Iowa football: Seniors know firsthand how fast success can crumble
The seniors on the Iowa football team are a talented and highly successful bunch.
Many of them, including starting quarterback Ricky Stanzi and all-Big Ten defensive end Adrian Clayborn, have played vital roles in Iowa’s resurgence over the past two seasons.
And now the seniors enter the 2010 season, which will start on Saturday against Eastern Illinois, as the driving force behind a team that many feel is destined for greatness.
You name it and the senior class has it, including arguably the top defensive end in college football, a quarterback with an 18-4 record as a starter and a charismatic receiver, who in addition to having perhaps the three most famous initials in the history of the program, also has a chance to leave here as Iowa’s all-time leader in catches and receiving yards.
Talent is only part of what makes the senior class special, though.
The group also knows how it feels to be humbled and humiliated after what they’ve been through since coming to Iowa.
But that isn’t necessarily a bad thing because part of overcoming adversity is learning from it.
Stanzi, Clayborn and receiver Derrell Johnson-Koulianos, aka DJK, were all true freshmen in 2006, when Iowa lost six of its last seven games to finish 6-7 overall and 2-6 in the Big Ten. All three of them were redshirted that season, but they still saw up close what happens when a team loses its edge and its focus.
Kirk Ferentz refers to the second half of the 2006 season as the low point to his head coaching career at Iowa, which now is entering its 12th season.
The 2007 season wasn’t much better as Iowa sputtered to a 6-6 record and failed to make a bowl game behind one of the worst offenses in the Big Ten. Stanzi played sparingly as the backup to Jake Christensen that season, whereas Clayborn appeared in all 12 games as a reserve.
“I think it does help our senior class because when guys start to talk about (the 2006 season) or ask about it, we can tell them about it from a player’s perspective,” Stanzi said Tuesday. “And even though we were young, we still went through it.
“And having that experience and seeing a team do that and understanding why those kinds of things happen on a ball club can only help us, hopefully, with our mindset.”
The 2006 and 2007 seasons showed how thin the line is between success and failure, especially for a program like Iowa, where sustaining success isn’t easy.
Ferentz constantly reminds his players that nothing comes without a struggle. He warns them that things can change for the worse in a hurry.
“I just know it can go right back real fast,” Ferentz said. “You don’t have to go back to ’99 to find a dip there. It just serves as a good reminder.”
Ferentz made it abundantly clear after the 2006 season unraveled that his players had lost their edge. He referred to them as “fat cats” and also said there was a sense of entitlement spreading throughout the team.
And though it was too late to fix things back then, it wasn’t too late to start molding the underclassmen.
It’s like the old saying goes; if you don’t learn from your mistakes, you’re bound to repeat them.
Iowa has a great tradition in football, but the program also is fragile in many ways. Winning never can be taken for granted because that’s when a team lets its guard down.
So when listing everything that makes the senior class special, don’t just focus on statistics and awards but also on what the players have been through to reach this point.
Reach Pat Harty at 339-7368 or pharty@press-citizen.com.
Category: Iowa Hawkeyes Football
Important article. Perhaps the only criticism on the Ferentz era has been the team’s ability to handle success from season to season, which is the primary reason that many fans are “cautiously” optimistic this year. You get the feeling that the players and coaches have indeed learned from the past and that could go a long way towards a big season. Losing focus and/or a few injuries is much more likely to have a disasterous effect at Iowa, as opposed to some programs like Ohio State, where there’s always a surplus of talent waiting in the wings. Could be a special season, can’t wait for it to start!
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