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I still think UNI would beat us.
There is no reason to think about wins and losses too much. This is the first season we have improved throughout the season that I can remember in the last 10 years. All these guys can do is improve. I will be more concerned with wins and losses in a couple years.
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Originally Posted by mwitt
I'm with you mwitt. We all know the objective of any sporting event is to win, and accepting defeat will only perpetuate losing.
With that said, there have been very few times when ISU has squared off with a highly ranked opponent where they haven't been run off the field. We actually stood toe to toe with a highly ranked OU team and never backed down. Even a blind man knows there was something different about that.
mwitt....I hear where you are coming from.
I look at it differently. When fans leave the stadium and feel good after a loss, as if they've won - to me that is a moral victory. I was torqued after that interception at the end. How we let them run on us in the 2nd half.
I was delighted with how we played the first half with exception to a couple missed opportunities.
I was happy we fought back at Mizzu and hung with them instead of letting 14-0 turn to 56-3.
But as a Cyclone fan, I'm done being "ok" with a close loss to good teams. Done too much of it here, most notably the 2002 ISU-FSU game. I left that one feeling hosed (questionable call at the end) and glad we played them like we did.
There is no such thing as "moral victories"; but with that being said, you can look to minor improvements, better execution, limited turnovers, playing hard with more effort, etc., that gives hope to better days ahead in the win column. Bottom line is wins or losses and our record is 2-8, pretty bad, bottom of the standings: it is what it is. Now, why it too so long to visibly see such improvements until now is another story - sometimes players take awhile to buy into the program and I think that is the case here with the Cyclones.Quote:
Originally Posted by mwitt
I believe we had three sacks Saturday against KSU which was high in national rankings at 0.89 sack allowed per game. We really laid an egg for the Kent State and Toledo game. if we played like we did in Lincoln, we would have won both those games.
When Gene said he was out of pep talks, the team started to play with passion. Passion wins a lot of games. if we had 22 Ace Bowens we would be awesome. He hops up and down quite a bit during the game.
At the same time: Banks roams the sideline well. Tuba looks like a load. Kurtis Taylor is doing his thing. Jesse Smith tackles. Kris Brown punishes. Chris Singleton is playing tighter. James Smith is not afraid. We can tackle very well.
The all time best play of that game was the scrum at the goal line. Does anyone have a picture to post? We had all 22 players join in the pile to stop at the goal line. Has anyone seen that before?
Yes, UNI would still beat us...but we would have beaten iowa by A LOT more than 15-13. We wouldn't have settled for as many FG's. We also would've beat Toledo and maybe Kent State as well.Quote:
Originally Posted by ajk4st8
But what this team needs to be concerned about is playing just as well and getting better down the stretch in these last two games. Get something to build off of next year so that we keep the excitement just as high so that we don't come out to a slow start next year in the non-conf. schedule.
My impression from watching the UNI game in person was that they were a well coached team with mediocre talent. I wasn't terribly impressed with them, we just pretty much handed them the game with all our turnovers. The last few weeks we've done much better in that department, except for Meyer's fumble against Mizzou last week.Quote:
Originally Posted by isucyclone4
I'm always a little on the optimistic side, but I'm pretty certain we'd beat UNI now.
I don't think UNI would beat us. We were awful at that point, and they didn't beat us by that much at all.