Iowa to the Rose Bowl

Last night my team the Iowa Hawkeyes lost 16-13 to the Michigan State Spartans. Despite the loss, Iowa proved a lot to the country, including me, and gained a lot of respect. Personally I saw something I hadn't seen before from that football team. In the last couple games especially the defense looked weaker than they should've been, but this game was different. My team took on a very good Michigan State and gave their very best effort and just couldn't quite get it done. Iowa retook the lead on the first play of the 4th quarter on a 85 yard touchdown pass. Then I think starting with about 10 minutes left in the game Michigan State went on a 22 play 85 yard drive that took around 9 minutes. It featured multiple 3rd downs and one very crucial 4th down conversion, but in the end Iowa couldn't get it done.

This resulted in Michigan State getting into the college football playoff at #3. That means that the Rose Bowl, which features a team from the Big 10 and Pac-12, will have to choose between Iowa and Ohio State. I believe it would be a major mistake to put Ohio State in over Iowa for a couple reasons. First is that both teams played Michigan State and both lost by three. The difference is that Ohio State got to play MSU at home, and got to play against the Spartans backup quarterback. That makes a huge difference, and Ohio State fans and even some players are basically asking for a second chance. Luckily they didn't somehow make it into the playoff because they didn't deserve it all. Ohio State did know or should've known that was their only chance to get into the playoff, they had to beat Michigan State and get a Big Ten Championship. They had to do that because they had zero quality wins. I think Iowa had a slightly easier regular season schedule but they shouldn't be penalized coming that close to winning a Big Ten championship. Secondly Iowa fans travel to bowl games very well, which is important to the people who choose who goes to the Rose Bowl because they want to sell tickets obviously. I believe especially after how close Iowa came to winning the Big 10 Championship and the fact that Iowa hasn't been to the Rose Bowl since 1991 that Iowa fans will travel in large numbers to Pasadena on New Years Day. Third the Pac-12 team in the Rose Bowl will be Stanford, and the other New Years Six bowl is the Fiesta Bowl which will likely have Notre Dame. I think that an Ohio State-Notre Dame match-up is great and a Iowa-Stanford match-up is great, those are two really games. Ohio State and Notre Dame are two of the most prestigious programs in all of college football, and Iowa and Stanford play very similar to each other and would make a great game.