IOWA/PSU NOTES

Other than Joe Paterno, who’s taken on a sort of quasi-mystical persona among Big Ten coaches on the order of Albus Dumbledore, Ferentz is dean of the conference headmasters.

This is his 11th year. Counting his first season of 1999 when he went 1-10 with Hayden Fry’s meager cupboard remains, Ferentz is 6-2 against Paterno.

But here’s what’s really striking: In those eight meetings, Ferentz’s teams have been favored in the Vegas line only twice — in 2001 (-9 in Iowa City) and 2003 (-10 in Iowa City). Iowa has covered six of the eight, excepting only 2001 (24-18 win) and 2007 (27-7 loss, +9 in State College).

Five of the games have been close — decided by a touchdown or less — and Iowa has won each of them. Because Penn State won the two blowouts (’99 and ’07), the average difference actually comes out in favor of PSU +1.5, which could not be more misleading.

As badly as Vegas has gauged the outcomes, the games themselves have been just as erratic and all over the map in style and pace. On back-to-back Iowa visits to The Beav, you had games that could not have had less in common.

In 2002, there was the wild Zack Mills-led, back-from-the-dead comeback from 22 points down with 10 minutes left to force overtime and eventually a 42-35 Iowa decision.

That was the game when the officiating so infuriated Paterno that he ran down crew chief Dick Honig to spew vitriol on the way through the tunnel. Easy to forget now, but that’s the game generally referenced as the catalyst for college football’s replay system.

Just two years later in 2004, you had the otherworldly 6-4 spectacle, perhaps the nadir of the Paterno Dark Ages, when Ferentz felt so certain of PSU’s offensive impotency that he took an intentional safety to make it a two-point game with four minutes left.

That, you don’t see every day. Not to a mention a football game with 4 in the score.