Iowa Links: Preview, The Podcast, FFFF Offense (chart), FFFF Defense (chart). Iowatch Episodes 13, 12, 11, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2

Something's been missing from Michigan gamedays since the free programs ceased being economically viable: scientific gameday predictions that are not at all preordained by the strictures of a column in which one writer takes a positive tack and the other a negative one… something like Punt-Counterpunt.

PUNT

By Bryan MacKenzie
@Bry_Mac

Today, we lose something beautiful. Something pure. Something unsullied by outside world and the excesses of modernity. A testament to a bygone era, when men wore flannel and donned massive mustaches, coffee was black, modems said BeeeeebBaBoopBabDingDingDingEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAHHHHHHHHH, and punting was winning.

Before the clock strikes midnight tonight, the Big Ten West will cease to exist.

The addition of Washington, Oregon, USC and UCLA gave the conference no choice but to abandon the concept of divisions, and to instead adopt a "whatever dogpile arrangement yields the biggest television ratings" structure. Likewise, the structure of the conference championship game will fundamentally change. Everyone will be thrown in the same pot of Hormel chili, with the expectation that the best two teams will emerge by the end of the season and play in Indianapolis (or Chicago or Vegas or Qatar or the deck of the U.S.S. Nimitz or the moon).

[After THE JUMP: an otterbox.]

Sure, there are problems with that structure, such as "these teams are going to have wildly unbalanced conference schedule strengths" and "Michigan and Ohio State might play twice in 8 days" and "have y'all considered what will happen if, like, three teams go undefeated or four teams end up with the same record?" But the biggest problem, in this author's humble opinion, is that it ruins the ecosystems that have developed in the two halves of the conference.

The East is... well, the East has been 'better' in all material respects for the ten years of this divisional arrangement. When the lines were drawn, Penn State was still in "will they ever recover?" mode, and people expected Nebraska and Wisconsin to be the counterbalances to a middling Michigan, a solid Michigan State, and Ohio State. It, uh, did not work out that way. Penn State came back, Michigan came back, and Nebraska is riding the nation's longest Power 5 bowl-less streak. As a result, the East is 9-0 in Big Ten Championship games, most of which have not been particularly competitive, and their representative in today's game is a three-touchdown favorite. 

But the Big Ten West never flinched. At no point did they look in the mirror and say, "I need to be someone else." Because the Ancient Gods of the Big Ten West do not look kindly on such things. Nebraska isn't bad because of bad luck or a couple of bad hires. No, they are bad because they eschewed the option offense and tried to be, [derisive air quotes here] "Modern." Wisconsin was doing great for DECADES until they had the audacity to recruit a blue-chip quarterback and tried to throw the football (other than throws to the flat to guys wearing neck rolls. The Ancient Ones grudgingly accept such things). Then, instead of admitting the error of their ways, they brought in an AIR RAID guy. The hell were they thinking?

But then there's Iowa. Good ol' Iowa.

There has never been a more Big Ten West team than 2023 Iowa. Iowa finished last in the Big Ten West (and #124 in the nation) in scoring offense. They're last in the West in yards per play. They're last in the West in yards per pass attempt. They're second-to-last in the West in yards per carry. They're last in the West in first downs per game. They're last in the West in converting third downs. They're last in the West in red zone touchdown percentage. They were, by almost any objective measure, the worst offense in the Big Ten West, the worst offense in the Big Ten, and probably the worst offense in the Power 5. 

And they ran away with the West division crown.

Some would say this reflected the degeneracy of the West. They'll argue it shows the need to destroy this last bastion of waggle-based warfare. I argue the opposite. It shows the power of believing in your inner beauty, no matter how ugly your outer self might be. Iowa was Iowa to the very end, regardless of the booing and the Drive to 325 jokes and the I'm Here For The Punting shirts and the overall national scorn.

I will unironically miss the Big Ten West. Sure, they played some aesthetically challenging football games. But that's part of what makes college football fun. The football in the NFL is better, but it can never hold a candle to the weird beauty of college football. College football matches wildly different styles and philosophies and skill levels. It reminds me of the Roman gladiatorial battles of old, where rich, bored Romans would say "I dunno, give that dude a full suit of armor, and give that one a fishing net and a trident, and let's see what happens." It's a chance to live out "would you rather fight a hundred duck-sized horses or one horse-sized duck." These isolated environments have fostered this kind of entertainment. The death of the West is one more step towards homogeneity. There is a place in this world for stupid beauty, and Iowa City has been its spiritual home for a while now.    

I don't think it's any coincidence that, in solidarity with Brian Ferentz, every single Big Ten West team refused to score 25 points per game this season. While they are usually hated rivals, they nevertheless recognized that in this time of upheaval, Iowa is the staunchest defender of their way of life. And in this, the West's swan swan song, I believe Iowa will make this their pièce de résistance. Their magnum opus. Their Charge of the Punt Brigade. They will not win, because that is not the way of the West. But they will make sure everyone remembers the West, not as it died, but as it lived. Michigan 3, Iowa 2.

----------------------------

COUNTERPUNT

By Internet Raj
@internetraj

Tony Petitti was having a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day. It started when he was rudely awoken by an unrelenting sliver of sunlight shining through the off-kilter window blinds in his room at The Conrad in Indianapolis. For a split second, before his brutally hungover brain had a chance to fully boot up, he let himself believe that the events of the prior week were all just a bad dream. But as he surveyed the room around him, strewn with empty liquor bottles from the mini bar, a mostly empty pack of Parliaments, and the carcass of a half-eaten Taco Bell burrito, Tony knew that everything that happened was all too real. He sat at the edge of his bed and rubbed his temples, cursing himself that he had forgotten to pack his Advil. The memories began to rush back. He was living a nightmare.

Last Saturday was The Game. Tony had been scheduled to attend the sport’s most celebrated rivalry in Ann Arbor but a last second wave of fear and cowardice left him beached at his Westchester mansion. Coming up with an excuse that wasn’t clearly a bald-faced lie was a challenge, so Tony went with the tried and true get-out-jail-free card: Covid. He even mustered up some authentic sounding coughs on the league conference call. He wasn’t sure everyone bought it, though, so just in case he leaked a fake positive test to Pete Thamel.

And thank the Lord he didn’t go. Tony knew right away, 45 minutes before kickoff, that Ohio State was going to lose. It was over the moment he saw Ryan Day jumping around with the rhythm of a seal on ketamine while awkwardly bopping his head and blowing his whistle like a 3-year-old who just threw back a shot of Fun Dip. It was immediately clear to Tony that this was a man who, lacking any intrinsic confidence and poise, was trying to artificially manufacture an aura of self-assuredness. The irony of thinking this while watching the game from the comfort of his own home because he was too afraid to travel to Ann Arbor was not lost on Tony, but the truth is the truth no matter how harsh it may be.

As the game unfolded, and the camera would pan to Day on the sidelines, the coach’s nervous energy was palpable even through a TV screen. He was coaching with his butt cheeks clenched so tightly that if he had farted it would have bounced right back through his intestine, gone all the way up the gut, and exited as a burp. Tony couldn’t believe he had hitched his wagon to this bozo. And when Rod Moore sealed the game with his late interception, he switched off the TV, despondently tossed the remote aside, and finally started to contemplate his inescapable fate: the only thing standing in the way of him handing a Big Ten Championship trophy to Jim Harbaugh was Iowa.

Iowa. Fucking Iowa.

Tony knew there was no way Iowa could pull off the upset he so desperately wanted. He knew exactly what they were. The Otterbox of college football programs.

You see, every year, thousands of expert designers and engineers at Apple spend untold man hours obsessing over the iPhone, crafting beautifully contoured edges made from carefully constructed metals, all while shaving off every excess millimeter of waste. And every year, millions of iPhone users barbarically nullify those hours of toil by slapping on an ugly, cheap $20 case imported from China.

And, while unfortunate, it does make sense to provide some semblance of protection for a $1,000 purchase that can shatter with one ill-timed drop. Not everyone has the chutzpah to raw dog their iPhone. Not every coach is a Dan Lanning, going for fourth down after fourth down even when doing so straddles the boundary between aggressive and reckless.

But there’s a small subset of consumers who take it the opposite extreme. Not content with a standard case, they get a fucking 4-inch-thick rubber tank of a case. An Otterbox. A disgusting monstrosity of a product whose sole purpose is to obscure and suffocate the beautify of what is purportedly protects, all in the name of shameful, cowardly risk averse conservatism. The opposite of a Dan Lanning. Brian Ferentz. Iowa is an Otterbox.

The Brian Ferentz offense

Tony took a deep pull from the last remaining nip of Jack Daniels, lit another Parliament, and let out a sigh. He looked at his phone. 73 missed messages. 46 were from Gene Smith asking if he had seen the latest “Signgate” thread on Bucknuts. 11 were from James Franklin and they just read “IOWA IOWA IOWA IOWA.” The rest were from Alan Haller asking for LinkedIn endorsements. Tony was finally coming to grips with his inevitable fate. The podium. The confetti. Handing the trophy to Jim Harbaugh. The handshake.

Tony had been using a grip trainer all week while working at his desk. He flexed his hand. He wasn’t sure, but he thought he could see new finger muscles. He’d been dutifully taking his creatine monohydrate and doing forearm curls with the 2lb dumbbell racked on his wife’s Peloton. “You’re ready for this, Tony,” he told himself. He had mentally charted out all sorts of different permutations and combinations of how the postgame confrontation would go. Would he get a “What’s your deal, Tony?” Maybe an emasculating slap on the back? A DX crotch chop? Only time would tell. Tony lit another cigarette and crawled back into bed.

Harbaugh 35, Tony P. 0