The Real Culprit? Brian
Brian wrote this in his Iowa preview, re: Special Teams:
Can I cease saying CATCH THE DAMN BALL? I think so.
The result? A fumbled punt and four other turnovers.
Brian! Don't you know the Karma gods are watching your every move? An indefensible posting decision, I say.
October 11th, 2009 at 12:04 AM ^
that Iowa kicker was amazing.
October 11th, 2009 at 11:36 AM ^
Didn't he say the kicker was going to be good? I believe it was the punter he said was not on the level of Zoltan, which like, yeah, no one is on the same level as the Space Emperor.
October 11th, 2009 at 12:05 AM ^
while being a complete disastetr, the fumbled punt didn't mean anything in the scheme of things. we were already called for roughing the kicker and stopped them in the red zone.
October 11th, 2009 at 12:09 AM ^
Yes and no. We didn't give up any points, but we ended up with the ball on our own two yard line and couldn't move it at all; after a punt they had great field position; they scored on the next play.
Regardless, it's more fun to say the Karma gods caused the fumbled punt, and just leave it at that.
October 11th, 2009 at 12:09 AM ^
Iowa doesn't make 4th-and-goal, but we go 3-and-out, punt from our own 2, Iowa returns it to our 42, and then scores on the boot pass on the next play.
The muffed punt didn't directly result in points, but it did so indirectly for sure.
October 11th, 2009 at 12:12 AM ^
Steve,
Great minds. (I'm super hyped, because you clearly know far more about football than I ever will.)
October 11th, 2009 at 12:27 AM ^
buy me a coke
October 11th, 2009 at 12:12 AM ^
Call me crazy but I would have taken the safety then pinned them deep with the free kick.
October 11th, 2009 at 12:15 AM ^
Iowa would have kept the ball anyway due to the roughing the kicker call. I know being backed up on your own 2 is daunting, but you can only hope that the offense could have gotten a little push for some more breathing room. Plus, Zoltan boomed that punt and we still let them return it for 20 yards (even after bouncing around). Point is, a lot of things happened which eventually allowed Iowa to put 6 on the board.
October 11th, 2009 at 12:06 AM ^
On the muffed punt, I turned to one of my housemates and said "hey, remember how Brian from mgoblog changed the special teams thing from 'hold onto the goddamned ball'?" and he said he was thinking the same thing.
October 11th, 2009 at 12:08 AM ^
Couldn’t agree more; instead of hating on Rich Rod or who was or wasn’t QB for the final drive, we need to look at the seniors in Mathews for botching that punt and Minor fumbling the ball right before the 2nd half…can’t have those mental mistakes out of the Seniors.
October 11th, 2009 at 12:08 AM ^
is alive and well
October 11th, 2009 at 12:10 AM ^
it's that simple
October 11th, 2009 at 12:18 AM ^
called the Liveblog, too.
October 11th, 2009 at 12:31 AM ^
Live blogs are bad juju!
October 11th, 2009 at 12:09 AM ^
I'm sure Brian turned the football omnipotent against us by predicting that Iowa was more mistake prone.
Somewhere around the middle of the 4th quarter I wanted to know - where are my Iowa mistakes? (And, please, can Greg Mathews not cover kicks anymore?)
October 11th, 2009 at 12:11 AM ^
but the real culprit is the linebacker play (+ Mike Williams); the direct result of the two Moeaki TDs. Ezeh had one solid tackle on the backup RB on the goalline but aside from that I cant remember much else that was done correctly. God am I scared about our defense without Graham
Tate's subpar play and the turnovers obviously had a huge impact as well
October 11th, 2009 at 12:18 AM ^
not to mention his "the sporting blog" post about how the spread punt formation gives the most wicked punt coverage EVA. which it most definitely did not do tonight.
October 11th, 2009 at 12:25 AM ^
Punt coverage stunk tonight. Or was Zoltan outkicking his coverage? We haven't given up that much punt return yardage in a while.
October 11th, 2009 at 12:29 AM ^
At least twice the first man in simply got pushed aside by the returner (James Rogers?). The kickoff return game was below average as well - along with the Mathews muff it was a subpar night overall from the special teams
October 11th, 2009 at 11:43 AM ^
Maybe we need to stop intercepting the ball on the opponent's first possession. Seems to be bad luck the last 2 weeks.
October 11th, 2009 at 11:50 AM ^
Also happened against NU and OSU last year.