Hawkeyes 10, Illini 6

Just when you think you're out, they pull you back in.

To mediocrity, that is.

I shouldn't be surprised, I guess. Illinois is a young team, the Zooker isn't known for winning so-called "Trap Games" and the Illini haven't won at Iowa since, I believe, the Clinton Administration ... if then. (I could be wrong about that. Research is so not what blogs are about.)

Anyway, like last week's Bolts' game, I had to miss this Illini game, though this time around I had a good excuse. A friend of mine had an extra ticket to Game 2 of the ALCS so I spent the afternoon driving from New York to Boston. Anytime you have a chance to see live playoff baseball, especially in a city as whacko about their sports teams as Boston is, you have to go. It's like when you go to a buddy's house and he offers you a Miller Lite and maybe Coors Light is your favorite and you don't really care too much about Miller Lite but it's still a beer so you take the Miller Lite and suck it down like a man. That's what it's like being offered Red Sox playoff tickets even though you could stay home and watch the Illini play Iowa.

(Okay that analogy isn't quite right - it should be something less common than a Miller Lite - but I don't feel like taking the time to think it through and get it right. Let's face it, I'm not the sharpest tool in the shed.)

So what news I got from the game I got by standing in my friend's grandparents' backyard in Wellesley, Mass. (a 'burb of Boston) about ten feet from the fence and adjacent to the back deck and facing East at which spot, if I held my blackberry at just the right angle, I could get internet reception and follow the game through minute by minute refreshes.

Not an ideal way to follow the game but they don't have cable at that house and the local game was Syracuse - Rutgers and I wasn't about to sit through that. And anyway we had a Heineken mini keg tapped and flowing like wine so that was nice.

But why delay any longer. You know how this story ends. As I clicked through my blackberry I could tell the Illini were driving toward a score and that McGee was in and that they had the ball deep in Iowa territory and then ... nothing. Suddenly it was 1st and 10 Iowa ball with about a minute to play. It wasn't at all clear from the blackberry what had happened (though I had my guesses) and I didn't find out until later that McGee threw the goal line pick (guess confirmed).

From what I heard the big deals of this game were these:

- the Iowa D game planning the Illini perfectly and stifling the spread option
- McGee's 83 yard touchdown pass mooted by a motion penalty
- Zook accepting two penalties when he should have declined them
- McGee's goal line interception with 1:20 to play

That's about all I can offer on this one. I DVRd the game but I haven't had the time - or the balls - to watch it.