For all our posturing about a college football playoff (most recently here), sure, we still effusively enjoyed our almost-mater Iowa Hawkeyes‘ easy victory over South Carolina in the Outback Bowl. Awesome Blossoms for everyone!
The unranked and unnoticed Hawkeyes gelled toward the close of the season, upsetting Penn State in Kinnick and also throttling Minnesota. Four blemishes on their record could easily have gone the other way, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see Iowa finish in the top 15. However, when the dust settles on another underwhelming bowl season, pundits will gleefully chortle, making fun of the supposedly-woebegone Big Ten, which finished (maybe) with only one bowl victor (Iowa) among seven qualifiers. As Hawkeye fans, we take a small measure of pride in that.
Which is annoying.
The conference supremacy race always is a major point of contention among psychopathic college football fans – a nationalistic argument which cannot be won, yet possessing more fervor than most Civil Wars. It’s wholly understandable – contenders for the title within a flawed system want their conference’s strength to cement their case; while followers of middle-of-the-road teams want a small success benchmark to cling to in the midst of repeated team failures. This explains the bevy of Nebraska fans who root for Kansas basketball, or combination K-State/Kansas fans, or overall Big 12 fans.
Amid the landscape of college football, and especially within an imperfect postseason, these arguments are everywhere – every lout, thug, and meathead fan with access to a phone or a computer calling columnists and hosts and bloggers and scribes to whine, opine and subtly mention that each is an idiot, and their favorite team’s conference is the absolute fucking best, black-and-white, no-grey, slam-dunk. It’s almost an excruciating time to be a fan, even if your favorite team fares well while its counterparts fail (so far). It’s fallacy and folly, and features the same vigor and vitriol as most red-vs.-blue discussions.
But don’t blame the fans. For every rational follower who dismisses the conference-supremacy arguments as the talk-radio fodder they are, thousands more slavishly froth amid behemoth networks’ needling; the WWL going so far as to invent the phony Bowl Series Conference challenge (or something.) But why not? It’s just the chance for idle networks to fill airwaves, for Web sites to court massive, reactionary comments and hits, and Kirk Herbstreit to throw his favorite conference under the bus while sucking off USC.
Moreso, it’s yet another fallacious claim the networks and presidents cite when propping the current Bowl System – the vitriolic traffic, and incessant irrational arguing supposedly signifying the strength of the system. Rabid SEC fans strangle whiny Big 10 fans at water coolers everywhere, so the much-talked-about BCS must be doing its job!
In fact, it does not. It signifies the imperfections of fanaticism, the BCS, and college football – and cements the slimy knee-jerk muckraking of college football coverage. If they cover it, you’ll argue. They know it, you know it, and you watch and bleat and enjoy the schadenfreude and argue and stump. Wouldn’t you rather argue over a missed play or what-if resulting from a hotly contested semifinal, rather than a phony bunch of standings? Thought so.
You’re not alone, we bleat, too, lest you think MFG is a hypocrite. Did we mention, Iowa won? A gleeful Kirk Ferentz seemed so gleeful in his postgame interview, he even evoked Bob Sanders‘ name when describing Shonn Greene. And that’s very telling – Greene is off to the NFL, rightfully so, and is one of the best running backs ever to play at Iowa. (Among Ronnie Harmon, Nick Bell, Tavian Banks, and Ladell Betts, that is no small feat.) Ferentz enjoyed this year – and he should have, a team grew up before his eyes. Some will say Ferentz‘ postgame glee is because he’s going out with a win – following former Brown/Raven colleague Scott Pioli to the NFL or whatever, but that’s the territory. I’ll choose to believe it’s because of the strides this team took throughout the season. For a coach, that’s success.
And with success, rumors follow. I don’t know how Ferentz always is a phantom frontrunner for coaching jobs. Perhaps it’s his agent, perhaps his ultraprofessional demeanor, perhaps his tendency to be honest rather than bombastic or brusque with sideline reporters (He never says no). But as an Iowa fan, I’m glad to have him, as you know. Maybe this Bowl win isn’t just redemption for a season which began as a struggle – maybe it isn’t The Big Ten’s saving grace. Maybe it’s not Ferentz‘ epilogue. Maybe it’s the sign of better things to come.
And maybe, of course, it’s just another victory – one worth a little extra reflection and celebration. A bowl win. A great way to end a satisfying season, but far from a benchmark (or coda) for any coach or conference. And for us fans, it’s enough.
Go Hawks.
