OBSERVATIONS ON A THRILLING COME FROM BEHIND 32-26 VICTORY OVER THE HAWKEYES!

1-One could certainly build a case for why we shouldn't be ranked in the Top Ten even though we are and will be after this win. However, we must remember that all teams who win championships also have some close calls. This just happened to be one of ours. On the bright side, we came from behind twice, down 7-20 and 21-26, and pulled out the W!

2-Hayden Epstein's 51 yard field goal was HUGE! It was a good thing that Carr decided on the field goal rather than the pooch punt. The 6 point cushion forced the Hawkeyes to go for a touchdown against our defense rather than to get set up for a game-tying, overtime producing field goal. Epstein had one bad punt and he did miss an earlier field goal, but he came though when we needed him.

3-The key difference in the game ended up being Time of Possession. We had better than a 5 minute advantage over the Hawks. The yardage was nearly equal in total yardage and rushing yardage. 14 first downs to 13 for the Hawks; 296 total yards to 300 for Iowa.

4-Marquis Walker!!! Wow, what an awesome touchdown grab! Especially great considering he dropped a sure touchdown catch on the play before. 6 more catches and 49 for the season. We are really lucky to have him. Ben Sapp really did a nice job on him overall, and had a great pick just before halftime. Sapp did tire late in the game though, fortunately for us and Walker made some great 4th quarter catches.

5-John Navarre really had an off game, but came though in the clutch when we needed him. The two picks didn't look good plus he had a few "almosts." Overall, he was 16 for 38 with 2 touchdown throws to go with his 2 picks for 233 yards. In his defense, we had at least 3 or 4 dropped passes. Iowa stopped our running game, and dared us to beat them with the pass. Truly great composure and patience persevered. 11 of 21 on 3rd down conversions compared to only 5 of 15 for the Hawkeyes.

6-Another difference maker was the 77 yard bomb to Tyrece Butler. What a back-breaker for the Hawks and what a way to get a first catch as a new contributor to our offense. Welcome, Tyrece!!!

7-Our running game sucked big time. 36 rushes for 63 yards, pathetic! This was our 7th game, and still not even close to a 200 yard rushing day. Kudos to the Hawks! Great game plan to stop our running game and dare us to beat them with the pass.

8-Turnovers nearly killed us! We had 4 fumbles, but only lost one and two interceptions with numerous dropped passes and a few almost interceptions. Disaster was very close. Championship teams do not do these things late in the season. Perhaps, the bye week contributed to a lack of sharpness, but if we don't improve, the Spartans and Buckeyes will feed off these mistakes.

9-Kudos to the Defense!!! Ultimately, they won another won for us. They held on the last drive when it counted. They also held after we went ahead 29-26. It wasn't their fault our offense fumbled after the defense held after going ahead 21-20 either. Except for the reverse punt return, and the adjustment to a very athletic quarterback (Banks); the defense was solid. Foote had 15 tackles including 3 sacks. What a performance!!! Brackins had 11 tackles, his first time in double digits this season. Marlin Jackson had 8 tackles plus one critical pick. Credit the Hawkeyes for a great job on pass protection, they held us off most of the day. Except for our blitz package and the tremendous speed of Foote, our pass rush still is mediocre to poor.

10-It really hurts our team and especially our defense to not have Julius Curry. What a remarkable athlete! He is our fiercest hitter on defense, and an awesome punt returner. We really need him back for the Spartans and the Buckeyes!

11-It was great to see Seymour catch a TD and Bell getting more involved in the offense. Bellamy had a great first catch of the game, but was non-existent for the rest of the game. It was also great to see Bowman play much more and contribute on defense. I'm pretty sure I saw Pearson play, but the game day live didn't show him participating.

12-Brandon Williams again looked terrible! We really need more depth in the backfield. It'll be nice after Shazor is off redshirt plus having more recruits including Cooper contributing back there. Did anyone notice that LeSueur didn't play much back there?

13-Kudos to Zach Kaufmann and Manning for the block and recovery for the touchdown. Unfortunately, what the Lord giveth …, the next thing we see C.J. Jones taking the reverse all the way negating this great play. The best thing you can say about our special teams was that neither Khahil Hill nor Fred Russell took one back on kickoffs.