Why the time is NOW for Iowa Football | 2024 schedule near PERFECT for Hawkeyes, says Don Patterson

[Music] you wanted to cover this as well Don pre-season picks USA Today cleveland.com they all selected the Big 10 um based on where they project these teams to finish so here's a look at them and as you'll see here USA Today is on the left side cleveland.com on the right cleveland.com has long been the de facto Big 10 preseason poll because Big 10 conference does not release a formal an official preseason Big 10 poll so you see Iowa there pick sixth by USA Today picked fifth by cleveland.com the first thing I want to point to in the answer to Lisa's question the first two teams are projected by both sets of media members so Oregon actually got first place votes on both sides it actually surprised me because I think Ohio state is as big of a favor as we've had in this conference in a long time based on what they return the the transfer class in their freshman class in so you've got Ohio State first Oregon second and then Michigan Penn State very close for that third spot in fact a tie in the USA Today poll and then kind of a back and forth between Iowa and USC and then Wisconsin Nebraska and basically media members agree on most of the top eight you see the top 10 is pretty close Washington Rutgers flip-flopped with each side Maryland your consens number 11 and then there's quite a bit of disagreement when you look at 12 through 18 or I should say yeah 12 through 18 but uh the first thing that pops out when you look at this graphic is it relates to teams that play Iowa with the asterisk in the gold Iowa plays one team projected in the top six they get Wisconsin at home they get Nebraska at home they get Washington at home Don based on these pre-season polls by both USA Today and cleveland.com with the exception of being Ohio State they don't play a single team projected to finish in the top 10 of the conference they don't play a single one of those teams on the road that is correct that's about as favorable as it gets coach that that's I did look ahead to the fall of 25 the fall of 25 we will face three teams that will be highly ranked yeah we have to have to go to Southern Cal and we welcome or and Penn State into kenck great so those are three of the best teams in the league obviously and they're they're reflected that way when you look at the board but this is opportunity knocking Don I mean with this schedule and all the seniors that Kirk has coming back this is opportunity knocking folks and you might be kind of playing with house money with that Ohio State game not that it won't matter like yeah you don't it's another loss if you lose but at the same time they can lose that game and still very I think quite straightforwardly make the college football playoff because they go 11 and one they're in I think they're in a 10- two unless they get just blown out in their two losses I think they're in at 10- two I know there's some disagreement there I think the tiebreaker set of criteria could come into play Don uh because you have you have Iowa having not played again they don't play USC don't play Michigan don't play Penn State don't play Oregon I talked with Mark about this I believe Michigan plays Oregon but boy just so many good teams at the top there and Iowa avoids a lot of them Don what did you want to cover as it relates to these preseason polls well I'm kind of on the same along the same line that you looked at there Corey I actually looked at three different polls one of them was cleveland.com and a lot of people might look down their nose at cleveland.com the truth is there's 27 voters uh 18 of them are from the 18 B 10 schools yeah they cover those teams so they're very knowledgeable about about their team and of course knowledgeable about the whole league the other nine all cover the Big 10 too and but not one specific team maybe they maybe they work I don't even know who they all are it doesn't matter to me but it just told me there these are 27 people that know a lot about all of these teams know quite a bit about them so I took it as a valid poll it's one of them that I used the other two I used I used ESPN ESPN has some kind of computer system to evaluate who's better than who and I thought okay that sounds pretty valid and my third preseason ranking was Athlon and I don't I don't know that athlon's any better than than u USA Today or anyone else but I just had access to that what I did Corey I first took a note where is I ranked among these three different rankings ESPN we were seventh Aon we were Sixth and as you already mentioned cleveland.com we were fifth that averages out to a preseason ranking of 6.0 or sixth if you will but if you just did work the number 6.0 U that sounds pretty good the bad news Ohio state was second first and first I guess that's 1.33 so they are prohibitive favorite um to show themselves as the best team on our schedule there's not much doubt about that it'll be surprising if anybody else plays football on the same high level as Ohio State anybody else on our schedule could happen but it's hard to imagine there's a more difficult assignment than at Columbus thankfully it only counts as one what I did I looked at all all nine opponents in all three rankings and then I took the numbers and I crushed all the numbers here's where they found our average ranking was six our opponent's average ranking even in including cluding Ohio state is one of those nine the average ranking of our opponents 10.2 10.2 10.4 an average of 10.3 that means the even after that first team is factored in with all these others we still only average to be 10 point something with our opponents we are ranked higher than everyone on our conference schedule except Ohio State when you look at all three polls we're 6.0 nobody's close to that uh among our other eight opponents based on preseason rankings our next three opponents with the highest rankings same thing you mentioned Cory Wisconsin 7.7 Nebraska 8.3 Washington 8.7 all of which come to Kenny so we couldn't have a more favorable schedule incidentally we're catching Washington at a great time simply because they lost all kinds of really good players and their coaching staff it's the perfect time to play Washington and if we have to go west and play someone without question UCLA's the best choice uh unless it's Washington instead of UCLA I would suggest that UCLA is going to have more problems even than Washington this year uh for the obvious reason go ahead yeah no I agree I think I'd rather play UCLA on the road um and I'd rather if you're going to get another team you're going to get one of them at home I'd rather take Washington Washington at home right and here's what some people might say well yeah but you have to play UCLA and the rose bow I got news for there might be 30,000 people in that Rose bow to watch UCLA play if they're lucky there'll be 50,000 maybe when we play out when Iowa plays there maybe it'll be 70,000 because of all those Iowa fans that'll be out there are we going out there Don you and I uh I wasn't planning on it if you can find a private jet I'll be happy to jump on with you all right that's a fun trip though I think for a lot of Iowa fans will probably uh probably go ahead and make that happen but you're you're right I mean it it's a down year for UCLA and Hey by the time Iowa plays them their season could be completely over in November so um and and frankly I think the when they play these Road games with the exception being Ohio State when these games are played Don is also an Iowa's favor because they get UCLA late and if you're afraid of going out west to a Rose Bowl Boy again that season could be just about done for the Bruins by November 8th and I think another team that could be dangerous is Maryland and maybe Maryland's playing for a lot on November 23rd but hey this is a new look TPS Team without tag of vioa they could be in a position where their fan base is not that excited um now they don't have as difficult of a schedule as some but they do play at Oregon unfortunately the game at Penn State is the last game of the season so it's leading up Iowa's contest against the turps is right before but they get USC at home I just think that the schedule works out the way you'd like I I don't know if um you know Maryland traditionally at least in the last under under Michael Oxley Don they tend to finish poorly I mean how many times have we seen them rattle off four to five games to start the season and then they just barely get to buil eligibility