By Jordan Hansen | [email protected]

One game at a time.

It’s a simple phrase and often repeated by coaches and players in any sport, anywhere. The idea behind it isn’t complex and is basically a way for athletes to focus (another favorite buzzword in sports) on one competition at a time.

Iowa head coach Kirk Ferentz has long been a believer in this bit of coaching philosophy and it rubs off on his players. They repeat some variant of the saying, and they did so with regularity after a shocking upset to North Dakota State on Sept. 17.

However, for whatever reason, Iowa — which, on paper, was easily the favorite — overlooked a tough team from Fargo and paid the price. It’s hard to exactly say what went wrong, but there was something off about the team during the entire game.

It just took a field goal as time expired to realize how off things were.

Maybe it can be explained as a slight blip on the radar, or perhaps it’s a sign of bad things to come. We’ll know with time.

As far as the immediate future goes, the Hawkeyes are in a tough place. Sitting at 2-1, out of the AP poll and something akin to the laughingstock of college football after losing to a Football Championship Subdivision school, it’s never been more important than now for the Hawkeyes to re-embrace the mentality of one game at a time.

There are nine more games on the Hawkeye’s regular-season slate, and three of their opponents (Michigan, Nebraska, and Wisconsin) are ranked in the top 20.

Conference play will start Saturday with a road game at Rutgers, and Iowa doesn’t get a bye week until the end of October. There’s no time to sit and lick wounds.

Three of Iowa’s next four games are crucial intra-divisional bouts. The chances for a second-straight Big Ten Championship berth are still very much a reality, but the Hawkeyes have little room for error.

Complicating matters, this is also the beginning of a road slate for Iowa. After going to Piscataway on Saturday, Iowa gets Northwestern at home before playing road games at Purdue and Minnesota.

After all, this is still a team very capable of competing in the West Division, and it is still early in the season. Grabbing a couple divisional wins would be huge and keep the Hawkeyes with Nebraska and Wisconsin.

Both the Cornhuskers and Badgers have to come to Kinnick to play, which is an advantage.

There’s a lot to consider and think about, which makes grasping how players can somehow manage to put everything out of their minds but the game in front of them all the more impressive.

A tremendous amount of football remains this year, and while things might be a tad bleak right now, it’s hard to start pulling all the alarm bells until things are a good deal direr.

This was a bad week for the Hawkeyes, but as they will say, all they do is focus on what’s in front of them.

Follow @JordyHansen for Iowa football news, updates, and analysis.