to Alabama in the BCS title game in Pasadena, 37-21.

For a coordinator who has gotten plenty of past criticism in both Texas and Iowa, four Rose Bowls and two national-title games would indicate he knows what to do when he has the horses.

'He knows what he's doing,' Iowa quarterback C.J. Beathard said here Sunday. 'He's taught me more than I can say about football, how to grasp things as a quarterback.'

In return, Davis said 'I don't think you can win at any level without good quarterbacks. You have to have that trigger guy.

'You've got to have some good players. You can't get here without that.'

Iowa has had one of the most-balanced offenses in the nation this year, with 201.8 rushing yards and 192.0 passing yards per game. Which gives it nothing in common with the three Texas teams Davis was with here. You go with what you've got.

'The fact we were able to run the ball so much better this year than we have the last couple years,' is how Davis described Iowa's difference in offensive production in 2015.

'The offensive line was a huge question in August. Every question I took was about the tackles. They've certainly done the job. Cole Croston was a guy nobody knew in August. He's actually played more snaps at tackle this year than either Boone (Myers) or Ike (Boettger).

'Certainly I'd be wrong not to mention (offensive line coach) Brian Ferentz and the job he's done up front.'

But the biggest bridge Iowa must cross Friday at the Rose Bowl — other than trying to outplay a premier opponent in Stanford — is treating this like a normal game. Intellectually, you tell yourself to do just that. Emotionally, it's hard to act like you've been there before when you haven't.

'Certain things, you can explain to them, that this is different from most bowl games,' Davis said.

'I think the more your kids play in these kinds of games, the more confidence they have and the more they realize once it's kicked off it goes right back to fundamentals, taking care of the ball and making plays that are available.

'At the same time, when you're teaching a young man to drive, you talk about the difference in driving in snow. You can tell them it's different driving in snow. But as my wife found out (after moving to Iowa from Texas four years ago), actually driving in snow has an experience factor you can't put a price on.'

The '04 and '05 Texas teams had one of the best dual-threat quarterbacks in college football history. Over his two Rose Bowls, Vince Young passed for 447 yards and one touchdown, and rushed for 392 yards and seven TDs.

The '09 Texas team, on the other hand, was pass-happy with Colt McCoy.

Iowa's offense resembles neither, but Davis sees other similarities that are more important.

'The correlations aren't so much in style of play,' he said. 'But in the things that really matter — turnover margin, staying ahead of the chains on first down, red zone success — those things are commonalities you find in all good football teams.'

Texas fired Davis after the 2010 season. It hasn't had the players it had in the middle of Mack Brown's tenure when Davis was his offensive guru, and hasn't been to a bowl better than the Alamo ever since. Meanwhile, Iowa is in the Rose Bowl.

Davis is a better coach than a lot of Longhorn and Hawkeye fans credited him for being. With a really good 'trigger guy' and a legit running game at his disposal, it's funny how much wiser he appears.

Comments: mike.hlas@thegazette.com.

Twitter: @Hlas

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