Iowa football: Hawks get more love than deserved in CFP rankings

The second rendition of the College Football Playoff rankings are out, and somehow, the Iowa football team remained in the top-20.

This might be a bit over an overreaction by yours truly, but after watching the loss to Wisconsin, I don’t feel like this Iowa football team is a top-20 program. I hope they prove me wrong against Minnesota just as the Gophers proved me wrong, but at this point, I’ll have to see it to believe it.

Fortunately, I am not making the rankings though. The College Football Playoff committee is, and they apparently believe the Iowa football team is worthy of remaining in the top-20 of their weekly rankings. Number 20 to be exact, just one spot lower than last week.

Oddly enough, in somewhat related news, Wisconsin also fell one spot despite winning.

So what exactly is the committee seeing?

While the Iowa football team does have six wins with all three losses coming to ranked teams, their six losses are not impressive (and continue to be less impressive every time Iowa State messes up). Iowa State has the most wins of any of Iowa’s wins with five and right behind them is the injury-tested Boilermakers.

In Iowa’s three losses, the games have been close from a scoring perspective, but anyone who watched those games knows it never really felt that close.

Against Michigan, the Iowa football team managed to find basically any way to mess up and not score. Versus Penn State, it took a beautiful Brandon Smith catch late in the game to snap Iowa’s touchdown-scoreless streak, and the Hawkeye’s offense couldn’t do anything for the first 43 minutes of the game against Wisconsin.

Now, I’ll admit, I am a bit bitter after the fourth straight loss to Wisconsin so that could be clouding my judgment here, but I just don’t see how this committee sees the 20th best team in the country right now. If they can beat #8 Minnesota at home Saturday, then I’ll believe it, but for now, somehow, Iowa is receiving the benefit of the doubt nationally.