Hey JoePa, a little help would have been nice

One week the Phillies are playing in the World Series and my alma mater, the University of Iowa, had an undefeated football team and was sniffing around a possible national championship. It was good to be me.
And then everything went kablooey on both fronts the next week. The New York Yankees spoiled back-to-back world titles hopes for the Phils and then a bunch of smart guys from Northwestern University handed the Hawkeyes their first gridiron defeat of the season and dashed any premature talk about a national college football championship. And it was bad to be me.
Naturally, both teams could have used a little help, especially the Hawkeyes. And they could have used it from JoePa and our friends at Penn State.
See, I have no particular rivalry problem with Penn State. The Nittany Lions weren’t even in the Big Ten Conference when I was at Iowa. I am friends with a lot of Penn State graduates. But I don’t have any love loss for the Ohio State Buckeyes, and that’s who Penn State played last week.
Certainly Iowa could have controlled its own destiny by just beating Northwestern. But since that didn’t happen, Iowa was hoping that Penn State could knock off Ohio State, which didn’t happen. Now Iowa goes to Ohio State this week in a must-win situation essentially to determine the Big Ten’s representative in the Rose Bowl.
Had Iowa beaten Northwestern and Penn State beaten Ohio State, then the Hawkeyes wouldn’t have to win this week in front of an unfriendly crowd in Columbus, Ohio.
Ahhh, phooey. College football frustrates me. But hey, only 14 weeks until pitchers and catchers report.