THREE THINGS WE LEARNED

MISTAKES MATTER

There are certain thing that we all accustomed to following Iowa football. One of them is that the Hawkeyes generally don’t beat themselves. Iowa is traditionally one of the least penalized teams in the Big Ten and in the nation. They pride themselves for playing mistake free football.

That was until last Saturday when the usually limited mistake making Hawkeyes had a pretty bad outbreak of penalties. Iowa finished the day with ten penalties for 100 yards, including several false starts and Kirk Ferentz had a really full notecard to look at after the game.

The last time Iowa had over 10 penalties in a game was 2018 against Indiana when Iowa had 11 flags for 110 yards. By the way, Iowa beat Indiana that day, 42-16 and Peyton Ramsey, who will quarterback Northwestern this weekend, was leading the Hoosiers.

The mistakes were really costly for Iowa. As Ferentz said after the game, they take away momentum and they did on Saturday. That and the two turnovers proved to be very costly in a close loss to Purdue. A game like that, which resulted in a close loss, allows the coaches to put a great emphasis on eliminating the mistakes to get the outcome they want.

IOWA WRESTLING IS BACK

As disappointing as losing the NCAA College Basketball Tournament was last spring, perhaps the most disappointing event to be lost was the NCAA Wrestling Championships.

Iowa wrestling was poised to return to the top of the podium in March and Spencer Lee was all set to secure his third straight national title at 125 pounds. Then Covid-19 arrived and everything NCAA related was cancelled.

While most places don’t really think about college wrestling, as Tom Brands said this week on a Zoom call, “Iowa City is Wrestling Town, USA”, and he’s right. The new Xtreme Arena in Coralville just hosted a national wrestling event and this Sunday they are scheduled to host the Hawkeye Wrestling Club Showdown. It’s in conjunction with the folks at Trackwrestling, who will make on-line streaming available for the event.

One exciting part of this is after initially saying no fans would be able to attend, they are not going to allow a limited number of fans to be in the stands. If you are interesting in buying a $30 ticket on Sunday, you can purchase them at XtreamArena.com.

Basically every time Hawkeye wrestler will be featured on Sunday, including Spencer Lee, Austin DeSanto, Jaydin Eierman, Alex Marinelli, Michael Kemerer, and Tony Cassioppi.

If you have been itching to get back out to see a live sporting event, this is a great opportunity to see the best wrestlers in the country in action.

WE NEED ZACH JOHNSON AS THE GUEST PICKER ON COLLEGE GAMEDAY

This week it was announced that when the Masters takes place in November that ESPN’s College GameDay will originate from the course in Augusta, GA.

So, that got me thinking, wouldn’t it be cool to have a college football loving green jacket wearing Hawkeye fan on the show as the guest picker?

Of course it would be great to have Zach Johnson as the guest picker!

Think about it for a second. You want someone who knows and loves college football. Zach checks that box and then some. I’m going to guess no one on the PGA Tour knows more about college football and recruiting than Zach Johnson.

Then there’s another big box to check, wouldn’t it be cool if the guy doing the picking would be wearing a green jacket because he won The Masters? Of course it would. Plus, we know Zach will have a late tee time because he will be far up the leaderboard, so he could work in his duties as the guest picker and then head to the range to get ready for the third round.

Let’s make it happen ESPN. Zach’s ready to do it, so let’s make it happen.

TWO QUESTIONS

IS THE WISCONSIN SITUATION A BAD SIGN FOR THE BIG TEN SEASON?

While college football games have taken place each weekend, the ride has been a little bumpy just about every week with contests that are either canceled or postponed.

Well, it took one week for the Big Ten to feel a little turbulence. On day after Wisconsin quarterback Graham Mertz threw for five touchdown passes in the Badgers dominant victory over Illinois, he tested positive for Covid-19. Mertz tested positive via the daily antigen test and then one day later it was confirmed by a PCR test.

By Wednesday morning, the Badgers were shutting down their football operation for the next week due to 12 positive tests, including head coach Paul Chryst. That makes two weeks and two Big Ten head coaches with Covid-19. This means Wisconsin will not be playing Saturday at Nebraska and per Big Ten return to play rules, the game will be called a no contest and it will not be a win or a loss for either school.

My sense with all this is that while the daily testing should be able to help control an outbreak on a football team, it’s not 100% certain that it will stop one from happening. Covid-19 can spread quickly and we have seen that with the Wisconsin team this week. Even with daily testing this was never going to be easy and if you didn’t believe that, this week should serve as a reminder.

SHOULD WE BE CONCERNED ABOUT IOWA’S PASS RUSH?

One of the stories heading into the season that probably didn’t get enough attention was how much pressure the Hawkeyes could create from their front four. Iowa has been pretty fortunate in the last few years to have players like Anthony Nelson and A.J. Epenesa, who could go out and get ten sacks on their own each year.

Iowa finished with a pair of sacks, which is pretty good, but it didn’t feel like the pressure was all that consistent. And it felt like Phil Parker had to bring more blitzes than normal. Per stats from Pro Football Focus, Iowa used the blitz 15 times and didn’t get home on any of them. PFF also says that Iowa only created pressure on 18 of the 50 passing attempts by Purdue. One troubling number is that Purdue was 10-15 for 118 yards and one touchdown when Iowa used a blitz.

Bottom line is while Phil Parker hopes that staying with a base four man rush, it sure seems like he’s going to have to try some other options. The problem is Iowa’s not a natural blitzing team, so it’s not something they always seem comfortable doing. We will see what Parker and the Iowa defense can dial up this weekend.

ONE PREDICTION

It was a pretty quiet opener for Ihmir Smith-Marsette. It looked like perhaps he was nursing a sore hamstring against Purdue. Well, this week will be a different story and Iowa’s most explosive offensive weapon will get on track and have a big game against the Wildcats.