Saturday's Ohio State vs. Iowa game is not drawing a fraction of the attention of the game last week when the Buckeyes hosted Penn State or of any of the major clashes this week on the football slate. The Buckeyes are better than a two touchdown favorite in this game on the road at Iowa City, a place where Iowa just does not get beat by large margins all that often.
Iowa took Penn State to the wire just a few short weeks ago in a night game but Saquon Barkley was there to answer late and save the 'then' perfect season for the Nittany Lions and create an electric atmosphere for the Ohio State game last week.
Since the loss to Penn State, Iowa has gone 2-2 with wins over Illinois and Minnesota and dropping games to Michigan State and Northwestern. It has been hard to figure this Iowa team out in 2017. That may not be something unique to fans, as Kirk Ferentz and his staff may not be sure which team is going to show up from week to week.
To learn more about the Hawkeyes, we are enlisting the help of Tom Kakert from HawkeyeReport.com to learn more about Ohio State's foe as we head behind enemy lines in advance of Saturday's game (3:30pm - ESPN).
BuckeyeGrove.com: Who are the real Iowa Hawkeyes? Are they closer to the team that played Penn State until the very end or are they closer to the team that lost in OT to Northwestern?
Tom Kakert: The honest assessment is they are closer to the team that lost to Northwestern in OT than the one that took Penn State to the wire.
Iowa’s defense has been solid, particularly in Big Ten play, where only Penn State has scored more than 20 points on them and that was just 21 and it took the final play of the game to get there. Meanwhile the Hawkeye offense has been scuffling nearly every week. In five Big Ten games, Iowa has exceeded 19 points just once and that was against a bad Illinois team, where they scored 45.
While the defense has been really solid, you can’t expect to win many Big Ten games when you are scoring less than 20 points and that’s why Iowa is sitting at 2.3 in league play. The problem offensively is it isn’t just one thing. They have struggled to run the ball, but it’s also been dropped passes, fumbles, and untimely penalties that have kept the Iowa offense from really getting going in conference play.
