The Winter of Iowa's Discontent

Filed under: Iowa, Big 10, Coaching, Police Blotter

"No matter what you dream or feel or say, it ends in dust and disarray."

Those words are from "Fire Inside," one of approximately 14,000 songs Bob Seger has written about the unbearable pain of existence. He wasn't writing about Iowa football in 2010 but he might as well have been.

A season that began with a preseason top-10 ranking is indeed ending in dust and disarray. The Hawkeyes lost four of their last six games to finish 7-5 overall. If only the misery had ended when the regular season did.

Just since the first of December, Iowa has seen Derrell Johnson-Koulianos, its all-time leading receiver, dismissed from the team after his arrest on drug charges. Two of the team's top three running backs, Jewel Hampton and Brandon Wegher, have decided to transfer while the third, Adam Robinson, will be suspended for the upcoming Insight Bowl against No. 14 Missouri.

It seems like just yesterday coach Kirk Ferentz and his Hawkeyes had turned the corner from the multiple on- and off-field issues which marred the 2005-2007 period. A slew of arrests and other bad publicity, mediocre on-field performance and Ferentz's 500-pound gorilla of a salary combined to have many questioning whether Iowa was heading in the right direction. Ferentz started the 2008 season on many a hot-seat list.

On a snowy night in November, 2008, Daniel Murray kicked his coach off that list. Murray's wobbly field goal gave Iowa a victory over then-No. 3 Penn State. From that point, the Hawkeyes played like the nearly unstoppable 2002-2004 teams. A team that many thought lacked mental toughness suddenly wasn't afraid of anybody.

 

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