Harty: Not ready to say Iowa is splintering, but something is seriously wrong
IOWA CITY, Iowa – We’re all at a loss right now.
The Iowa players, coaches, fans and members of the media are wondering what in the heck has happened to the Iowa football team?
In the span of just two weeks, Iowa has gone from being the favorite to defend its Big Ten West Division title to now desperately searching for answers and for ways to stop the unraveling.
It was bad enough that Iowa lost 38-31 to a 1-3 Northwestern team at home on Saturday. But then afterwards, star cornerback Desmond King raised a lot of eyebrows by saying Iowa was out-coached when asked about surrendering 38 points to a Northwestern team that entered Saturday’s game averaging just 16 points per contest.
“Just knowing that we gave up a lot of big plays on the back end, it’s not what we were looking for,” King said. “But we did what we could.
“They really out-coached us a little bit in the passing game. Like I said, we did what we could. We’re going to have to correct our mistakes and move on to the next game.”
King quickly back-tracked when asked what he meant specifically by saying Iowa was out-coached.
“Really not out-coached, they played their hearts out,” King said of Northwestern. “Credit to Northwestern. They came and they wanted to win this game as much as we wanted to as well.
“We knew that they came with a purpose today, to win this game, just coming off the season that they had so far. We knew that they were going to come in focused and ready to go. They came with a mindset to win this game and we, I guess, just weren’t ready.”
Not ready?
For the Big Ten home opener?
Some of the Iowa players also said they weren’t ready after the 23-21 loss North Dakota State on Sept. 17 at Kinnick Stadium.
So if we’re to believe the players, Iowa hasn’t been ready for two of its last three games for reasons that nobody seems to comprehend at this stage.
Iowa coach Kirk Ferentz was asked after Saturday’s game if he thought he’d have a handle on his team by now after playing five games.
“I don’t know if you ever get a handle on a team, quite frankly,” Ferentz said. “It’s a work in progress. The team is a work in progress. Every week is a different story, different adventure, and it’s been that way historically.
“We’re trying to shape our identity. We’ve had an injury or two, so that modifies things. But it’s going to be a work in progress, and that’s the work in front of us the next six days.”
So far, Iowa’s identity is that it doesn’t have an identity.
The Hawkeyes (3-2) would prefer to be a power rushing team that chews the clock and mixes in play-action passing. It’s hard to be that, though, when you only rush for 79 yards on 41 carries, as was the case for Iowa on Saturday.
The results weren’t any better when Iowa tried to pass as senior quarterback C.J. Beathard was sacked six times.
“It’s frustrating, especially on an execution level,” said senior receiver Riley McCarron. “It’s hard to execute plays when your quarterback is getting sacked. That’s never a good thing, obviously. That’s something that we obviously need to fix. You can’t win games with that happening.”
McCarron could be accused of pointing fingers, but you have to understand the circumstances. He had just been told by a reporter that Beathard was being accused of holding on to the ball for too long in the pocket. The reporter then asked McCarron where the disconnect was on offense and whether it was a case of receivers not getting open, a lack or protection of both.
“You can’t just pin-point that on one position group or one person,” McCarron said. “It’s us as a whole. It’s receivers getting open. It’s the line blocking and C.J. making good decisions.
“You can’t just put that on one person or one group. It’s all of us.”
If you were to focus solely on the part of McCarron’s quote in which he said “it’s hard to execute plays when your quarterback is getting sacked,” that could be interpreted as finger pointing and a sign that Iowa is in disarray.
That seems too extreme at this early stage.
McCarron and King both were clearly frustrated after Saturday’s game, and deservedly so. Remember, King turned down a chance to play in the NFL for this.
The 2015 Jim Thorpe Award winner isn’t even one of Iowa’s captains anymore, which makes you wonder about the timing of King’s comments on Saturday.
But it still seems unlikely that King meant to throw his coaches under the bus.
And if did, he probably won’t be a captain again.
The Iowa players are confused. They’re frustrated. And they’re angry.
But it still is premature to say the team is splintering just because a couple players deviated from the normal post-game loss rhetoric.
More than anything, Iowa just isn’t very good right now on either side of the ball. But you’ll never get the players to say that.
Most of the bright spots on Saturday came on special teams where King and McCarron shined as return specialists.
Junior linebacker Josey Jewell also finished with a career-high 16 tackles, but the Iowa defense still allowed 198 rushing yards and defensive tackle Jaleel Johnson committed a huge personal-foul late in the game.
With each loss, the momentum from last season’s miracle march to 12-0 becomes less and less. Last year’s team didn’t make the kinds of mistakes that are haunting the current Iowa team.
There were some controversial calls on Saturday and the Hawkeyes certainly could’ve used leading receiver Matt VandeBerg, who is out indefinitely with a broken foot.
But Iowa also has played two of the worst teams in the Big Ten so far in Rutgers and Northwestern and was fortunate to have split the two games.
Iowa football is always a work in progress under Ferentz.
It’s just that right now there is a ton of work that needs to be done in a hurry with Minnesota up next on the schedule this Saturday in Minneapolis.
The Iowa players said over and over on Saturday that it’s the little things that are standing in the way of winning.
That might be the case. But sometimes, the little things point to a much bigger problem.