Outback Bowl No Ratings Winner

The Outback Bowl was watched on television by a lot of people in Iowa and South Carolina and, uh, uh, uh …

Of the 34 bowl games, the Jan. 1 Outback Bowl ranked 17th in television viewers according to Nielsen, which knows a bit more about ratings than most of us.

The game had 4,093,000 viewers according to http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/media_entertainment/sports-wrap-college-football-bowls-over-audiences/. That’s a 10 percent drop from the year before when the Outback’s matchup was Tennessee-Wisconsin.

The TV audience for the Georgia-Michigan State Capital One Bowl, which started two hours after the Outback Bowl, was 10.8 million. But that was a 27 percent drop from its Michigan-Florida pairing of the year before.

These weren’t great matchups for American interests.

Some of the bowls that had more viewers than the Outback, though … hard to believe.

The Emerald Bowl was ninth of the 34 bowls. It was a game between unranked Miami and unranked California. The Wisconsin-Florida State Champs Sports Bowl had the seventh-largest audience, over 7 million viewers on the night of Dec. 27.

Go figure.

The Outback Bowl is a crummy time slot for TV (It begins at 8 a.m. on the West Coast), so you know you’ll never have a huge audience no matter the matchup. It’s a hangover game according to one West Coast friend of the Hlog’s, someone who may have some first-hand knowledge of such things.

So if you think just because you play in a Florida bowl you’ll get a lot of sweet national exposure for recruiting and merchandising, think again. If that bowl is the Outback, anyway.

Syracuse Wants to Be Like Iowa

Typical winter day in Syracuse

You think it’s cold in Iowa? How about in Syracuse, N.Y., where they have no good college football memories to bask in during the months of bleak skies and snow plows?

Syracuse Post-Standard columnist Bud Poliquan penned a recent piece about Syracuse (and Iowa) football while he was in Tampa for the Syracuse-South Florida men’s basketball game and an Outback Bowl broke out.

An excerpt:

Bad economy? Tough weather? Holiday travel issues? The goal, if the subject is Syracuse University football, is to render all of that immaterial just like they do out in Iowa, from which the faithful travel in droves . . . even for something like Thursday’s one-sided Outback Bowl at Raymond James Stadium.

And soon.

The link: http://www.syracuse.com/poliquin/index.ssf?/base/sports-0/1230890111308890.xml&coll=1

Hlas Column From Iowa’s Outback Bowl Savaging of South Carolina

The logo of the day in Raymond James Stadium

TAMPA, Fla. — The last time Iowa had won a bowl game, it did so with a lightning bolt of a 56-yard pass that erased the team’s short-circuitry in that game’s fourth-quarter.

The 30-25 win over LSU in Orlando four years ago souped up hype for 2005 that never came close to fruition. It was the last thing to happen to the Hawkeyes’ program that was both big and good, until this season.

On the first day of January 2009, Iowa won a bowl against another SEC team. It wasn’t by plucking it out of the sky with a last-second miracle, but by using 60 minutes of substance. Rock-solid substance.

It won’t make the kind of instant lore that Drew Tate-to-Warren Holloway created, and it won’t become a poster that will hang on walls of rec rooms in Iowa homes for decades.

But you know what? It’s better.

The Hawkeyes brought Hawkeye football to Raymond James Stadium Thursday, at the expense of a completely outmanned, outworked South Carolina squad. The score was 31-10. The game was over well before halftime.

Iowa didn’t surprise Steve Spurrier’s team a bit with what it did on either side of the ball. It just did it. And did it, and did it, and did it.

It was Kirk Ferentz football. It was Hawkeye football. Like all programs, Iowa’s is a fragile ecosystem. But when Ferentz’s players are the right ones and of the right minds, as they were in 2001 through 2004, the system works.

“We had a dip at the end of the 2006 season,” Ferentz said after Thursday’s triumph. “I’ve said many times on record that it’s probably the toughest six weeks I’ve gone through.”

Iowa went from 5-1 to 6-6 that fall, losing its last five Big Ten games. It began a two-year run of genuinely mediocre football accompanied by off-field problems that were far worse than the losing. Ferentz made a lot of most-overpaid coaches’ lists. His name and “hot seat” shared a lot of sentences.

Back in Iowa, you no longer saw a halo over the coach’s head. It looked like we might be watching a man spinning his wheels as some of his players tarnished the reputation of the program and university with some bad trouble away from the stadium.

So what did Ferentz do? Fire some assistants, abandon his beliefs, turn away from the core of who he was and what he had established in search of a quick fix?

Nah. The guy is old-school in a lot of ways, and dealing with problems with common sense and focus rather than throwing people under a bus is one of them. Getting players to represent their school better on and off the gridiron was another.

It sounds like cornball stuff, sure. But it is Iowa, after all.

The Hawkeyes were 3-3 halfway through this regular-season. Why no blame-games from players? Why no cave-in from a team that knew too well what it was like to see a season disintegrate?

“I think it’s just been responding,” said senior center Rob Bruggeman, the subject of quarterback Rick Stanzi’s raves (”Great line calls. He makes everything easier.”) after the game.

“You never focus on the negative and just try to turn it into a positive,” Bruggeman said. “We had a stretch where we lost three games in the middle of the season, and there was never a negative attitude in the locker room. Nobody was pointing fingers.

“I think it started in the off-season. We came together as a team, decided we weren’t going to get down on each other, we were going to stay positive the whole season. We just focused on that.”

The right attitude requires putting in the work, 12 months per year. Iowa has always had to labor harder than many BCS conference programs to reach the Top 25. That has to be something that is understood and embraced. But it’s tough to pull off, anywhere.

“It takes a lot of work,” said another stellar senior Hawkeye offensive lineman, Seth Olsen. He sat on a chair in the bowels of the stadium Thursday and quietly basked in the satisfaction of a game well played and a year well spent.

“Hard work beats talent when talent doesn’t work hard,” Olsen said. ““That’s one of the quotes in our program. That’s obviously true for us.”

Credit from one Hawkeye to another flowed like Gatorade after the game.

“Our offensive line came together tremendously since last year,” said senior Brandon Myers, who will probably become another Iowa tight end to graduate to the NFL. “I knew that right away in camp. Shonn wouldn’t have done what he did without this group.”

Ah yes, Shonn. That’s Shonn Greene. You know him. The nation got introduced to him too late for a trip to the Heisman Trophy ceremony, but he was everybody’s All-America.

Greene was Greene again Thursday. The yards, the first-downs, the bludgeoning of a defense, and a ninth Iowa win. Then he announced he was turning pro. It was decent of him, really, to say it now and let everyone move on right away.

For the umpteenth time, Greene praised his blockers. He took it beyond that at the team’s postseason banquet last month, asking Iowa’s offensive linemen to join him when he received his team co-MVP award.

“Phenomenal,” Olsen said about Greene.

That covers it in a word, but Olsen added: “He flatters us. He made us look good this year, too.”

Oh, Iowa’s defense had a rather productive season itself, allowing a mere 13 points and 94 rushing yards per game and bowing out with domination over a Steve Spurrier-coached offense.

“It’s been a great year,” Ferentz said. “I just told the team I can’t remember one that was more enjoyable. That includes the championship years. This was a championship in its own right. It feels pretty good.

“This is a team I’ll remember for a long time.”

This was a football team again. Hawkeye football is again substantial.

Iowa probably won’t be ranked higher than 20th in next week’s final AP poll. But are there as many as 10 teams in the nation that are better?

I don’t think so. South Carolina probably doesn’t, either.

Hawkeyes Coldcock Gamecocks

 

Well, well, well. That was quite a display of efficiency the Iowa football squad displayed against a South Carolina team that showed all the poise and precision of a home video during an earthquake.

I said it at the end of my column that should be posted Thursday night on http://www.hawkeyebowlgame.com,  and I’ll elaborate here. I think Iowa is one of the 10 best teams in the nation.

Where will the Hawkeyes be ranked in the Associated Press poll late next Thursday night after the BCS title game? Probably 21st or 22nd, maybe 23rd.

But if you went on how teams were playing in November into December and January, can you honestly name 10 teams that are better?

The obvious ones on their bodies of work: Florida, Oklahoma, Alabama, USC, Penn State, Texas, Texas Tech. That’s seven. Although, you take Penn State with a grimace the way it fell so far behind in the first half of the Rose Bowl against USC.

Add Utah if it plays Alabama close in the Sugar Bowl. If Ohio State isn’t routed by Texas, you probably have to include the Buckeyes. I’d certainly include 11-2 TCU, as well.

OK, that’s 10 if Utah and Ohio State hold up their ends. And 11 if Cincinnati wins over Virginia Tech in Thursday night’s Orange Bowl, though I’d take the Hawkeyes over the Bearcats on a neutral field 10 times out of 10. But a BCS league-champ with a 12-2 record has earned its place.

But that’s it. A 10-3 Georgia? Not sold. A 10-3 Oregon? Very good, but I think the Ducks-Hawks game would be a coin-flip. If Ole Miss upsets Texas Tech Friday in the Cotton Bowl, I rank the Rebels on an even keel with Iowa.

You know how this works, though. Those four losses hang over Iowa’s heads, and not being ranked all year makes it hard for the Hawks to ascend very far once they do get into next week’s rankings.

No matter. They had the bowl scene all to themselves for the first two hours Thursday and wasted little time showing America (and poll voters) what they had.

They’ll get a nice spot in August’s preseason Top 25 for the 2009 season. What they do with that is up to them instead of the pollsters.

Live from Tampa: 90 Minutes Before Kickoff and a Live Blog Coming

First things first, here’s the link for the live blog from the Outback Bowl at gazetteonline.com. Join yours truly and two other Gazette sportswriters to be determined from the press box.

http://www.hawkeyebowlgame.com/2009/01/01/live-coverage-of-the-outback-bowl-from-morehouse-hlas-dochterman/

It’s a in the 60s, sunny (what else?) and all-around pleasant here at Tampa’s Raymond James Stadium. Happy New Year to one and all. Except, of course, for your mortal enemies.

Something’s Askew in Tampa

 

I should be anywhere in Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater right now but my hotel out by the Tampa airport. The weather’s nice, my work is done until the start of tomorrow’s Outback Bowl.

But I have no car.

So I’m watching the Iowa-Ohio State men’s basketball game in the hotel bar with three other Iowa media mopes. And it’s not good basketball.

I might as well be home. Of course, if I were home I’d be doing something else. Maybe even driving. My car.

OK, the second half was surprisingly good. Instead of getting their brains beat in, as it appeared they would when they trailed 30-15, Iowa made a game of it. But lost.

Darkness has descended on Tampa. It’s time for a sportswriter covering the game to have a light meal and spend the rest of the evening in quiet contemplation over what is to come tomorrow at Raymond James Stadium.

New Year’s Eve? That’s for other people.

South Carolina Players Know Iowa – Most of Them, Anyway

Drew Tate, an old favorite of South Carolina linebacker Eric Norwood

TAMPA, Fla. — When two teams get thrown together in a bowl game, they often don’t know a lot about each other or where they’re from.

Monday, I asked several South Carolina Gamecocks what they knew about Iowa Hawkeyes football and the state of Iowa in particular. The first answer I got gave me pause, but others saved the day.

“Iowa potatoes, that’s about it,” said USC defensive tackle Nathan Pepper.

But Pepper didn’t know the reference when I asked him if he was related to Sgt. Pepper of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club fame, either.

Most of what I got from Gamecock players was respect for their peers from a time zone to the west.

“I used to watch Iowa games when I was in high school,” said Carolina linebacker Eric Norwood. “Drew Tate, all those guys.

“I actually liked Drew Tate. He was from Texas and I moved from Dallas, Texas. So I was a big fan of Drew Tate. And they used to have Matt Roth, (Jonathan) Babineaux and those guys. I’m very familiar with them.”

Carolina wide receiver Moe Brown said “When I was in high school I used to watch Iowa a little bit. I used to play Iowa on my game system. Just because they had good ratings. They had a pretty good receiver and quarterback — I can’t recall their names right now.”

USC center Garrett Anderson said “There’s a lot of history there.”

“I’ve always known them to be very hard-nosed on defense. Big linebackers that just love to hit, big defensive linemen that are very physical.

“I think of home-grown guys. Guys who grew up on the farm, big men, physical guys. That builds a different football team.

“We look forward to playing these guys because where we come from there’s not a lot of teams like that.”

USC cornerback Stoney Woodson made an official visit to Iowa State before signing with South Carolina. His memories of the Iowa trip:

“It’s a lot of fields, really, stuff like that. I know a lot of good names come from Iowa, like Bob Sanders.

“Big people, you know? Big and physical. Big Ten, right?”

Brown has never been to Iowa. His mental image of the state is “A bunch of open fields. Country. Cold.

“I hate the cold. I despise the cold. One of their players was saying it was negative-2 when they were leaving Iowa. I can only imagine that.”

Gamecocks offensive tackle Justin Sorensen made no bones about it. He didn’t know anything about Iowa. He said something about it being on the “flip side of North Dakota,” or something like that.

“I’m from Canada, anyway,” Sorensen said. “I don’t really know a whole lot about Iowa. It’s Midwest, right?”

Vancouver Island, B.C.: Home of one SEC football player

Sorensen is from Vancouver Island, B.C., a fabulous place. He is one of only three non-Southerners on South Carolina’s roster.

“I wanted to play in the SEC and this was my only scholarship offer from there,” he said. “When I was in high school I thought the SEC was the best conference in the country, and I still do.”

Lightning Shares No Glory with Gamecocks, Hawkeyes

Just about everywhere the Iowa Hawkeyes football team goes, it gets some love.

That includes all its road games. At least some Hawkeye fans are there to offer encouragement before, during and after the games.

But Saturday night at a Tampa arena named for a St. Petersburg newspaper, the Hawks and their Outback Bowl foes, the South Carolina Gamecocks, got cold shoulders from National Hockey League fans.

Midway through the second period, the two teams were announced as being present at the Florida Panthers-Tampa Bay Lightning game. The only noticeable cheers from the crowd of 18,226 came from the teams’ own small pockets of players and support staff. Some in the crowd booed. Most just yawned.

Every year, the Outback Bowl has a “team night” at a Lightning game. Every year, a handful of players show up. Linebacker Pat Angerer was one of the few recognizable Hawkeyes.

Iowa got a big block of upper deck seats, views that would be lousy for basketball, but were quite good for hockey. A few of the players seemed captivated by the game, but most were more interested in overpriced food items from concession stands.

Iowa defensive coordinator Norm Parker stayed for the entire game. Two rows in front of him was a young man who wore a hockey helmet for much of the game. I asked a Hawkeye player if that man was a member of their team. He assured me it wasn’t. It was a relief.

Vincent Lecavalier, more popular in Tampa than any Hawkeye

More excitement came in the second period. A woman in the crowd was to win $1 million if a Lightning player scored with exactly 15 minutes left in the second period. Vincent Lecavalier, an NHL All-Star, scored for Tampa Bay seven seconds after the 15-minute mark passed.

The game was pretty darn entertaining. The Lightning won, 6-4. Everyone in the arena seemed quite excited about it, with the exception of the football players in the building.

The Iowa players will, presumably, be more enthused for their trip to Busch Gardens Sunday afternoon. Maybe someone there will cheer them.

Sunday is All Bucs, All Day Long in Tampa

Before I saw any Iowa Hawkeye fans here in Tampa for Outback Bowl week, I encountered a pair of Oakland Raider fans Saturday afternoon.

Neither were as divine-looking as the gentleman in the photo above. One wore the No. 24 jersey of Raiders defensive back Michael Huff. That was as far as the costume party went.

But make no mistake about it, some Raider loonies will be in Raymond James Stadium Sunday when 4-11 Oakland tries to spoil the playoff hopes of the 9-6 Tampa Bay Buccaneers. As horrible as their team has been for several years, some Raider fans seem to make it to all the road games to leave their indelible impressions.

Meanwhile, a shuttle driver told me that for the first time in the history of the NFL in Tampa, local fans will be rooting for the Philadelphia Eagles.

The Eagles eliminated Tampa Bay from the playoffs in January of 2000 and 2002, only to lose the NFC title game to the Bucs in January of ’03. Tampa Bay went on to win the Super Bowl that year, a feat the Eagles have never accomplished.

But if the Bucs beat Oakland as expected, they’ll need Philadelphia to win at home against Dallas to put Tampa Bay in the playoffs.

If you say this doesn’t matter, you are anywhere but Tampa. The Outback Bowl was page 10 sports news in Saturday’s Tampa Tribune.

Television commercials are airing trying to drum up interest in Outback Bowl tickets. It’s pretty much a given that the South Carolina fans who do come down to Tampa are mostly going to be ones who stay just one night.

This game has had better matchups than two unranked teams, Iowa and South Carolina, with a combined nine losses. It’s had many better matchups.

But you know what? The Hawkeyes and Gamecocks should surely put on a more competitive game Thursday in Raymond James than what the Raiders give the hometown Buccaneers Sunday.

If that’s not the case, either one of the two Outback teams will have laid a big egg, or the Bucs will have stumbled around in their regular-season finale.

I’ll be at the Raiders-Bucs game to provide Gazetteonline.com and The Gazette a piece on former East Buchanan High/University of Iowa standout Robert Gallery, who will be finishing his fifth season — all losing seasons.

In fact, Oakland is 19-60 since it took offensive lineman Gallery with the second pick of the NFL draft, ahead of Phillip Rivers and Ben Roethlisberger, to name a few.

Not to lay blame on Gallery. Everyone who follows a little NFL football knows the Raiders’ franchise has been fouled up for a long time.

A Spartan Practice Facility for the Hawkeyes

 

This is Pepin/Rood Stadium, the home of the University of Tampa Spartans and the Outback Bowl practice site for the Iowa Hawkeyes.

It’s not really spartan. The field’s nice enough and the facilities seem adequate. Although, it was a little unusual to see Iowa players wearing nothing but towels in the most appropriate of places as they walked from their dressing room to the shower area.

To get from Point A to Point B, they had to go outside. Luckily, it was about 80 degrees out.

“It’s Florida. I guess you can run around,” said U of I assistant sports information director Steve Roe. “Why the shower’s not connected to the locker room, I don’t know.”

While the towel act was unusual, it was same old Iowa otherwise. Media members were kept across the street from the practice field. I like to get chased away from a Hawkeye practice once per decade, and this decade is running out. So I walked up to the fence and stared straight at the field where Iowa players were, I don’t know, working on plays or something.

Ron Stewart, the retired deputy sheriff who has been the Hawkeye football team chief of security since early in the Hayden Fry era, got up to the fence in his motorized cart in about 3.2 seconds.

I’ve been on friendly terms with Ron for a long time. He seems like a good guy to me. But security is security.

I said “Ron, I just wanted to get away from that pack of sportswriters.” A reasonable point, to be sure.

But Ron replied “You made that bed, you’ve got to sleep in it.”

He had me there.

If any of you are on your way to Tampa for a few days of fun and a certain bowl game named after a certain steakhouse franchise, I encourage you to visit a certain Irish pub in downtown Tampa and tell Ron he’s doing a great job keeping riff-raff from spying on the Hawks.

That would be Four Green Fields. As you can see if you go to the link below, Ron and his wife Cara are said to be the temporary hosts at the pub. The second photo at this site has a photo of the couple, but I see no proof they’re doing actual hosting. Ron doesn’t leave his post long enough on these bowl trips for that sort of thing. The guess here is he was a good guest and left a favorable impression on the pub’s staff.

http://sportsfanengy.blogspot.com/2008/12/night-out-on-town_26.html

There is an 8-story residence hall next to the stadium Iowa is using, David A. Straz Jr. Hall, to be precise.

Now, I wouldn’t suggest South Carolina Coach Steve Spurrier would stoop to such shenanigans, but shouldn’t the Hawkeyes have all those rooms searched for video equipment all the same?

Speaking of South Carolina … the Hawkeyes have four team buses for the entire week to take them to practices, bowl functions, and wherever they need to go. The bus company isn’t from Florida, but from none other than South Carolina. Greenville, to be exact.

I talked to a couple of the drivers — very nice men — and they assured me they are not Gamecock fans. One said he was a follower of the Georgia Bulldogs, and the other said he had no favorite team.

But he liked Clemson better than South Carolina.

If you’re into omens, the bus company is called Champion Coach.

http://www.championcoach.com/uploads/Default.asp?Category=265