Iowa State would compete in Big Ten
- Thread starter Cyinthenorth
- Start date
Is Michigan State 50 points worse than Utah? They beat Oregon by almost 50 less.
Or do you go with a different week where Michigan State was only 4 points worse than Utah against another common opponent?
Best to not use that type of thinking at all.
I thought TCU was missing more defensive starters against Minnesota than they were last night. I think it's been pretty evident that the Big 10 is two completely different leagues with the east being pretty good and the west being basically a Mac level division. It's a great set up for the conference as an undefeated or one loss east champ can face an overrated west champ, destroy them in the championship game, and get assured of a play-off spot. I have no doubt ISU would be a middle of the pack Big 10 west team, but that's still pretty bad.
The Big Ten has about 6 teams similar to ISU's level at the bottom, some a little better, some possibly even worse. Then there are about 8 teams ranging from somewhat better than ISU to drastically better than ISU. You play 8 of the 13 possible opponents and dodge 5. Within that there's the possibility for a schedule we can get some Ws or a schedule where we still get hammered almost every week. The only way a B10W schedule could compare to B12 is if it includes MSU/Mich/OSU as the two cross division teams this year and they schedule 2 P5 non conf games.
The Big 12 has one team that is probably the worst P5 team and 8 teams that are clearly better than ISU this year. You play 9 of 9 possible.
Obviously these things change year to year, but there's simply no comparing our 2015 schedule possibilities to a schedule like Iowa's where the top 3/4 teams are rotated off. It wouldn't make us "good", but it's so obviously more manageable.
The argument isn't or shouldn't be about this year's team. There is no doubt that Iowa State would benefit as a program from not having to compete with every southern Big 12 team for southern recruits. Recruiting against Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, etc. is much easier than Texas, Baylor, OU, etc.
The style of play of the Big 12 maximizes the talent differential between top tier and low tier teams. The Big 10 style of football lets less talented teams hang around and steal games.
As we've seen in the Big 10's draft numbers, its QB play has been awful for 20 years. I doubt that's because the Big 10 defenses are just so stout. While there is some merit to that argument, it's more likely that the QBs in that league are average to below average when compared to the rest of the country.
Iowa State would fit in nicely in the Big 10 west. We wouldn't win it, and we probably wouldn't go to a bowl every season, but it would be a hell of a lot easier than playing a 9-game conference schedule against the best the Big 12 has to offer. I don't think that's really up for debate.
The style of play of the Big 12 maximizes the talent differential between top tier and low tier teams. The Big 10 style of football lets less talented teams hang around and steal games.
As we've seen in the Big 10's draft numbers, its QB play has been awful for 20 years. I doubt that's because the Big 10 defenses are just so stout. While there is some merit to that argument, it's more likely that the QBs in that league are average to below average when compared to the rest of the country.
Iowa State would fit in nicely in the Big 10 west. We wouldn't win it, and we probably wouldn't go to a bowl every season, but it would be a hell of a lot easier than playing a 9-game conference schedule against the best the Big 12 has to offer. I don't think that's really up for debate.
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Who is the fastest team iowa plays each year? I honestly can't think of a "fast" team on Iowa schedule. The BigXII on the other hand is incredibly fast, both in skill position players and in tempo.
My thing is can we ever even capitalize on southern recruiting? If we're going to recruit like a lowest tier Big Ten school but play in the Big 12 that's a recipe for disaster.
Long term Nebraska cannot be a top talent team in their new league because they will never out recruit Mich/OSU/PSU in Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania. Nebraska's new ceiling is probably the same as Iowa's and slightly below Wisconsin's.
In the Big 12 Neb may have hypothetically been able to rise again by having a heyday recruiting Texas. I'm not so sure ISU will ever be able to do that, KSU has had the success by developing players and juco, not by recruiting Texas for top stars hs talent.
Since they so rarely play Ohio State and Michigan it's a good point. Nebraska isn't the Nebraska of old in terms of speed and athleticism and Wisconsin's good teams win with power and dominant lines the same way Iowa's good teams do.
CPR would have made a couple more bowl games if we are in the Big 10 and I don't think we'd be discussing who his replacement will be in September. Unfortunately, we are still in the Big 12 and he hasn't been able to figure out how to consistently win here.
Let's just get this done. A letter from Pollard should do it:
Dear B1G Commish,
It's not fair Iowa gets to be good at football. We want to be good at football too.
So please let us in already.
Regards,
JP
P.S. Did you see us beat #2 Oklahoma State a few years ago? Or Paul's locker room speech? We're ready for you.
Dear B1G Commish,
It's not fair Iowa gets to be good at football. We want to be good at football too.
So please let us in already.
Regards,
JP
P.S. Did you see us beat #2 Oklahoma State a few years ago? Or Paul's locker room speech? We're ready for you.
The biggest problem I see is wearing down. ISU isn't built to withstand the daunting B1G big bodies week in and week out. We'd be destroyed as the season went on. We can hold up but we'll ultimately fail and die. I don't see ISU beating Nebraska, nor Iowa, nor Illinois, nor Wisconsin, maybe Minnesota. NW? No. We'd be the bottom of the B1G West. Our coach is terrible. B1G east? We'd be torched.
Do you sit at home with a stopwatch when you watch these games on TV?
Iowa has beaten and competed well against plenty of SEC teams in bowl games over the years. This whole "slow/fast" thing is such a ridiculous myth. Ohio State is probably the fastest team in the country, or at least they were last year. Ask Baylor how fast Michigan State is.
Real football is about blocking, tackling, and the line of scrimmage, anyway. Otherwise, let's just put everybody in shorts and run shuttle relays for 3 hours. Would probably cut down on the injuries that way.
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ISU would still lose a lineman or two before the season if they did the relays for three hours.
Did you watch the Iowa-Tennessee game last year? And MSU's last minute squeaker over Baylor in their bowl game was even flukier than MSU's win over Michigan yesterday. Baylor dominated and led by something like 17 points with about 10 minutes to go, and in the 4th quarter they had one td called back, a 40 yard gain to the MSU 1 called back, and missed two makeable field goals. After those two fluke wins I believe Sparty really does have a direct line to the Big Man upstairs.
I'm not going to defend CPR, he's obviously not lived up to what we hoped and made some bad in state recruiting mistakes that have cost him. But I'm pretty confident we'd beat Illinois and Indiana, and compete well with several of the other Big 10 west teams. CPR competed well with Nebraska when we both had better teams than we do now. He beat a MInnesota bowl team, and its' questionable if this Minnesota team even makes a bowl. Heck, we were tied with Iowa with a few minutes left in the game and they are dominating the west right now. There is no reason to believe Iowa suddenly got a lot better after they played us and we got a lot worse. It's the competition and everybody knows that Iowa's schedule is very weak. The talk shows and sports center all project that Iowa has a great chance to win out, but are always quick to point out that the reason is their schedule. But I wouldn't be any happier with the job CPR has done even if we were a middle of the pack team in the Big 10 west.
Sure did. You do realize that Iowa sucked last year, right?
Did you happen to catch Iowa beating the **** out of Florida or South Carolina in previous bowl games? How about that last second win over a Saban-coached LSU team, or the year we got screwed against Urban's first Florida team?
Yep, sure were huge speed differentials in those games. I just saw a blur on my TV screen when I watched them.
It's pretty much as simple as this IMO....
Iowa State outplayed Iowa for nearly 3 quarters and it was anyone's ballgame with a few minutes left (tied). Iowa is dominating the B1G West and ISU is nearly the worst team in the Big 12.
I don't think any ISU fan is saying that ISU would be winning the B1G West right now like Iowa is, however, with Iowa's schedule this year, we'd be playing teams like Illinois, NW, Minny instead of TCU, Baylor, and OU.
Some Iowa fan earlier in this thread commented that Michigan State and Ohio State have speed equal to the Big 12 teams, which could very well be true, however, Iowa doesn't even have to play MSU, OSU, or even Michigan or Penn State for that matter. Nobody in the B1G West has any speed at all. And don't tell me that Wisky or Nebby do, because they don't. Wisky is a shell of their former self this year, and Nebby is just plain bad.
Who knows how well ISU could do in the B1G West, but it would be a LOT easier than playing everyone in the Big 12, that is not even up for debate.
Iowa State outplayed Iowa for nearly 3 quarters and it was anyone's ballgame with a few minutes left (tied). Iowa is dominating the B1G West and ISU is nearly the worst team in the Big 12.
I don't think any ISU fan is saying that ISU would be winning the B1G West right now like Iowa is, however, with Iowa's schedule this year, we'd be playing teams like Illinois, NW, Minny instead of TCU, Baylor, and OU.
Some Iowa fan earlier in this thread commented that Michigan State and Ohio State have speed equal to the Big 12 teams, which could very well be true, however, Iowa doesn't even have to play MSU, OSU, or even Michigan or Penn State for that matter. Nobody in the B1G West has any speed at all. And don't tell me that Wisky or Nebby do, because they don't. Wisky is a shell of their former self this year, and Nebby is just plain bad.
Who knows how well ISU could do in the B1G West, but it would be a LOT easier than playing everyone in the Big 12, that is not even up for debate.
LOL, Michigan State was not fast compared to Baylor. Baylor outclassed them in that department. MSU got lucky Baylor lost it's head with stupid self inflicted mistakes.
By the way, what SEC speed are you talking about? Are you talking about beating teams with vanilla offensive schemes pre 2010? Iowa couldn't keep up all season long with the type of speed applied in a spread scheme. Your argument is out of context.