The Iowa Hawkeyes will be looking for a bit of a bounce back in 2023 after a middling offense held them out of the Big Ten Championship game. However, they certainly will not be the only Power 5 program seeking a bit of redemption after a down year.
Three of Iowa’s opponents for the 2023 season were featured in Grant Hughes’ 10 teams most likely to bounce back for 247Sports.
That group starts out with chief rival Iowa State.
The Cyclones finished 4-8 last season, but six of those losses came in one-score games, including a one-point loss to Big 12 Champion Kansas State in Week 6. Ball protection is a point of emphasis after ranking 103rd nationally with 23 turnovers last season, and improvements are expected with Nate Scheelhaase taking over at coordinator and quarterback Hunter Dekkers entering year two as the starter. – Hughes, 247Sports.
This sounds very similar to the argument for Nebraska last year. Many proclaimed them to be the “greatest 3-9 team of all time” after their 2021 season. If just a few plays went differently they would have finished with a winning record, and certainly that would be the case in 2022, right? Wrong. Scott Frost was fired and Nebraska was a mediocre 4-8.
They did beat Iowa to keep the Hawkeyes out of the Big Ten Championship game, though, so do with that what you will.
Speaking of Nebraska, they also were featured on this list.
The Huskers have not been to a bowl game since 2015, but new head coach Matt Rhule is looking to flip the script in 2023. Nebraska returns a whopping 16 starters from last season’s team and added 12 players in the portal, including former Georgia Tech quarterback Jeff Sims, who is projected to be a top 10 quarterback in the Big Ten next season. – Hughes, 247Sports.
I think there’s certainly more reason to be excited about the Cornhuskers this year than last year. What a lot of people forgot heading into 2022 was that they still had Scott Frost at the helm. Now Matt Rhule is in charge, and while his team in the NFL was not great, it’s undeniable how good he is at the college level. Jeff Sims is also intriguing. The idea of returning 16 starters sounds great, but those are 16 starters from a 4-8 squad.
Finishing out the list of Iowa opponents projected to have a bounce back year is the Michigan State Spartans. The Spartans were probably the biggest disappointment in the Big Ten last year, going 5-7 after an 11-2 record in the 2021 season.
Michigan State hosts Central Michigan and Richmond to open the season and has manageable Big Ten matchups with Maryland, Rutgers, Nebraska and Indiana, softening the blow of facing Michigan, Ohio State and Penn State down the stretch.
The Spartans endured repeated blows in the transfer portal, losing quarterback Payton Thorne to Auburn and wide receiver Keon Coleman to Florida State but have enough talent remaining on the roster to avoid missing back-to-back bowl games for the first time since 2005-06. – Hughes, 247Sports.
Yeah, that didn’t do a ton to convince me to buy into Michigan State either. We all know the portal struggles they had. They also lost two of those “manageable” Big Ten matchups last year and only beat Rutgers by six.
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