The Cygarin Ratings have been updated.
The first thing that I would like to suggest is that both Iowa and Iowa State fans are potentially looking at their respective wins much to favorably. Here why I think so.....
First......
UNI has a new offensive coordinator and a bunch of new players. Keeper had UNI rated 116th of FCS teams in returning starters.
Not only do I think their strength may be notably off this year, but more importantly instead of using the three week preseason practices to prepare for the first opponent, they had to focus on coordinating for themselves.
As result, I speculate they were way off their normal first game, and special team performance was a good indication that their preparation priorities were focused elsewhere.
Second.....
I just don think that Illinois State is anywhere near beating a top FCS team this year.
Granted they played in the championship game last year, but things sort fell their way to get there. Give them credit for beating UNI in the playoffs, but they beat a pretty beat up UNI team by that point. UNI had beat them rather handily earlier in the season. Don't get me wrong, they were a pretty good team, but not necessarily as good as perceived.
This year, they too had a lot lost starters. Keeper had them ranked 82nd in the FCS for returning firepower. Very similar to UNI, this was a major rebuilding year, and I don't think they were in a position to be "FBS ready" the first game of the year.
Third....
CPR and the Captain were in in the same boat....lose your first game to an FCS team in the first game of the year.....you might not be coaching the Iowa State Iowa game! Maybe that's a bit of a stretch, but you get the point.
Also, both teams came in with stable staff and players, which means that they were focused from the start in getting game ready.
I don't think there is any doubt that both of these head coaches put all their effort into being fully prepared for this first game, as if it had all the importance of a P-5 conference game.
Put another way, this was a year where everything was reversed.....the FCS opponents were under prepared for these first games, and the P-5 teams were over prepared for them.
In short.....looking great and prepared is much better than not.....but I think it is ill advised to glean too much out of these performances of either team. (To be fair, Iowa fans are way more guilty of this.)
This week's ratings......
Holy crap! Did Iowa State ever vault in the ratings! Iowa jumped notably as well. From what I can tell, Sagarin seems to put a lot of weight into this first game, and thus the wide margins boosted them quite a bit.
Furthermore, if the first week is any indication, the Big-12 showed some signs of weakening. Which of course is beneficial to Iowa State's win potential.
That's all I am going to say about that. It's just too soon.
THE GAME!......
By and large, I have spend most of my pre-Iowa game analysis trying to convince both fan bases that both teams are under the thick of the bell curve, and therefore this game is a perennial toss-up game. Unless on team is unusually bad, and/or one team is unusually good. Which doesn't happen very often.
And that's where we are this year.
Quite frankly, I feel pretty good about this year, the tangibles fall our way, and the intangibles feel good too.
The tangibles that Iowa does not have include the home field advantage and a seasoned quarterback. The intangibles include that we seem to be as solid and deep of a team as we have been in quite some time.
What Iowa has going for them is a damned impressive first game. But what pops into my mind is what I mentioned above about being focused on Illinois State, and combine that with Iowa's past tendencies to have a difficult time presenting back-to-back good games. Will that hold true, I have no idea.
One other thing is that there is a sense that Iowa appears to be opening up their game, allegedly for the sake of their 59,000 loyalists. Kirk is inherently a very conservative game day coach, which I have respected more than their fan base. Despite being a tad boring, it has the benefit of keeping risk low, as well as minimizing opponent's scoring potential. Thus, most of the time you can keep yourself in the game.
My question is.......will this new river boat gambling mentality of Kirk's ( a bit of an exaggeration) be a little bit beyond his game management capabilities?
I don't think we will see too many 4th and 10 field goal fakes, but any higher risk comes with higher consequences as well as benefits.
It will be interesting to see of ground pounding, clock consuming Kirk takes the field, or Sunshine passing Kirk.
Regardless, it's a pick'em game. (And I have yet to talk to a Hawkeye fan who sees it that way.)
(In my opinion.)
Cygarin Ratings.....
http://showcase.netins.net/web/cygarin/CYGARINFOOTBALL.xlsx
The first thing that I would like to suggest is that both Iowa and Iowa State fans are potentially looking at their respective wins much to favorably. Here why I think so.....
First......
UNI has a new offensive coordinator and a bunch of new players. Keeper had UNI rated 116th of FCS teams in returning starters.
Not only do I think their strength may be notably off this year, but more importantly instead of using the three week preseason practices to prepare for the first opponent, they had to focus on coordinating for themselves.
As result, I speculate they were way off their normal first game, and special team performance was a good indication that their preparation priorities were focused elsewhere.
Second.....
I just don think that Illinois State is anywhere near beating a top FCS team this year.
Granted they played in the championship game last year, but things sort fell their way to get there. Give them credit for beating UNI in the playoffs, but they beat a pretty beat up UNI team by that point. UNI had beat them rather handily earlier in the season. Don't get me wrong, they were a pretty good team, but not necessarily as good as perceived.
This year, they too had a lot lost starters. Keeper had them ranked 82nd in the FCS for returning firepower. Very similar to UNI, this was a major rebuilding year, and I don't think they were in a position to be "FBS ready" the first game of the year.
Third....
CPR and the Captain were in in the same boat....lose your first game to an FCS team in the first game of the year.....you might not be coaching the Iowa State Iowa game! Maybe that's a bit of a stretch, but you get the point.
Also, both teams came in with stable staff and players, which means that they were focused from the start in getting game ready.
I don't think there is any doubt that both of these head coaches put all their effort into being fully prepared for this first game, as if it had all the importance of a P-5 conference game.
Put another way, this was a year where everything was reversed.....the FCS opponents were under prepared for these first games, and the P-5 teams were over prepared for them.
In short.....looking great and prepared is much better than not.....but I think it is ill advised to glean too much out of these performances of either team. (To be fair, Iowa fans are way more guilty of this.)
This week's ratings......
Holy crap! Did Iowa State ever vault in the ratings! Iowa jumped notably as well. From what I can tell, Sagarin seems to put a lot of weight into this first game, and thus the wide margins boosted them quite a bit.
Furthermore, if the first week is any indication, the Big-12 showed some signs of weakening. Which of course is beneficial to Iowa State's win potential.
That's all I am going to say about that. It's just too soon.
THE GAME!......
By and large, I have spend most of my pre-Iowa game analysis trying to convince both fan bases that both teams are under the thick of the bell curve, and therefore this game is a perennial toss-up game. Unless on team is unusually bad, and/or one team is unusually good. Which doesn't happen very often.
And that's where we are this year.
Quite frankly, I feel pretty good about this year, the tangibles fall our way, and the intangibles feel good too.
The tangibles that Iowa does not have include the home field advantage and a seasoned quarterback. The intangibles include that we seem to be as solid and deep of a team as we have been in quite some time.
What Iowa has going for them is a damned impressive first game. But what pops into my mind is what I mentioned above about being focused on Illinois State, and combine that with Iowa's past tendencies to have a difficult time presenting back-to-back good games. Will that hold true, I have no idea.
One other thing is that there is a sense that Iowa appears to be opening up their game, allegedly for the sake of their 59,000 loyalists. Kirk is inherently a very conservative game day coach, which I have respected more than their fan base. Despite being a tad boring, it has the benefit of keeping risk low, as well as minimizing opponent's scoring potential. Thus, most of the time you can keep yourself in the game.
My question is.......will this new river boat gambling mentality of Kirk's ( a bit of an exaggeration) be a little bit beyond his game management capabilities?
I don't think we will see too many 4th and 10 field goal fakes, but any higher risk comes with higher consequences as well as benefits.
It will be interesting to see of ground pounding, clock consuming Kirk takes the field, or Sunshine passing Kirk.
Regardless, it's a pick'em game. (And I have yet to talk to a Hawkeye fan who sees it that way.)
(In my opinion.)
Cygarin Ratings.....
http://showcase.netins.net/web/cygarin/CYGARINFOOTBALL.xlsx
