Newsflash

Iowa is not a good team. I don't want to take anything away from a team that won at Penn State at night, in a year they were supposed to compete for the Big 10 and National Championships. But I'm going to anyway. Let's look at how well they have done and what they have it against:

67th in Total Offense
75th in Scoring Offense
46th in Passing Offense
80th in Rushing Offense

They have played two respectable defenses this year: Penn State and Arizona. Penn State is a top 10 defense. Of course, Penn State has only played ONE bowl team from last year so far this season (and that was Iowa and their apparently sorry offense). Arizona has played some decent competition, so we'll call them a legitimate top 20 defense.

31st in Total Defense
20th in Scoring Defense
21st in Passing Defense
62nd in Rushing Defense

Penn State and Arizona are the only teams they have played that rank in the top 40 in most offensive categories, and neither of them are in the top 20.

Their schedule consists of:
A I-AA team that they beat by 1 after blocking TWO field goals in the last 10 seconds. At home.
A perennial Big 12 North bottom feeder and in-state rival that they pummeled.
A middle-of-the-road Pac 10 team that hasn't finished higher than 5th in their conference since 1998. And I think that might have been the only time in the last 50 years that they won a conference championship...and they used to be in the WAC...
They were Penn State's first and only real challenge, and trailed going in to the fourth quarter until Penn State completely imploded, turning it over 3 times in its own territory in the final frame.
A 1-4 Sun Belt team that they had to hold off, winning by 3. At home again. The same Sun Belt team that lost to Louisiana-Monroe last night by more than they lost to Iowa by. They were more thoroughly dominated by the War Hawks than by the Hawkeyes!
A Michigan team coming off a 3-9 season, that has won (and lost) some close games, and its only large victories were against Directional Michigan teams. Even in that HOME game, Iowa had to cling to victory down the stretch.

Given that "impressive" resume, it's no wonder they head into Madison this week as an undefeated and 11th ranked team in the country as an underdog, to an unranked opponent that got handled easily by barely-ranked-higher-than-Iowa (and, therefore, supposedly barely-better-than-Iowa) Ohio State. Mark it down. Iowa loses by double digits and the love affair can end. Maybe they will completely drop off the radar the following week after a trip to East Lansing to take on Sparty, but I'm not making predictions about that yet...