Quote Originally Posted by sleepy dawg View Post
This won't be a blowout like many MSU fans are thinking. Iowa is very good and so are we. Like MSU, they are underrated and better than their record indicates. We are very fortunate they'll be without their star TE. We don't need two bad ass TE's flying down the field every play creating mismatches.

Our results this year have been very much dependent on the quality of defense we're facing. We've dominated teams who don't have a good defense and we've lost and struggled to all those that do. Iowa has a good defense. In my opinion, the Outback bowl features the 2 best 8-4 teams in the country and I really wish we were playing a 9-3 or 10-2 team so we could get more credit because the uninformed fan won't realize just how good these 2 teams really are. Vegas has us as the number 8 team right now and Iowa as the number 16 team with only about 2.2 points separating us on a neutral field (with their best offensive player). There's a reason the line opened up so low. They have Iowa as a better team than A&M, UCF, Florida, and Auburn. The line is only bigger now b/c of betting, but Vegas expects this to be a close game and it very likely will be.
Nice, well informed post. Thanks!

What I'm starting to see is that we will need to be running straight at you between the tackles. Perimeter runs aren't going to work due to the speed of your DEs and LBs. Our OL is very good at pass blocking, it will come down to which version of Nate Stanley shows up. He's been well regarded by NFL draft guys, but hasn't been consistent at all.