Opinion

By Dave Curtis

updated 2:53 a.m. ET Oct. 25, 2009

EAST LANSING, Mich. - First the blocked field goals in the opener, then the comeback in the Happy Valley rain. Now add The Play — Ricky Stanzi to Marvin McNutt — to an Iowa Hawkeyes season that makes them this year's team of destiny.

Iowa 15, Michigan State 13 goes down among the most thrilling finishes anyone in Spartan Stadium on Saturday night will ever experience. But the final score has a more pressing meaning. It kept the Hawkeyes undefeated, among the nation's top 10 and thinking that this season could end with a chance at a championship bigger than the Big Ten.

"Most definitely," Iowa running back Adam Robinson said. "You always have that feeling in the back of your mind, of where this is all going to go. And how this might end for us."

If only Robinson were a realist. Pardon the youngster, he's but a freshman. He's wrapped up in the litany of things that have fallen for Iowa in 2009: Heck, how many teams fall behind on a touchdown set up by a hook-and-lateral, yet still rally to win the game?

Yet the Hawks' 8-0 record, and their crazy comebacks, and their road success (four wins over teams with a combined 21-9 record) guarantee them nothing on the national scene.

Most years, Iowa's ability to endure a 12-game schedule and stay unbeaten would be enough to squeeze into the national championship game. Just two years, a two-loss LSU team met one-loss Ohio State in the BCS title game.

But this year, there's no room for Iowa in the nation's elite. The SEC is sending a team to the national championship game. Texas looks to have righted itself, and with much of the Big 12 playing Sun Belt-level football, the Longhorns can make reservations for the title game, too.

Don't even bother with the debate, the matching of opponents' Sagarin ratings and the strengths of conferences. As magical as Iowa's ride has been, the ceiling has been established. To answer Robinson's pondering, the Hawkeyes will do no better than a Jan. 1 game in the Rose Bowl.

Feel free to blame the system or to argue until your cheeks turn scarlet (and gray) that these Hawkeyes are being punished for the poor postseason play of their Big Ten peers. Or take the approach Iowa's players embraced here after their win.

We can't control the rest of the country. We're just enjoying what we've got going.

"We don't compare ourselves to other teams," defensive end Adrian Clayborn said. "They do what they do. We do what we do."

If the Hawkeyes keep doing what they're doing, they'll earn Big Ten championship rings and a permanent place in school lore. They might get another spot in history, too — next to Auburn's 2004 team as a perfect, BCS conference squad that didn't get a chance to play for it all.

That's an issue for December, at least to these guys. They're too busy providing another heart-stopping Saturday for their fans. And if destiny for them ends up nothing more than that, they say they're fine with it.

At least for now.

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