Going into the game Iowa knew they needed to do three things well. Run the ball. Keep Ohio State’s offense off the field as much as possible. And not turn the ball over. They didn’t manage to do any of those and as a result Ohio State and Jerimiah Smith rolled to a 31-14 win.
Iowa’s litany of mistakes against Ohio State, starting with a false-start penalty then fumble in the opening minute, piled up. Despite all the pregame hype and praise that was dished out by pundits this week, this young but talented Hawkeye team wasn’t quite ready for the big moment. That doesn’t mean they won’t grow from this loss or even be defined by it. In typical Iowa fashion, they stayed in the game through the first half, bending but not breaking on defense. It wasn’t until the second half when the Buckeyes were methodical and ran and threw the ball down the field at will to put Iowa away.
Head Coach Kirk Ferentz talked about his young team after the game, “The reality is, and you guys (who) have covered our team for a while, (know) we usually get better if we’re doing things right,” Ferentz said. “I bank on that. That’s something I’ve always banked on. As long as the attitude’s there, work ethic’s there, and you have to have talent, too. … I think we have that. We just need a little bit more experience.”
This Hawkeye team is young. Very young with only six scholarship players who are fifth- or sixth-year seniors. Starting linebacker Jayden Montgomery spoke to the team after the game. “Walking into the locker room, I just told everyone to keep their head up,” Montgomery said. “This is one game; it doesn’t define us. And then I also mentioned that we’ve got a short week, so it’s going to require a lot of effort, a lot of buy-in. More buy-in than a normal week. And we’re going to have to come out ready to go. We can’t sit and harp on this all week.”
On a short week, Iowa will head to face a Washington team who is in a bit of a funk as well after losing a heartbreaker at USC, 25-21. The Hawkeyes should expect to get Washington’s best shot. Iowa always seems to have trouble with West Coast road trips and on a short week, they’ll have to refocus quickly and be at their best to get a second win in their three game stretch of ranked opponents.
They were far from their best against Ohio State. They couldn’t stop Jeremiah Smith who had 11 catches for 206 yards and two touchdowns. They couldn’t run the ball managing only 45 yards on the ground. Add in a fumble by Brown and his two interceptions and it was way errors to overcome.
