Adrian Clayborn a consensus All-American

The NCAA released their list of consensus All-Americans yesterday, and Adrian Clayborn made the cut. He is just the 21st Hawkeye to earn the honor. Clayborn became a consensus by making the American Football Coaches Association and the Walter Camp teams.

I have to admit I'm a little surprised that Clayborn is an All-American. His production this year was not as strong as last year and not as impressive as some of the other defensive linemen out there. I believe this was kind of a The Return of the King winning Best Picture type of thing, where it wasn't so much that he had a great year, but had a great career and a ton of hype this year following his amazing Orange Bowl.

Iowa hasn't lost by more than 8 points since 2007

Mike Hlas did the research and found that the Hawkeyes are one of two teams that haven't lost by more than a score since 2007. The other is Boise State. The last time Iowa lost by a large margin was in the 2007 season finale against Western Michigan. That is a rather impressive feat. Iowa has lost 11 times in those 3 years, but like we saw this year, they were close games that game down to the final possession. It's the way Kirk Ferentz likes his teams to play.

Sean Keeler likens this to Tom Davis and the always be pretty good, but never bad and never great style that got him run out of town and sent Iowa basketball into a 12 year mess. I agree with his overall message. It is absolutely crazy for anyone to be talking about firing Ferentz because of a 7-5 season. When a bad season is 7-5, I think you have a lot to be thankful for.

The Hawkeyes are back in Arizona

After a week of finals and light practice, the team headed back west to Arizona yesterday. Ferentz had a mini-press conference at the airport [pdf] and said about what you would expect. "We’re just thrilled to be here", "very excited about being selected to the Insight Bowl", "the team’s attitude has been great", and on Missouri: "very well-coached", "they’ve got a great program", etc... There are some pictures of the team leaving Iowa in the middle of a cold snowy mess and arriving in sunny and warm (and snow-less) Arizona with a mariachi band to greet them. Jealous? Yeah, maybe a little.