Last tuesday was a great day to be an Iowa Hawkeye fan. They won the FedEx Orange Bowl 24-14 over the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets (link). It was their first BCS bowl victory in school history and capped off an 11-2 season as well. This season definitely was a successful one for the Iowa Hawkeyes.
They jumped out to a 9-0 start in route to one of their best records in school history. They finished second in the Big Ten Conference, with only Ohio State standing in their way of winning the conference title. They won an at-large bid in a BCS bowl, making it the second time in school history that the Hawkeyes have made it to a BCS bowl. The first time was a loss to the University of Southern California Trojans. The last time the Hawkeyes won a major bowl game before tuesday's game was in the 1950's! That is a long time! But this bowl season wasn't just good for the Iowa Hawkeyes, it was good for the whole Big Ten Conference.
Over the past few years the Big Ten has been called a weak conference. Just last year they had only one win in the bowls, and guess who that was. It was the Iowa Hawkeyes who manhandled the other USC, the University of South Carolina. This season, with the Hawkeye victory over Georgia Tech, the Big Ten Conference finished 4-3 in bowl games, and have started to gain respect from the nation after what has been a rough couple of years.
But, back to the game. There was a lot of talk coming into the game that it would be tough for Iowa to slow down Georgia Tech's triple option rushing game. They had put up a lot of points and yards this season and were the 11th best offense in the country coming into the game. But Iowa was not to shabby on defense this year. They were the 11th best defense in the country. And this Iowa defense was the main story of the night. They completely shut down the Georgia Tech offense holding them to their fewest offensive yards in quite a few years. Adrien Claiborne played like a man on a mission recording nine tackles and two sacks and disrupting the offensive line all game. This especially excited Hawkeye fans such as myself who heard a couple weeks ago that he will be returning for his senior season! That is great and will help keep the Hawkeyes a top defense in the nation next year.
This game was an amazing game for the Hawks and showed just how good they are. GO HAWKS!
"Above: Orange Bowl between Iowa and Georgia Tech, http://espn.com"
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