Who Hates Iowa?

None of my esteemed co-”writers” volunteered to write an Iowa hate piece today (presumably because hating Iowa is so strongly their default mode that nobody thought the rest of you needed convincing) , so fuck it I got stuff to say so I’ll do it myself.

The rest of you don’t know how easy you have it. Even the Indianas and the Rutgerses, those of you who know your team is only there to get stepped on by everyone else, at least you get to watch football in its intended form: Two teams playing, each trying to score more points than the other team, then the best team succeeds in this endeavor and is declared the winner.

In Iowa City we have the Kirkland brand Football Product: Two teams playing, one trying to score more points than the other team, the other one trying to turn the game into a Lynchian nightmare scene that subverts both the concept of time and the basic laws of physics, the game ends and everyone feels like they’re coming down from angel dust.

Every week I follow the game on Twitter just to see the rest of you on there absolutely FLABBERGASTED that Iowa would run a fullback draw on 3rd and 9, literally never trust their quarterback to throw past the line of scrimmage, or run a play on 3rd and short that’s clearly just intended to set up the punter. I’m glad you think it’s funny when you have to watch it once a year, but some of us have been exposed to this for two and a half decades and I swear to god it’s causing long term brain damage. I will never understand why we insist on doing things this way, let alone how it works more often than it doesn’t.

On Reddit last year there was a story posted to r/legaladvice by a woman who discovered that her roommate had been collecting radium for some reason, exposing her to severely dangerous amounts of radiation over the course of a year. The rest of you are a dinner guest at her apartment. You stop by, have a good time, and go back home. It’s probably not great for your health, but exposure was short enough that you’ll be fine. Me? I’m the disgusting roommate, volunteering myself to this fate because I just think it’s neat.

I know I’ll never be able to stop this. Brian Ferentz being contractually ordered to do his homework. An athletic director that openly uses his office to help circumvent nepotism charges. A head coach with tenure treating every game like a Twitch streamer trying to find glitches in the game that can be exploited. ALL of it.

I’m going to trick myself into being excited for this season because of all the new players on offense, and it will work right up until halftime against Utah State when I finally accept that it’s the same as every other year. And then I’m going to come back the next week. And the next one. And I’m going to keep renewing my season tickets like the little piggy I am. Deep down I love this. I mean I hate it, I hate it even more than the rest of your stupid teams, more than your idiot coaches, more than your dullard fans... but man do I love it.