The Morning After: We Won and That’s Okay

On a warm and sunny Saturday a few days before Halloween, the Iowa Hawkeyes came dressed to the party as a completely different football team. After a three game losing streak with a listless offense and a defense doing everything it can to hold it all together, the good guys finally put together the most complete performance of the 2022 season against one of the conferences worst teams.

And it’s okay to feel good about it.

Iowa defeated the Northwestern Wildcats 33-13 yesterday, and that score belies how one sided this game truly was. Iowa led 20-0 at halftime and gave up only two touchdowns on the day: one after a rare shanked punt by Tory Taylor and another on the final play of the game against the second string defense. Once Iowa showed it could move down the field into the red zone with relative ease on its first two drives, scoring on both, it felt like we could be treated to an honest to goodness enjoyable game.

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Spencer Petras delivered is best performance since probably the first half of last season. He finished the day completing 21 of 30 attempts for 220 yards, with one passing and one rushing touchdown. He was sharp and for the most part made good decisions all game long. He had plenty of help. Sam LaPorta continued to be a favored target, but what really stood out in in this game was the greater use of wide receivers. Nico Ragaini, Diante Vines, Arland Bruce IV, and Brody Brecht all recorded two or more receptions, with Nico leading the pack with 66 yards on four catches.

This was all complemented with a strong running game which had good holes and running lanes most of the time. Overall, the Hawks gained 178 yards on the ground with Kaleb Johnson accounting for over half of them. LeShon Williams tallied 43 yards of his own and was more active in the passing game with three catches for 19 yards.

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On the other side, the Iowa defense was a capital-P Problem for quarterback Brendan Sullivan and the Wildcat offense. While only snagging one takeaway, a Kaevon Merriweather interception late in the first half, the defense made mincemeat out of the Wildcat offensive line and sacked Sullivan seven times to the tune of -42 yards. Northwestern ended the game with only 18 rushing yards, but had somewhat better luck through the air, gaining 159 yards and two scores. The game was well enough in hand that the second string defense was able to come in for mop up duty late in the game. Even though they did give up a touchdown there was no chance Northwestern was going to crawl back and make it a game. This, finally, was a truly complementary performance by all three phases, setting the other up for success and pulling their own weight for all 60 minutes.

This is the part where you say, “Yes, but it was just Northwestern.”

And that’s fair. I said earlier that it’s okay to feel good, not that you have to. This wasn’t Iowa pulling off the upset against the Wolverines or Buckeyes. This was Iowa going up against a weaker opponent, imposing their will, and getting a comfortable victory and good vibes after a string of defeats. Doing it against a team notorious for stealing wins away from you makes it that much better.

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I harbor no illusions that Iowa has suddenly transformed into a title contender or that Brian and Kirk have solved everything that has plagued the offense for too long. Many people will point out — and probably accurately — that Kirk will take this performance as an “I told you so” moment, that we were just so many doubting Thomases that didn’t have the full picture and therefore didn’t understand what had to be done. We likely have more Snarky Kirk to deal with for at least one more week, and Snarky Kirk is much more fun when his powers are used for good instead of against his own side.

However, that doesn’t mean we can’t feel good that we saw a nice performance out of a team that has been starving for one since last season. You can hem and haw all you want about the level of competition or what this will do to Kirk or Brian’s egos, but we only get twelve Saturdays with Hawkeye football a year and I’d much rather see more wins than losses regardless of the meta-commentary surrounding the program. You can choose to view this win through whatever lens you want to, but it’s still a win.

And it’s okay to feel good about it.