Iowa Hawkeyes seek rare win at Ohio State
Iowa Hawkeyes seek rare win at Ohio State
The game was setting up to be Iowa's claim to fame with a huge ABC audience looking on, and their ticket into the BCS Title game. Instead, Terrelle Pryor and Ohio State can match their Big Ten record set from 1960-64 with a fifth straight conference title. Off their upset loss to Northwestern, the Hawkeyes will be without starting quarterback Ricky Stanzi on Saturday when they take on the Buckeyes.
Iowa’s bubble didn’t just burst – it exploded.
The Hawkeyes lost more than just their first game of the season on Saturday. They also lost quarterback Ricky Stanzi to a severe ankle sprain after he was sacked in the end zone by Northwestern DE Corey Wootton. The Wildcats went on to a 17-10 victory as 14-point road dogs, dropping Iowa to 9-1 SU and 6-3 ATS. It’s believed Stanzi will miss the last two games of the regular season.
This puts the Hawkeyes in a pickle as they prepare to visit the mighty Ohio State Buckeyes (8-2 SU and ATS) at the Horseshoe in Columbus.
This would be the first career start for redshirt freshman James Vandenberg. He completed just Nine of 27 passes against Northwestern with a pick; that was against the No. 70-ranked defense in the FBS in terms of efficiency, according to Brian Fremeau’s efficiency stats. Ohio State was ranked No. 7 going into last week’s action.
That was before the Buckeyes put a 24-7 hammerlock on the Penn State Nittany Lions (-5.5) to move into a tie with Iowa atop the Big Ten standings. This was a redemption game for QB Terrelle Pryor, who threw a pair of TD passes and ran for a third in an efficient performance.
But it was the OSU defense that led the way by holding Penn State to 201 total yards of offense and 4-of-16 on third-down conversions. Overreacting to Pryor’s occasional mistakes and ignoring the powerful defense is why Ohio State is 8-2 ATS this year.
You can say the same thing about Iowa. This Hawkeyes team is also based on defense – the No. 4 defense in the land according to last week’s efficiency stats. It’s not as if Stanzi (15 TDs, 14 INTs) was going to win the Heisman Trophy.
And yet Iowa was ranked No. 4 in the BCS standings before losing to Northwestern. Is it realistic, then, to expect Ohio State to cover a 17-point spread (up from 14.5 at the open) on a total of just 36.5 points?
The first thing we need to figure out is what to expect from Vandenberg. He was the No. 50-ranked QB coming out of high school by Scouts Inc., setting a dozen different state passing records and leading Keokuk High to its first-ever Class 3A championship in 2007.
Despite the 9-for-27 showing against Northwestern, the buzz around Vandenberg is entirely positive. He’s got a plus arm with a strong football IQ and good leadership skills. Vandenberg’s upside is higher than Stanzi’s. What he doesn’t have is experience, or the offensive line and running game to support his learning process.
The way I see it, swapping Stanzi for Vandenberg is not that big of a deal. Yet the betting odds have moved almost a field goal in Ohio State’s direction. There’s going to be a flood of Buckeyes money coming in this weekend, so it makes sense that the books would try to bring in some sharp action on Iowa – and it seems to be working. Consensus reports at press time showed 60 percent support for the Hawkeyes, spurred by the inflated line.
It would be nitpicking to talk about Ohio State’s negatives, but that is our job, after all. Pryor is playing on a sore left ankle that caused him pain and limited his mobility against Penn State. And place-kicker Aaron Pettrey’s college career is over due to a torn MCL; he’s been replaced by Devin Barclay, a former fringe MLS player with the Columbus Crew who walked on at Ohio State after injuries ended his soccer career. Barclay made a 37-yarder versus Penn State in his only attempt after making just one of three in relief of Pettrey the week before against New Mexico State.
Points are not going to be easy to come by in this game, and with 17 of them for OSU to cover, Barclay becomes that much more important to bettors. Even in college, it’s all about the special teams.
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Originally Posted by Fishhead
