RECAP: No. 25 Iowa 24, Utah State 14

Iowa kicked off the 2023 season with a 24-14 victory over Utah State that was rarely in doubt, but also not as comfortable as Iowa fans would have liked to see. The Hawkeyes got off to a lightning-fast start with a touchdown 42 seconds in and and another less than seven minutes of game time later.

That fast start ground to a halt after those first two drives, though, and the Iowa offense returned to a familiar malaise. After a turnover on downs near the end of the first quarter, Iowa's next five drives included four punts and a field goal. Utah State cut Iowa's lead to 17-6, but punted on their next two drives.

Finally, on the first drive of the fourth quarter, Iowa's offense again found enough rhythm to grind out a scoring drive. Kaleb Johnson's 3-yard touchdown run put Iowa up 24-6 with just over 10 minutes to play. Utah State added a touchdown (and two-point conversion) late in the game, but couldn't recover an onside kick with 90 seconds to play.

The Cade McNamara Era at Iowa got off to a fast start with a touchdown pass after just 42 seconds. In fact, his very first career pass at Iowa was a 36-yard touchdown bomb to a wide open Seth Anderson.

On his second drive, McNamara went 3/6 for 28 yards, finishing the drive with a fourth down touchdown pass to his fellow Michigan transfer Erick All. That put Iowa up 14-0 and everything looked great.

McNamara finished the first quarter 8/11 for 86 yards and two touchdowns -- it would've have been hard to script a better start to his Iowa career than that. Things slowed down significantly after that -- McNamara went just 7/15 for 59 yards in the second and third quarters, though he was victimized by a few drops from Iowa players, especially near the end zone on Iowa's drive at the end of the first half (Luke Lachey, Nico Ragaini, and Leshon Williams all failed to haul in passes that could have resulted in touchdowns).

McNamara connected with Lachey for a pair of key third down conversions on Iowa's first drive of the fourth quarter. McNamara ended up going 2/4 for 46 yards on that drive, which ended in a 3-yard Kaleb Johnson touchdown run. That was Iowa's final scoring drive of the game -- and the end of McNamara's day. He was replaced by Deacon Hill who went 1/3 for 5 yards but was not able to lead Iowa to any first downs as they tried to wrap up the game.

Overall, McNamara finished 17/30 for 191 yards, 2 touchdowns, and 0 interceptions. Those were solid numbers and could have been even better without the aforementioned drops. McNamara showed great poise in his Iowa debut and excellent touch and placement on nearly all of his passes.

The one negative from McNamara's debut was probably his health -- it was very clear that he's still dealing with the soft tissue injury he sustained at the Kids Day practice last month. That injury continues to significantly limit his mobility. He seemed to aggravate it during the game as well, so his health will bear watching heading into the Iowa State game next week.

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One of the things we were most interested in seeing from this game was the development of the Iowa offensive line. Improved play from the offensive line is a necessity for Iowa's offense to make the progress that it needs to make this season -- but today was a decidedly rough start for that unit. Not only did the Iowa offensive line fail to dominate a Utah State defense that was loaded with inexperienced players (and also missing a few of its most experienced members) -- it struggled to even play the Aggies to a draw at times.

The best part of the Iowa OL performance was probably pass protection -- Cade McNamara was only sacked once and overall had clean pockets to work with for much of the game. There were a few breakdowns on some blitzes from Aggie defenders, but between pass protection and run blocking, the Iowa offensive line was certainly better at the former in this game.

As for the run game... not counting the rushing stats credited to McNamara (two "carries" for -9 yards), Iowa finished with 34 carries for 97 yards. Kaleb Johnson had 19 carries for 63 yards and a touchdown. Leshon Williams added just 16 yards on six carries and Jaziun Patterson finished with 5 carries for -2 yards at the end of the game as Iowa tried to run out the clock.

There were a few good plays in the running game -- Johnson broke loose for a 21-yard gain -- but too many runs for 1-2 yards (or negative yards). Iowa's short yardage running game was woeful (Utah State easily stuffed Iowa on a 4th-and-1 rush attempt in the first quarter) and the efforts to eat up clock at the end of the game went nowhere. Those carries did feature reserves on the offensive line, but the starters had plenty of struggles in the first 3.5 quarters as well. Offensive line remains a major concern for Iowa this season.

The top pass-catchers for Iowa today? Tight End U, friends. Luke Lachey led Iowa with 7 receptions (tying a career-high) for 73 yards on 9 targets. He also recovered Utah State's onside kick attempt at the end of the game. Lachey's catches included two impressive third down grabs on Iowa's final scoring drive, including one that displayed a power forward-esque ability to box out.

Erick All, the other half of Iowa's 1-2 punch at tight end, finished with three receptions for 15 yards, including a first quarter touchdown that put Iowa up 14-0. As expected, he appeared to have great chemistry with his Michigan teammate (and close friend) Cade McNamara; he also showed a good mean streak on blocking assignments. Iowa's tight ends certainly looked every bit as good as advertised.

Outside of the tight ends, just two Iowa receivers caught passes -- Seth Anderson had two receptions for 41 yards (including the touchdown at the beginning of the game) and Nico Ragaini had two receptions for 36 yards. Kaleb Brown and Diante Vines rotated in at wide receiver as well, but saw limited action. In fact, the third-most active wide receiver for Iowa in this game was probably Kaden Wetjen, who finished with 3 carries for 22 yards, all as part of Iowa's jet sweep/end around game.

It probably says something about the extremely high bar for success the Iowa defense has established that allowing 14 points could be cause for some concern. Indeed, in the first three quarters, the Hawkeye defense held Utah State to six points from two field goals and 202 yards (3.9 yards per play). Those are winning numbers.

The defense didn't finish as strong -- after Johnson's touchdown run put Iowa up 24-6, Utah State picked up 127 yards and a late touchdown in the fourth quarter and averaged 6.4 yards per play. A fair amount of that production came against Iowa's backups on defense.

Jay Higgins had a career-high 15 tackles (11 solo) and a pass break-up in his first start at MLB as the replacement for Jack Campbell. He was a magnet for the ball, especially in the first half and was flying around the field. Nick Jackson, making his Iowa debut at LB, finished with 5 tackles (1 solo).

The Iowa defense only forced one turnover (a beautiful leaping interception by Xavier Nwankpa, who later left the game due to apparent cramping), though defenders had opportunities for a few more takeaways that they weren't able to convert. Iowa finished with just one sack, although they were credited with four QB hurries on Utah State QB Cooper Legas. Iowa defenders were also credited with four passes broken up against Legas.

Overall, it was far from the most dominant display by the Iowa defense (particularly in the fourth quarter), but it was still a very solid performance overall. Deshaun Lee, filling in for the absent Jermari Harris at the other starting cornerback role, played very well in his start. He saw a lot of activity as Legas avoided throwing near Cooper DeJean, and he finished with six tackles and displayed some good coverage ability.

There was some concern among Iowa fans that Tory Taylor, a preseason All-America selection at punter, might not have much to do today after the Iowa offense's red-hot start to the game. That fear proved unfounded.

Taylor ended up booming six punts for 292 yards, an average of 48.7 yards per kick. That includes one kick that was partially blocked by a Utah State player -- even with that deflection, Taylor's kick managed to roll for 37 yards. Taylor ended the game with two punts of 50+ yards and three punts inside the 20-yard line. He remains very excellent at his job.