Tuesdays with Torbee

Iowa alums of a certain age will remember the comic strip “Jim’s Journal,” which was a staple syndicated strip in college newspapers across the country in the 1990s, including the Daily Iowan.

A perfect avatar for the “slacker” generation, the titular character of the strip, Jim, made dry observations on the mundanity of life. I’m not sure exactly why it was funny, but somehow, it was. Here are a couple examples:

This past Saturday’s Iowa-Maryland football game was like a Jim’s Journal entry.

There was a football game. Iowa played good enough to win without much stress. It was OK.

I had a couple friends over to watch. We had bloody marys, taco dip and puppy chow mix. It was pretty good.

At one point midway through the third quarter, I observed that Hawkeyes-Terrapins was a quintessential mid-pack Big 10 slap fight between two teams with some talent, but also weaknesses and inconsistency.

Iowa, with both its first and second-string quarterbacks AWOL, leaned on its biggest strength – all world running back Kaleb Johnson and a mauling offensive line – to do enough to run clock, score a few touchdowns and keep the somnolent Maryland crowd disengaged and disinterested. Not bad.

After yet another perplexingly bad tackling performance out in L.A., the Iowa defense rediscovered its fundamentals, and even without its best shutdown cornerback, stifled the statistically best passing offense in the conference. That was nice.

It’s been interesting to me to listen to fellow fans discuss how much of a disappointment this 2024 season has been. Prior to game one, there was legitimate hope a veteran squad that somehow managed to find 10 wins last year with perhaps the worst quarterback to ever appear in a Big 10 game might claw its way into the inaugural 12-team College Football Playoff field.

Taking the foot off the gas against a salty Iowa State team and failing to show up ready for road games in East Lansing and Pasadena killed the dream and left many fans frustrated and annoyed.

At times, particularly during the aforementioned losses, I have also been frustrated and annoyed. Weirdly, however, despite falling short of what some may call unrealistic expectations, I remain overall happier about the general state of the program than I was at any time during the 2023 season.

I know that sounds nuts, considering that season had more wins, but despite its warts, this year’s team still passes the “eye test” for me better than last year’s.

The most glaring difference is that in 2024, offensive football doesn’t feel like a foreign concept and a Sisyphean task for the Hawkeyes. Under first-year offensive coordinator Tim Lester, Iowa has improved in every single offensive metric, and in a few, by an extremely large margin. The game doesn’t look as hard and arduous for Iowa as it did much of last season, when achieving a single first down often felt like climbing a mountain.

The defense, notwithstanding a pair of disappearing acts on the road, has been mostly good and consistent. It was probably unfair to expect it to once again perform nearly flawlessly as it has recently under Phil Parker’s expert tutelage.

The post-season mood of Hawkeye Nation will now be determined by whether Iowa can take care of business against an improved and confident Nebraska team, which became bowl-eligible for the first time in seven years after dismantling a very soft Wisconsin. Frankly, I feel more confident about the looming Black Friday showdown now that Big Red found bowl success – I didn’t want to face a desperate and cornered Husker team. Here’s hoping they are fat and happy from their pre-Thanksgiving Badger feast.

If Iowa brings home the Heroes Trophy on a frigid Kinnick field Friday night, it likely will head to somewhere familiar and fun: Tampa, Florida for the bowl-game-formerly-known-as-Outback.

And that would be pretty nice.

Follow me on X @torybrecht and the 12 Saturdays podcasts @12Saturdays.