Another forgettable offensive performance leaves Iowa with many question marks.
By Courtney Baumann
What could go wrong for the Iowa football team on Sept. 30 did. It was hard to watch.
It was evident from the very first drive of the game, when Michigan State trucked its way down the field quickly and efficiently to score. Brian Lewerke was close to perfect as he picked on Iowa’s secondary, and before anyone knew it, the Spartans were up a touchdown.
Iowa’s defense slowly figured it out throughout the game and actually held Michigan State to no points in the second half, but the offense did not figure it out.
The Hawkeyes netted 231 yards of total offense, and almost all of those yards were through the air.
On 25 attempts, Iowa netted just 19 yards on the ground. It was the worst rushing performance Iowa has had since 2005, when the Hawkeyes ran for minus-9 yards against Ohio State.
While the yardage number wasn’t good, it wasn’t completely horrible. However, Iowa only managed to get into Michigan State territory four times. Two of those times they scored, and the other two times they fumbled away the ball.
It’s hard to win a game when the only time the offense picks up momentum, it’s killed by a turnover.
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Michigan State, on the other hand, figured out the mess it had last week against Notre Dame and did not turn the ball over a single time.
Most of the second half was pretty boring — Iowa’s offense would either turn the ball over or have an unsuccessful drive then punt, then the defense would force the Spartans to punt.
Back and forth it went, until the last drive of the game that was an absolute mess of time management.
Iowa got the ball back down just 7 points, and instead of taking a knee in the end zone, starting on the 25-yard line, and having about a minute left on the clock, Josh Jackson attempted to return the punt but only made it to the 7. Michigan State got called for illegal formation, and Iowa took the penalty in hopes that better field position would come around the second time.
It did, but not by much.
The second punt went out of bounds at the Iowa 16, and by the time all was said and done, the clock was down to 45 seconds and the Hawkeyes had no time-outs.
After the performance the offense had all day, it was unlikely that something magical would happen on that last drive, yet the thought was there. It had happened before, at Iowa State and Penn State, so it wasn’t completely out of the question.
Then again, what can go wrong will.
Iowa obliterated the clock with an incomplete pass, a Stanley fumble recovered by him accompanied with a sack, and a pass up the middle to end the game.
It was a bad ending to an all-around bad game.
So, it’s back to the drawing board for Iowa. In order to be competitive the rest of the season, the Hawkeyes need to figure out just why the offense that looked so good in the first two games of the season looked incompetent in the last two. The offense needs to give the defense a break.
Maybe this week not so many things will go wrong.