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Iowa football: Plenty left for Hawkeyes to accomplish in final two weeks
By Tom Brew
Published:
No team ever feels good after a three-game losing streak, and that’s especially true of the Iowa Hawkeyes, for many reasons.
For one, before the three-week swoon against Penn State, Purdue and Northwestern started, the Hawkeyes were 6-1 and thinking about winning the Big Ten West and earning a spot in the conference championship game.
Instead, the Hawks are 6-4 now and finish out the season with Illinois and Nebraska, two teams with a combined record of 7-13, with identical 2-5 marks in the Big Ten. It’s important to finish strong, end the regular season with an 8-4 record and go to decent bowl game.
It’s not all you wanted, but now you take what you can get.
“You go through a lot, and then August rolls around and there’s a lot of hope and optimism, and we certainly felt that way,” Iowa coach Kirk Ferentz said. “Certainly, the first seven weeks went better for us than the last three, and that’s certainly disappointing for each and every one of us.”
Iowa’s offense has really struggled during the losing streak, with end-of-game turnovers being problematic, as well as failing often to convert on third down. Illinois is dead-last in the Big Ten in just about every defensive category, so that should all be fixed on Saturday.
Or so we hope.
“There’s still a lot of good moments we can have if we’ll stick with it,” Ferentz said about finishing strong in 2018. “And that’s the goal right now.”
Two-year starter Nate Stanley is doing his best to be a team leader, but that isn’t always easy on a quarterback during a losing streak.
“Just making sure that I stay positive and help my teammates out as much as I can,” Stanley said. “There’s always room to do more. You can always put in more time. You can always prepare better.”
There’s plenty of blame to go around. The running game still isn’t good, and Stanley hasn’t been at his best either, though he’s often been put into difficult situations. Iowa converted only 3-of-13 third downs, but were often in third-and-long situations.
“They blitzed pretty much every first down, blitzed pretty much every time they thought we were going to run the ball. So we had to get the ball out quick or do some quick throws to receivers,” Stanley said of Northwestern’s defense, which held Iowa to 64 yards on 22 carries, with a long run of 11.
Still, there are no excuses, Stanley said. And these last two weeks are going to give them an opportunity to at least end the season on a high note. Two wins would sure be good.
“It doesn’t really matter what the defense does. It just matters about our execution and how we handle those,” he said.
Tom Brew has been a recognized reporter in Big Ten sports for decades. Among other projects, he writes about Big Ten football for Saturday Tradition.