BTB Roundtable: wishful thinking.

Pretend for a moment you're the little Japanese guy on Heroes. You can close your eyes, clench your fists, crap your pants and go back in time. If you could go back and change one play for your team this season, what would it be?

I don't have to go back too far for this one. I would have Tracy Porter field that punt on the 30. With less than two minutes remaining and trailing Penn State, Porter allowed a fieldable punt to bounce to the 5. There's no guarantee that IU would have won, but some field position might have put PSU on its heels a bit.

We're now two-thirds of the way through the season. Everyone likes to debate who will be the Big Ten Coach of the Year. I want to know which Big Ten coach is a complete moron that should be demoted back to fullbacks coach on a team that runs the spread offense?

Kirk Ferentz. Just a few years ago, the Hawkeyes appeared to be headed for national prominence. Instead, a year after a 2-6 Big Ten finish, Iowa likely will miss a bowl game entirely, has been blown out by IU and Purdue, and gifted a horrible Iowa State team its only win. I haven't studied the Iowa situation in detail, and as long as they provide IU an opportunity to climb out of the cellar, I don't care why it has happened, but Iowa's decline was a terrible waste of resources and momentum.

Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife. But the Bible doesn't say anything about your rival. Which current Big Ten player do you most wish played for your team?

As I have noted on many occasions, I'm a big fan of Bryan Payton and think that Marcus Thigpen can add another dimension to IU's offense. While I'm tempted to select a run-stopping DT, if IU could throw Mike Hart in the backfield with Kellen Lewis, the run defense wouldn't matter.

Bonus Question
It's probably too early to start thinking about next year. Well, unless you're Minnesota in which case you've been thinking about next year for a month or so already. Assess your team's future. Was this year your chance to make a run or is this just a rebuilding year with greater expectations in 2008? Or do you plan to suck in 2008 just as much as you suck now?

This question is nearly impossible for an IU fan to answer. Even though we seem likely to end our 13 year bowl drought, we really have no idea who will coach this team next year. One of the reasons I wouldn't mind seeing Bill Lynch get a long-term deal is because of the potential of next year's team. Certainly, IU will lose some important players: James Hardy will almost certainly enter the NFL Draft, Tracy Porter, DL Joe Kremer, OL Charlie Emerson, but ultimately, IU returns a ton of players. Certainly, we haven't seen what Kellen Lewis can do without Hardy, but IU has a deep and talented receiving corps. Plus, the schedule is likely to be easy again: the non-conference schedule will be BCS-free, and we don't play OSU or Michigan. But for all we know, it could be a rebuilding year with a new coach.