Bowl or Bust
- Thread starter Haverhill
- Start date
Why not take a positive attitude towards our football team since we actually seem to have some positive developments happening this spring in our football program? Demond Tucker is the real deal and the light has come on for Jordan Harris. Our receivers have some experience and serious potential. Our young RB's, expecially Mike Warren have great potential. Even our Offensive Line has a lot of players with potential to field a decent Offensive Line.
I can understand why a Hawkeye fan like you wants to squash all optimism in Cyclone football. It is because your own football is falling apart. Senior Starting QB leaving for another team. Disappointing Depth Chart with little experience and questionable talent. Slumping ticket sales. Disappointing prospects despite possibly the easiest schedule of a Power 5 Conference team.
My expectations for the coming year are 4 to 6 wins. My mid-range guess is 5 wins. Optimistically I can see 6 wins and maybe 7 wins. Pull off an upset or two and this season could really be good. You really need to lecture your fellow Hawkeyes who are thinking that with an easy schedule they will land in the Big Ten title game and with an upset, land in the National Championship Playoffs. Those are the delusional fans you should be preaching to.
No quarterback controversy. No DTs kicked off the team (yet). No coaching turnover. Bowled SEZ.
Better prospects coming in. Lots of returning players who were injured last season that didn't get to play much. The list is long and well known, to Cyclone fans anyway.
If you can't see that the addition of a player like Demond Tucker is a serious upgrade. Now add back the experience that our young DT's got last year and the numbers we have to choose from you might have a better understanding. Kane Seeley beat out Alton Meeks by the end of the season and now Seeley has been beat out by the redshirted Jordan Harris, a Juco All American who is now in his 2nd spring at ISU. That is a serious upgrade. Our secondary returns a lot of prospects and 3 of 4 starters. We actually have some decent DE's who started last year back. And some depth there as well.
And we have a brand spanking new SEZ expansion, which should be an awesome gameday experience in Jack Trice Stadium. With 2 super sized scoreboards. Why shouldn't we be enthusiastic?
Contrast that with your beloved Hawkeyes. Two DT's on the Depth Chart replacing your stud DT's that have left that have 1 assisted tackle between the two in their play from last year......and they did not RS last year. Two unimpressive LB's along with an inexperienced Freshman LB with no other major offers but Iowa. And no depth behind them. Your O-Line lost a 1st round pick. Blythe is good but the numbers and depth are falling off. Receivers have Tevaun Smith and that is about it. No depth and not even a complete set of decent starters. And your starting QB is gone from last year and being replaced by a young erratic QB who likes to scramble.......injuries possible......and no real backup.
I can understand why you want to make the Cyclone Nation feel as depressed as you are about the coming season. But c'mon.
So it's different because last year we didn't have any guys coming in that we were excited about? We didn't have any returning players that would have experience? I believe last year most people were expecting 4-6 wins too, do you remember how that turned out? You're talking about a lot of unknown quantities here, not all of them are going to pan out just because they have lots of potential.
It did not turn out too well. My expectations and hopes will be dashed if Tucker pulls out a stop sign and Cousin gets kicked off the team this spring. And have Ayeni and Luna and a bunch of other guys go down to injury again. And if our LB's get hammered with injuries again. And we lose Bundrage, Lazard, and Montgomery in the first game. And we lose Dagel, Burton, Lalk, and Dunning again. And SR gets dinged up again.
Yep. My expectations will change some if that all occurs..........again.
So you mean if football happens? I don't want to burst your bubble but people will get injured at some point this season.
We are in a better position today to overcome some injuries.
Please point out the downside to being optimistic about the coming football season. I would say that optimism and a positive attitude helps our team's attitude and self esteem and gives them some self confidence in themselves and the coaching staff. Both of which are necessary for a successful season.
Pessimism and negativity will result in a lack of confidence in their own ability and also in trusting their coaches and being coachable. It will result in selfish attitudes and a lack of team unity. I see nothing positive in taking your attitude. If my hopes get dashed, I can deal with it. I have been a Cyclone fan for about 50 years now, since I was young. My nuts are hardened from the kicks to them.
There's no real benefit to being either optimistic or negative, it's just an opinion, team isn't going to magically play better or worse just because we're all either positive or negative about this season. The real problem comes from you telling people that aren't as blindly optimistic as you that they aren't real fans because they don't buy season tickets, or don't donate at all or enough, or because they aren't predicting a bowl game for the team.
You're constantly grilling people over how many tickets they bought, or how much they donated, it doesn't ******* matter. You don't have to buy season tickets or donate money to be a real fan of the Cyclones. And you also don't have to predict that every season is going to be rainbows and sunshine, it's ok to not be over the moon optimistic about a team that has won 5 games in 2 years.
CycloneErik
Well-Known Member
BS. That is like saying that a negative attitude in the workplace has no real effect.....it is just an opinion.
And yes, it does come down to financial support from Cyclone fans. Financial support from Cyclone Fans is the reason we have the improved facilities that we are now building for our program. These facility upgrades did not come from the negative fans that have ******* and complained and not donated nor have purchased season tickets.
A prediction of 4 to 6 wins is not a prediction of rainbows and sunshine. IMO, the likelihood of that projection is far more likely than your constant repeating of the "team that has won 5 games in two years" mantra. Our outlook for the next 2 years is far better than getting 5 wins total. Or is that your projection and prediction for our team? And if it isn't then WHY do you keep repeating it?
CycloneErik
Well-Known Member
Oooooook, sure. It's the mantra of message boards that caused the Reiman and Sukup donations.
What anyone types here has nothing to do with our facility upgrades at all.
Reiman and Sukup donations were likely helped by the surge in Cyclone Season Ticket Sales over the last few years. If we are selling 22,000 season tickets like we were before Jamie Pollard came, then the South End Zone Expansion does not take place.
What is a person trying to accomplish with negative posts? Explain to me how that is a good thing.
CycloneErik
Well-Known Member
There are very few negative posts, especially in comparison to your constant attack on "negative posting" and call for fans to leave the program behind, which is probably the most negative thing of all here.
It's a discussion. People share their opinion. Some agree, some do not. Some can handle that, some can not. That's the point of whatever you call negative, or just disagreeing with you.
It sucks that you equate being a Cyclone fan with number of season tickets purchased and number of dollars donated. I don't buy basketball tickets, am I not a true Cyclone basketball fan? Good thing I do buy football tickets so I can still tell people I'm a fan of the team. I can't believe you don't sit in one of the suites though, you must not be a REAL real fan.
And predicting 6 wins, and actually you said we had an outside chance at more than that, for a team that has won 2 conference games in 2 years, is the definition of rainbows and sunshine. Your outlook that the next 2 years is far better than the last 2 is based on the potential of players that we have either never seen or seen very little of. Forgive me for wanting to see some actual results before I jump on board with the 6 wins predictions.
Aren't you interested in being grounded somewhere in reality? Because the probability is very high that the coming football season is going to be bad. Really really bad.
Explain to me the benefits of Negativity to our football program. You have not done that.
Predicting that we won't have a successful season isn't negative, it's just our reality right now, we have not been a successful football team recently, or ever depending on how you judge it.
Personally, I think the "positivity" you're posting is the same "positivity" that every team has before every season, the new guys look so good, the returners have more experience, I really think these certain guys can make a difference, so on and so forth. It's just talk, it doesn't mean anything, nobody knows who's going to work out and who isn't. I'm looking at results, we've had poor results, when we see something on the field to indicate better results, then I'll be a lot more positive.
Personally, I think the "positivity" you're posting is the same "positivity" that every team has before every season, the new guys look so good, the returners have more experience, I really think these certain guys can make a difference, so on and so forth. It's just talk, it doesn't mean anything, nobody knows who's going to work out and who isn't. I'm looking at results, we've had poor results, when we see something on the field to indicate better results, then I'll be a lot more positive.
You can be positive until the cows come home, it doesn't make a difference in how the team is going to play. It's the athletic department's job to spin positivity to boost sales and increase the fan base, it's not my job as a poster on a message board to pretend to be optimistic when recent results do very little to warrant it.