Every college football season is filled with “what might have been” moments, some more than others.

For Iowa, this was definitely one of those years that could have been so much better. The Hawkeyes finished the season 8-4 after Friday’s 31-28 victory over Nebraska. It was nice to end the regular season with a win over a rival, but there’s also that bitter taste of knowing it all could have been so much better.

Consider this: In Iowa’s four losses, it had a lead in the fourth quarter in three of them, which they couldn’t hold. In the fourth game (Penn State), they were a yard away from a go-ahead touchdown late.

They were that close to winning all 12 games.

What could have made a difference? There were a few things, but today we’ll focus on Iowa’s lack of a running game. That could have turned some of these losses into wins.

Iowa didn’t find its way on the ground until late in the season, when junior college transfer Mehki Sargent became the go-to running back. He had Iowa’s only two 100-yard rushing games in the final two weeks of the season, gaining 121 against Illinois and 173 against Nebraska.

It was an impressive two weeks for someone who started the season deep on the depth chart behind Toren Young and Ivory Kelly-Martin. Sargent finished as the team’s leading rusher with 748 yards, and it would have been interesting if he would have been featured earlier in the season.

“It’s been a long journey and a lot of learning,” Sargent said, “and I’m not done learning. All the details, effort, coming out to practice ready. Just got to keep pushing forward even though there’s a lot of learning to do. I’m not there yet, but I’m working for it.

“My confidence has grown tremendously, and I think moving forward, it’s going to keep growing by the way I practice and the way I study the playbook and hang around the running back group and the o-linemen.”

Everybody loves the Key West, Fla., native.

“Mekhi’s a good kid, a really good guy,” said tight end T.J. Hockenson. “He does everything right and what’s expected of him. There’s a lot that goes into your character as a back and as an Iowa Hawkeye. You have to have the right character to play here, and he fits the bill right away.”

Iowa ran for a season-high 266 yards against Nebraska, which conservative coach Kirk Ferentz had to love. The Hawkeyes’ first three touchdown drives covered, 11, 13 and 15 plays and they kept Nebraska’s high-powered offense on the sideline, possessing the ball for 21 minutes in the first half.

“That’s the classic Iowa drives,” Iowa center Keegan Render said of the early running success. “The thing about going (that) many plays is you really know you’re getting some consistency. Obviously, it’s nice to go out there and score in one or two plays, but you don’t know how you’re really playing. Putting those long drives together gave us confidence that, ‘Hey, if we need to grind out a drive, we’re going to be able to grind out a drive.’”

Iowa’s offensive line deserves plenty of credit for the late running success, too.

“It’s nice for (offensive coordinator) Brian (Ferentz) to know, ‘We’ve got plenty of time to run the ball and we can trust our offensive line.’ It’s nice to go out there and be two-dimensional, not being stuck with, ‘Hey, we’re not running the ball well. They know we’re going to pass it,’” Render said. “I think it was just the epitome of the day.”