Tag: 2022 Iowa Football

College Football News predicts comfortable Michigan win over Iowa in low-scoring affair

College Football News’ Pete Fiutak is predicting that Michigan will snap its losing streak at Kinnick Stadium in a defensive struggle.

This is the week Iowa fans have been waiting months for.

The last time these two met it was on Dec. 4, Lucas Oil Stadium the backdrop, and subsequently the witness, for a Big Ten Championship beatdown for the ages. Iowa’s defense was on fire, causing a bevy of turnovers every week and just making life hectic for opposing offensive coordinators. The team’s stock might not have been where it was a few weeks ago when the Hawkeyes somehow found themselves ranked second in the nation, but big wins over Penn State and Minnesota showed that they deserved to be there!

Michigan obviously thought otherwise, treating their black and gold opponents like a bug on their windshield, one that would not stand in their way to either the Big Ten Championship, nor the College Football Playoffs.

Winning 42-3 in a conference championship against one of the best defenses in the nation no less is pretty much as profound a statement you can make as a program. Michigan truly was back, and all of the Harbaugh naysayers who called for his job the past few years would have to flock back to the woodwork.

Now, almost a year later, these two teams meet in a much different venue, Kinnick Stadium, the host for Fox’s Big Noon Kickoff and one of the most anticipated Big Ten matchups of the season.

Pete Fiutak. in his recent breakdown for College Football News sees this one going the way of the Wolverines, in a comfortable, low-scoring contest.

Michigan hasn’t given away a thing.

One interception against Hawaii, one fumble against Maryland. That’s been in for the turnovers. The team has been flagged a ridiculously low nine times, and it’s been able to get through any slight adversity by being methodical.

This is the game for the Michigan defense.

The offense will sputter and cough, and Corum will be bottled up, but it’ll be a slow and steady drum beat with just enough points to get by. The Wolverine D will hold up well with a great day against the non-existent Iowa passing attack.

Michigan 26, Iowa 13. – Fiutak, College Football News.

Iowa sputtered out of the gates to start the season, the offense quite literally offensive to any onlookers those first two games. It has since improved over the past two games, 27 points scored in both contests which isn’t amazing but it is pretty good for typical Iowa standards.

Meanwhile, Michigan enters Kinnick undefeated, overcoming their biggest test yet in Maryland last week. Ranked fourth in the USA TODAY Sports AFCA Coaches Poll, they face easily the biggest defensive test of the season in the Hawkeyes. It is assumed that the J.J. McCarthy-led offense is legit again, but this will be their chance to prove so.

Every Hawkeyes fan in Kinnick will have the hope that their team will come away with the victory, the Iowa defense exposing the Wolverines offense as overrated whilst the offense does just enough to capitalize. With all rationale and logic heading in, those hopes are most likely just that: hopes. The same argument of Michigan having yet to face a truly good opponent also rings true for the Hawkeyes as well.

The difference though is that Michigan looked fantastic against the teams they were supposed to look great against. Iowa instead has struggled to inspire any confidence in their offense, the biggest cause for optimism is the unit scoring 27 points against Nevada and Rutgers.

By all rational logic, Michigan should win this one in a classic Big Ten-style way, their talent simply too much for Iowa. You never know, though.

Games are not won on paper.

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Social Media Reactions to Iowa’s 27-10 Win Over Rutgers

Iowa dismantled Rutgers in its Big Ten opener. Here was how social media responded to the Hawkeyes’ big win.

Raise your hand if you went into tonight expecting a comfortable win!

All year, it has been difficult for the Iowa Hawkeyes. It was a pain for fans to get through the first two games of the year, the Hawkeyes offense seemingly uninterested in the opposing teams’ end zones, preferring the spotlight to be firmly placed on punter Tory Taylor. It was ugly splitting those first two games against South Dakota State and Iowa State, the Hawkeyes’ 7-3 week one victory over the Jackrabbits providing an immediate damper on the season.

Even in a game where the result was never in question, defeating Nevada 27-0, the weather made this one hard to get through… literally! The game took forever with countless weather delays.

There was none of that tonight though. No reliance on safeties to get you the win, no weather delays to prolong the pending victory, and no Sopranos crew on the sideline hassling the Ferentz’ to throw the game.

In a game many expected to go right down to the wire, Iowa won this one fairly comfortably 27-10. The offense looked better, especially the running game, the defense as stout as expected, and Tory Taylor once again put the team in the best situation to win with his leg.

After a very scary two-week stretch to start the season, we’re starting to see little chunks of improvement by the Hawkeyes each week. Nobody is going to favor them heading into Michigan next week, but the doom and gloom surrounding the program after that 10-7 loss to the Cyclone has somewhat started to dissipate. It was a much cheerier mode on social media, and here are the highlights from the Hawkeyes comfortable win over the Scarlet Knights.

Iowa Hawkeyes focusing on recovery ahead of Big Ten opener at Rutgers

Ahead of its Big Ten opener at Rutgers, Iowa’s players discussed adjusting their schedules following a late night against Nevada.

It is not very often that we see Big Ten football after midnight. The players in Kinnick Stadium certainly did not expect to receive their first taste of Sunday football against Nevada, especially with a 6:30 CST kickoff on Saturday night.

Mother Nature though had her own plans, hitting the Hawkeyes with multiple lightning delays. The pauses in the action pushed the finish of the game back hours later than anticipated, further postponing the Hawkeyes road to recovery ahead of their Big Ten clash against Rutgers.

Quarterback Spencer Petras, who didn’t get to sleep after the game until 3:30 a.m. and probably had a “couple cups” of coffee to push through the Sunday team meeting, spoke during media availability about the road to recovery after such a late game.

“Recovery is always critical, even more so now. Our opponents did get a jump on us. I think all of our sleep schedules are a little screwed up still. Again (though), no one cares. We’re still playing the game at 7:10 or whatever time it is. It’s our job to make up that ground and really recover and rest the best we can,” Petras said.

One of Iowa’s primary defensive leaders elaborated on how the Hawkeyes tried to catch back up on the rest clock.

“Coach slid the times (for the team meeting) back about an hour or two on Sunday, just to give us a little bit more sleep. But, obviously it doesn’t happen in one night. It’s going to be important that we stay on top of that this whole week, being able to go to bed on time, eat and drink the right things to fuel our bodies, I feel like it all starts with that,” Campbell said.

Campbell reiterated that this week is no different than any other week. A different road to recovery or not, “the little things are going to lead to Saturday.”

While still getting back into the groove of his sleep cycle, Petras reaffirmed to fans that he should be “very well rested” for the game against Rutgers, before restating that the goal for Iowa has not changed despite a tad rockier start to the season than expected.

“We have four team goals, and the last one is to win the Big Ten West and to win the Big Ten. You can’t win the Big Ten West without winning Big Ten games. Every game’s critical, every game’s important, but our end goal is to win the Big Ten and this is when we really start playing for that,” Petras said.

Iowa opens up their Big Ten Conference play at SHI Stadium in Piscataway, N.J., against the 3-0 Rutgers Scarlet Knights.

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Iowa Hawkeyes’ Lukas Van Ness named B1G Special Teams Player of the Week

Iowa defensive lineman Lukas Van Ness has been named the Big Ten Special Teams Player of the Week following his efforts on Saturday.

The Iowa Hawkeyes find themselves with the Big Ten Special Teams Player of the Week today after the effort from their defensive lineman, Lukas Van Ness, on Saturday against the Iowa State Cyclones.

Van Ness made huge momentum-changing plays in the punt game as he got his hands on two separate Cyclones’ punts causing them to be blocked. The effort was good enough to tie the Hawkeyes’ individual record for most punts blocked in a single game.

Each of the blocks by Van Ness gift wrapped the ball to the Hawkeyes’ offense deep in Iowa State territory. The first block set the Hawkeyes up for their sole touchdown of the day.

This recognition comes on the heels of Iowa punter Tory Taylor being named the same award winner after his performance punting the ball against South Dakota State.

Iowa special teams coach Levar Woods is helping the Hawkeyes dominate the third phase of the game and doing everything in their power to completely shift the field position battle. Whether it is Taylor pinning opponents deep in their own territory with his punting or Van Ness doing his best to give the offense a short field, Woods has been able to dial up the special teams unit to look like one of the best in the entire nation.

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5 stars from the Iowa Hawkeyes’ loss to the Iowa State Cyclones

Despite Iowa losing the Cy-Hawk game for the first time in the past seven meetings, there were standout performers. Here were five stars.

Pretty much everything you are going to read after this 10-7 loss to rival Iowa State—at home no less—will be negative. How could it not be? All the fears and worries that could be chalked up to first-game jitters were now confirmed in Week 2.

This offense looks like the worst in the nation right now. Every single article this week will hammer that point into your head. I’ve got nothing to say about the offense, I’d instead like to appreciate yet another great performance by the defense and special teams. Lost in the offensive ineptitude, the Iowa Hawkeyes only allowed 10 points and blocked two punts.

Those Iowa stars will not be forgotten here. Here are the five Hawkeye stars from Week 2.

Iowa Hawkeyes listed as one of USA TODAY Sports’ Week 1 college football ‘losers’

As the Cy-Hawk game returns, Iowa is looking to morph from one of college football’s “losers” to one of its “winners” in Week 2.

This shouldn’t come as a surprise.

On USA TODAY Sports’ Paul Myerberg’s Week 1 college football winners and losers, Iowa’s offense was the only single unit featured on the list of losers.

There’s one easy path to seven points: the touchdown. Another way to seven, as Iowa showed against South Dakota State: one field goal (three), one safety (five) and then another safety (seven). Of course, Iowa still won 7-3. Only the Hawkeyes. – Myerberg, USA TODAY Sports.

Only the Hawkeyes indeed. Despite all of the preseason hype surrounding the improvements of the offensive unit, we really didn’t get to see any of it. Sure, there were some lone bright spots, receiver Arland Bruce IV was effective whenever the ball came his way and received a fairly high Pro Football Focus grade as a result, but, overall, it was a disappointment on all fronts.

We all know the quarterback struggles on display Saturday, that has been beaten to death by the media. Despite head coach Kirk Ferentz’s comments that Spencer Petras “did some good things Saturday,” his 1.1 QBR is kind of a perfect summation of the passing attack against South Dakota State.

Not all of it can be placed on Petras, even if you want to give him a lion’s share of the fault for the abysmal offensive output. Everything around him fell apart as well. The offensive line, for all of the claims of improvement over the offseason, still looked inexperienced. They were overmatched in the run game, not opening many holes for running back Leshon Williams, who actually looked fairly decent. The receiving corps limped into the game, and the lack of weapons showed.

That is a concern moving forward, too. Iowa is still not nearly back to 100% in that regard. Keagan Johnson wasn’t listed on the depth chart, joining Nico Ragaini’s absence.

Everyone on the offense didn’t do good enough of a job, and they have to equally take the blame as a team. That’s why they all as a collective deserve to be on this list.

There’s a reason why the entire team wasn’t amongst the losers for the week. Look at those around them, every one of those teams came out on the losing end of their Week 1 matchups. Every team listed except for Iowa. That’s because of the fantastic effort from the defense and special teams. Hopefully in Week 2 we can see both sides of the ball coming out as big-time winners!

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5 keys to success for the Iowa Hawkeyes against Iowa State

Ahead of the Cy-Hawk rivalry, let’s take a look at five keys to success that can propel the Iowa Hawkeyes to a victory over Iowa State.

The Cy-Hawk rivarly is upon us and kickoff is rapidly approaching. For the first time since 2018, the matchup returns to Kinnick Stadium and the Iowa Hawkeyes hosting after a brief hiatus of traveling to Iowa State and other circumstances.

The Iowa offense is looking to improve on their previous showing and in doing that have been very effective at ignoring the outside noise. They are focused on what happens internally.

The Iowa State Cyclones come into town off of an impressive offensive performance in their opener while their defense is still in the process of growing and gelling into one unit, although they have some serious talent.

The Hawkeyes can win this game with contributions from all three units and all will be called upon at some point. With the Cy-Hawk set to kick off at 3 p.m, CST this afternoon, let’s go into the weekend the right way and look at five keys to success for the Iowa Hawkeyes.

Iowa Hawkeyes facing Cyclones quarterback Hunter Dekkers fresh off stellar debut

Cyclones quarterback Hunter Dekkers impressed in his debut, giving hope to Iowa State fans. He faces his first big test in Iowa.

Much has been made over the past week about the Hawkeyes’ inability to move the ball through the air against FCS opponent South Dakota State, but their upcoming opponent and rival Iowa State had zero problems in week one.

Sophomore quarterback Hunter Dekkers was one of 20 quarterback debuts featured by Athlon Sports after week one. In the first week of the Dekkers era at Iowa State, the Hawarden, Iowa, native diced up FCS foe Southeast Missouri State in a 42-10 victory.

Athlon Sports’ Steven Lassan wrote this of Dekkers starting debut.

Filling the void left behind by Brock Purdy isn’t easy, but the Hunter Dekkers era in Ames is off to a fast start. The Iowa native was nearly flawless in Iowa State’s 42-10 victory over FCS Southeast Missouri State, completing 25 of 31 throws for 293 yards and four scores. Dekkers also added 11 rushing yards and ranked third among Big 12 signal-callers in quarterback rating (196.2). – Lassan, Athlon Sports.

A lot of those in the media have talked about the pressure on Dekkers’ shoulders coming in to replace four-year starter Brock Purdy, almost to the point where his upside for the Cyclones gets lost in the shuffle. Purdy, now with the San Francisco 49ers, was a respectable quarterback, but wasn’t anything spectacular. He was a good college quarterback, and had his moment, but not one who would consistently take over in the big games. You knew what you were getting in Purdy, and he never reached the heights of his sophomore year again.

With Dekkers, the hope around Ames is that he can elevate the Cyclones to another level. They’ve finished inside the top 25 once in the past six years under Matt Campbell, finishing ninth in 2020. That’s the level the Cyclones want to get back to. Every other year they’ve been a mediocre team in the Big 12, finishing right around .500 in the conference.

The hope is that Dekkers can bring them back to that level, and while it was against an FCS opponent, he impressed in week one. He looked decisive, took what the defense gave him, but still was able to hit the deep ball. Week two in Kinnick against one of the strongest defenses in the nation will be the true test for the young lefty.

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College Football News offers prediction for Iowa vs Iowa State Cy-Hawk matchup

College Football News offered up a prediction on the Cy-Hawk matchup with a heavy reliance on past history. Let’s look at their prediction.

The Iowa Hawkeyes are looking to rebound offensively this week. The Iowa State Cyclones are trying to find out how the replacement parts on offense will work this year. That leads into a bit of uncertainty entering the Cy-Hawk matchup this Saturday.

Iowa State’s offense is coming off of a 42-point outburst but it was against Southeast Missouri State so a grain of salt should be taken with that one. The Cyclone defense gave up just 10 points but showed some cracks in the armor with the yardage given up.

The Hawkeyes defense played lights out surrendering just three points in their opener while the offense is looking to get some footing and improve this weekend. College Football News dove into the game and what may happen when this thing is said and done.

On why Iowa can win, there is belief that this defense will continue to be a dominant force and as it usually does, find a way to make a game changing play.

Iowa’s defense is going to play with its hair on fire.

The formula has to work. Generate takeaways against an Iowa State offense that’s still getting its parts in sync, capitalize on every opportunity, and ask Spencer Petras to start hitting just a few of his midrange throws to keep the chains moving. – Fiutak, CFN

Lastly, it finishes with a prediction of how the Cy-Hawk matchup finishes up and there is belief that Kirk Ferentz and the Iowa Hawkeyes someway, somehow continue to get just enough points on the scoreboard to take home a seventh-straight victory in the rivalry.

But it’s Iowa, and we know how this works – Iowa State has lost six in a row in the series.

There won’t be anything remotely pretty about how this gets done, but the Hawkeyes will get one good scoring drive, the defense will somehow come up with something big, and it’ll be a win that defies all logic and reason.

Iowa 16, Iowa State 13
– Fiutak, CFN

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‘All good teams develop during the course of the year’: Hawkeyes focused on repeating history

This isn’t the first time the Hawkeyes have narrowly avoided defeat to an FCS school. Kirk Ferentz thinks history may be on his side.

Kirk Ferentz has been around the block and experienced just about every type of game a head coach can in their career. That is partly why the head man is so calm, cool, and collected going into the week two Cy-Hawk matchup against the Iowa State Cyclones.

Back in 2009, the Iowa Hawkeyes were sitting at No. 22 in the polls and welcomed in-state FCS opponent Northern Iowa into Iowa City. In what was expected to be a nice, easy way to open the season, the Panthers turned the game into a dogfight that saw the Hawkeyes lucky to prevail 17-16 only due to a few mishaps on Northern Iowa’s end.

Following this, Iowa rattled off eight straight wins beginning with a 35-3 victory over Iowa State. The Hawkeyes used this to propel themselves to an 11-2 record culminating with a win over No. 9 Georgia Tech in the FedEx Orange Bowl.

When asked about that team’s trajectory this week, Ferentz was aware of the similarities between the two season-opening wins.

“I think that’s kind of an illustration, I think all good teams develop during the course of the year, and I think certainly that ended up being a really good team, but we were hardly world beaters on that opener, that’s for sure,” said Ferentz when asked about former Iowa defensive end Adrian Clayborn comparing the two games.

“We’ll have bumps later on in the season, too, but it’s how you handle it, how you respond, and certainly the ’09 team did a great job, not only that week, but moving forward, and that’s where we need to be focused is what can we do to get better and improve and fast. That’s our topic or our task. That’s kind of the deal there,” continued Ferentz.

As Iowa prepares to kick off against Iowa State this Saturday afternoon, it can be nearly assured that the talk inside the walls of the Hawkeyes’ facility is solely focused on what is ahead of them with minimal looking in the rearview mirror.

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