B1G 2020 - Iowa Cocktail Party Season Preview

As we continue flowing clockwise down the toilet bowl of 2020, it seems more or less inevitable that there’s not going to be a football season in the fall. In fact, there’s a pretty decent chance that by the time you read this the season will already have been cancelled.

However, this article is supposed to be published in the morning, so I have no choice but to push forward and write a preview for the 2020 season with a shitty attitude, or MNW is going to dock my pay. God damnit.

Last Season

It was a lot of fun! The Hawkeyes went 10-3, with their only losses coming against ranked Michigan, Penn State, and wisconsin teams. Nate Stanley finished his career 9-0 as a starter against Iowa State, Minnesota, and Nebraska. Iowa beat an undefeated, top-10 ranked Minnesota. The season was capped off with a Holiday Bowl victory against USC, where Iowa had their highest scoring output of the year (49 points) and Phil Parker’s defense beat the Trojans like a rented mule.

The offense was typical Iowa. It wasn’t spectacular, and sometimes it was dead in the water, but more often than not they scored enough points to win I guess. Piss poor efforts against Michigan (3 points), wisconsin (6 points until the fourth quarter), and Penn State (also just 6 points until the fourth quarter) left a lot of fans wondering what could’ve been, but hey they won ten games so I guess we shouldn’t change anything ever. Hooray for high standards.

Phil Parker was able to put together another spectacular defense, recording shutouts against Rutgers and Northwestern and not allowing a single opponent to score more than 24 points. At a certain point Brian Ferentz needs to start tipping Phil after every win.

Looking Ahead

How dare you for asking this. Iowa might be playing in spring. Or in Fall 2021. Nobody fucking knows. Wear your damn masks.

Coming and Going

The biggest names that will be missing from whenever we see Iowa’s next depth chart are Nate Stanley (QB), AJ Epenesa (DE), Tristan Wirfs (OL), Michael Ojemudia (CB), and Geno Stone (S).

Michigan transfer WR Oliver Martin hardly made an impact and was overshadowed by Tyrone Tracy, Brandon Smith, and Nico Ragaini. Oliver, along with QB Peyton Mansell, have entered the transfer portal.

Ihmir Smith-Marsette emerged as Iowa’s biggest receiving threat since the days of Marvin McNutt and Derrell Johnson-Koulianos. The best story of the year might be true freshman running back Tyler Goodson, who started the year 4th on the depth chart, but earned the starting job after a few games of making the most of his touches and looking like the reincarnated Walter Payton.

Iowa returns Alaric Jackson and Tyler Linderbaum on the OL, and adds Indiana grad transfer/awesome name haver Coy Cronk.

Spencer Petras is the most likely starter at quarterback for Iowa. As for special teams, Keith Duncan returns for his senior year as the rightful owner owner of the 2019 Lou Groza award (though not technically the winner since he chose not to wear cool rec specs). Punting duties have yet to be awarded, but it will either be Ryan Gersonde, who is recovering from an injury, or Tory Taylor: a 22 year old freshman from Australia who has never played a single snap of American football.

The Schedule

12 more months of quarantine. WEAR YOUR GOD DAMN MASKS.

At the tailgate:

Don’t

• Talk about wisconsin
• Say anything to jinx basketball season too
• Make any references to the corn family trophy
• Be closer than 6 feet apart
• Wander around Melrose Avenue with an open container and a turkey leg just to spite coronavirus for cancelling the season

Do

• Repeatedly and without prompting mention that in 2017 Iowa beat Ohio State 55-24 because many people forget this
• Tweet about how Jim Harbaugh has never won a game in Iowa City as either a player or coach
• Laugh at the fact that Iowa might be the only school in the country (non-BYU category) to have a 23 year old freshman in 2021
• Be happy that Floyd of Rosedale hasn’t had to spend a single night in Minneapolis since 2015
• Consider that Tyler Goodson is effectively getting a free redshirt year to hit the weight room
• MAINTAIN SOCIAL DISTANCE AND WEAR YOUR MASK, YOU MORON