Hawks in the Orange Bowl

Well, it was an interesting year for the Hawkeyes, but now just one game is left on the schedule. After tonight's BCS Bowl Selection Show, the Iowa Hawkeyes, and the rest of the nation, found out that they will be facing the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets in the Fed-ex Orange Bowl!

Iowa made the BCS bowl as an at-large bid, because they finished second in the Big Ten. Georgia Tech earned their spot by way of an automatic bid given to the winner of the ACC (Atlantic Coast Conference). It will be a very interesting contest. The Hawkeyes have a great defense and will be going up against a Georgia Tech team that gives opposing defenses heavy doses of the triple option. As I said in my last post, this will be the first BCS bowl bid for the Hawks since they lost a few years ago to the USC Trojans.

All season the Hawkeyes have barely scooted by opponents. They needed two consecutive blocked field goals to beat UNI, they had to win on a last second pass to beat MSU, they barely beat Arkansas State, and they had to comeback to beat the Indiana Hoosiers. But it doesn't matter. All that matters is that Iowa won all of those games, and put together a great season. Critics kept saying how Iowa was unimpressive. How they weren't that talented, they just won. But Iowa didn't listen to the critics, and if they did they didn't show it. They put all that behind them and had a great year.

Overall this season went pretty well for the Hawkeyes, with a few balls bouncing their direction along the way. On their way to a very impressive 10-2 record the Hawkeyes started a school-best 9-0. They did stumble, however, losing two of their last three games, and finishing the season second, behind the Ohio State Buckeyes, in the Big Ten Conference. Ohio State  will also be participating in a BCS bowl, the Rose Bowl, in which they will face the Pac-10 Conference champions, the high-scoring Oregon Ducks.

The stubborn Hawk fans such as myself still think that the Hawks would have been undefeated this season had Stanzi not been injured in the Northwestern game. But we have to put the past behind us and focus on the present. The Hawks are going to the Orange Bowl! Today I'm proud to be an Iowa fan.

"Above: Orange Bowl logo, http://www.sportslogos.net"