Penn State Football: Seven Reasons to Hate Iowa

In most cases, I give a quick couple of sentences here about giving you help rooting against the upcoming opponent. Let’s not pretend that you need any reasons this week. Let’s look at the ones that are already on the table…and poke some fun.

The Hawkeye is a Pest. 

Literally. It says so right HERE…kind of. The words “Hawkeye”, “pest” and “bird” are all there! Which actually brings great logic to the fact that Iowa is the “Hawkeye State.” Doesn’t is all make so much more sense now???
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Hayden Fry: Most Overrated Coach in History

At some point Saturday, the announcers will make a statement about “legendary coach Hayden Fry.” Not to disrespect an old guy, but in 21 years at  the helm, coach Fry averaged less than 7 wins per year. That’s what you wanna hang your hat on? The Pest Birds named their athletic facility after a guy who was just barely bowl-eligible, on average. Awesome.
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Iowa Fans Don’t Believe in Logic.

After some Pest fans got ahold of my 31-6 prediction, they came at me on Twitter with loads of useless knowledge. They wanted to make sure that I knew about the 2004 game and how Penn State hasn’t won at Kinnick since 1999. They wanted to make sure that I was aware of Jerry Sandusky and this guy, one of my personal favorites:

Rather than argue WHY Iowa might beat Penn State, they went with “timtrLOLlleyvbr.” Iowa sucks at offense. Arguably their best offensive threat will be limited, if not out on Saturday. Their quarterback has 2 touchdowns and 3 interceptions on the year. They scored 3 points against Penn State last year and this offense isn’t as good. Saying they’ll score 6 might be generous on my part. Rather than tell me why any of that isn’t rational, I get

Thanks for playing, dummy. One knucklehead even tweeted the link to the predictions to coach Ferentz with the heading BULLETIN BOARD MATERIAL, as though that will make the team play better. Look, if losing to Central Michigan wasn’t enough to motivate this team, there’s nothing that I can do to help.
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Iowa: Another “Little Brother”

As if it’s not bad enough that we had to sit through games against the 2nd best team in Ohio (Ohio), the 3rd best team in Illinois (Illinois) and the worst team in the state of Pennsylvania and Big East (Temple), now we get to watch the second (maybe third- I see you Iowa Western CC) best team in IOWA? By losing to Iowa State, the perennial doormat of the Big 12, Iowa secured their spot as the worst football team in the worst football state in the country.
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November 8, 2008

Penn State was ranked #3 fresh off of a bye week that followed a win over a top 5 Ohio State team. Penn State was staring a potential undefeated season right in the face. Trailing 23-14 when the fourth quarter started, Iowa scored 10 unanswered points including the game-winning field goal by Daniel Murray in the final seconds. Murray made just 6 of 9 field goals that year and was 32 of 62 on his career. Penn State went on to win the rest of their regular season games, before losing in the Rose Bowl. Iowa, as usual, didn’t matter.
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September 26, 2009

“Revenge Day.”#5 Penn State at home, at night, in front of a whiteout. After 2008, this would be the day that Penn State would exact (not extract, apparently) revenge. On their first play from scrimmage, Penn State scored a touchdown and the crowd assumed they were setting the tone. However, that would be the Nittany Lions’ last touchdown of the day. Iowa dominated in the trenches and Penn State turned the ball over time and time again. The Hawkeyes would score 16 points in the 4th and win 21-10. Penn State would only lose one more time that season. Iowa still didn’t matter.
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February, 2009

Muscatine, Iowa is just west of the Mississippi river. It’s part of, or near something that’s called the Quad City or Quad Cities or some junk. The Quad City? is actually comprised of four small craphole towns that are near enough to one another that a shopping plaza is necessary. I spent a week there for work, in the middle of winter. The temperature hovered around 8 degrees for the week and the wind whipped off the Rockies straight through town because there’s NOTHING between the river and Montana. At one point that week, I took the company car to Walmart to walk around. Yeah, that’s my experience with Iowa. I spent a week away from my family, drinking at a hotel bar and humoring myself with laps at the local Walmart because that’s what there is to do there. More so than any football game, that week is why I hate Iowa.

If you need more reasons, check out WHY IOWA SUCKS over at Onward State.
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For all of the latest on the Penn State Nittany Lions or to harass somebody about a game in 2004, follow VBR Lead Editor Tim Tolley on Twitter.