By Pat Harty

IOWA CITY, Iowa – With Saturday's sobering loss to Wisconsin, the outlook for the 2018 Iowa football team has suddenly changed from hope and optimism to gloom and doom.

Or, so I'm told.

Season No. 20 under Kirk Ferentz took a severe hit late Saturday night from a perception standpoint when the Hawkeyes bumbled, fumbled and stumbled to a 28-17 loss to Big Ten West Division king Wisconsin at Kinnick Stadium.

The game that was billed as the showdown for the West Division title despite only being the conference opener caused a predictable post-game over-reaction that usually happens at least once or twice or three or four times per season under Ferentz.

His team loses a game that was there for the taking and some fans simply can’t take it.

Victory was so close on Saturday you could taste it, and yet, the final result still left a sour and bitter taste in your mouth.

You could feel the excitement being sucked out of Kinnick Stadium when Wisconsin quarterback Alex Hornibrook threw the game-winning touchdown pass with 57 seconds remaining.

And judging from the post-game reaction, or should I say over-reaction, the season ended right there for some fans.

Wisconsin now has to lose two conference games, while Iowa would have to win out to claim its first West Division title since 2015.

And since the odds of Wisconsin losing two conference games is slim, and Iowa winning out is probably even slimmer, then it must be time to concede despite having eight games left.

I’m not necessarily saying that, but a lot of frustrated and upset fans are saying it because they apparently invested so much emotional energy into Saturday's game and now are convinced that the disappointing outcome will determine the course for the rest of the season.

All I know is that trying to determine the course of an Iowa football season under Kirk Ferentz is like trying to determine the flight pattern of a gnat.

Just when you think you have his team figured out, it does something good or bad to surprise or disappoint you.

The popular thing to do in a moment like this is to question or rip the coaching and the recruiting and this or that because some fans are always waiting to embrace that criticism on social media, while the fans who are patient and understanding usually keep to themselves in times like this.

I’m certainly not making excuses for Iowa’s performance on Saturday because it did leave much to be desired from an execution standpoint.

It is hard to beat the Badgers without committing any turnovers, but nearly impossible when your team has three turnovers, including two on special teams, as was the case with Iowa on Saturday.

But the coaches didn't commit the three turnovers or miss tackles or throws or fail to sustain blocks. You win as a team and you lose as a team.

“If you’re going to win a Big Ten game, you have to play cleaner football than we did tonight,” Ferentz said. “So that was the tough part about it.

“When you play Wisconsin, possessions are at a real premium. So we squandered a couple opportunities on that front and ended up paying for that at the end, too.”

But in defense of the players, they're human and they make mistakes. 

Reserve tight end Shaun Beyer, I'm sure, feels terrible for allowing himself to be pushed into the football on a Wisconsin punt that resulted in one of Iowa's three turnovers.

But to attack him on social media is just mean and cowardly. 

I’m not convinced that the better team won on Saturday, but the team that played better won.

Hawkeye fans will say that Iowa blew the game and will question the play calling, which is always a convenient excuse, while Badger fans will say that Wisconsin took the game.

And what a change that is from just a week ago when Iowa was undefeated and led by what was being described by its fans and media as one of the most dominant defenses in the country, while Wisconsin was being criticized for losing a nonconference game at home for the first time since 2003.

Gloom and doom can change places in a hurry.

If I had to pick one thing that disappointed me the most about Saturday’s loss, besides the breakdowns on special teams, it was the performance of the Iowa defense.

Phil Parker’s celebrated crew had a chance to win the game in the fourth quarter, but instead allowed the Badgers to march 88 yards for the game-winning touchdown.

The three turnovers obviously didn’t help, but Iowa still was leading 17-14 when the defense took the field with 5 minutes, 40 seconds left to play. All the defense had to do was force a punt from a Badger offense that had been pretty ordinary up to that point.

If you could’ve chosen between the Iowa defense having to protect a three-point lead in the fourth quarter or the Iowa offense having to overcome a three-point deficit late in the fourth quarter, I’m guessing most of you would have picked the defense because I certainly would have.

“You’ve got to turn it into a positive,” said Iowa defensive back Amani Hooker. “If you turn it into a negative, that’s when teams start going downhill. We’ve got to turn it into a positive, understand where we’re at and what we can do and just move on and finish the rest of the season.

“That’s when the leaders step in. They show the younger guys that we’re not finished just because we lost one close game.”

Some fans probably don’t want to hear the stay-the-course narrative, but what Hooker said is the truth.

College football seasons aren’t decided in September.

Wisconsin has road games at Michigan on Oct. 13 and at Penn State on Nov. 10. So to assume the Badgers will win another West Division title just based on Saturday’s come-from-behind victory over Iowa is being presumptuous.

And to dismiss Iowa as a fraud just because of Saturday’s loss is also being presumptuous.

Iowa isn’t as good as we thought after the 3-0 start, and probably isn’t as bad as it seems now in the wake of the Wisconsin loss.

The performance of junior quarterback Nate Stanley, which included 256 passing yards and two touchdowns against Wisconsin, is reason to be optimistic because he performed woefully against the Badges last season.

Iowa’s two-headed monster at tight also continues to impress as T.J. Hockenson and Noah Fant combined for 154 receiving yards and two touchdowns against Wisconsin. Fant caught both of Stanley's touchdown passes, and now has 15 in his career, but Hockenson finished with a game-high 125 receiving yards on just three catches.

The biggest problem on offense continues to be at receiver where a lack of big plays is an ongoing frustration with fans, and rightfully so. Iowa’s receivers have only combined for one touchdown in four games this season.

So yeah, there is plenty of blame to go around, but to use Saturday’s loss as a reason to dismiss the season is unfair and short-sighted, but also predictable.

Fans now have two weeks to stew over the loss with Iowa entering a bye week before returning to action at Minnesota on Oct. 6.

I picked Iowa to finish 8-4 this season, but with a loss to Iowa Stata and a victory over Wisconsin.

So to be 3-1 at this stage is hardly a crisis.

And I’d much rather play Iowa’s remaining schedule than Wisconsin’s remaining schedule.

Some of you will dismiss my narrative as being a homer, but I’ve covered Ferentz long enough to know that rarely is the situation as bad or as good as it seems.

The popularity of social media causes some fans and members of the media to over-react to both good and bad situations because the response is so sudden and emotional, and because it draws attention.

I’m certainly not ready to bury the 2018 Iowa football team just for losing to Wisconsin again, just like I wasn’t ready to anoint it for beating Northern Illinois, Iowa State and Northern Iowa in the first three games.

I remember thinking that the 2004 Iowa football team was unraveling after it lost back-to-back games against Arizona State and Michigan in the Big Ten opener by scores of 44-7 and 30-17, respectively.

But Iowa never lost another game that season and shared the conference title with Michigan.

I also remember thinking that Iowa had chance to be special after crushing Purdue 47-17 in 2006 to improve to 5-1 overall. However, that team lost six of its last seven games and finished 6-7.

Hawkeye fans are hurting right now and they express their hurt in different ways, including by lashing out and by assuming the worst.

That’s their choice and their prerogative, but doesn’t Ferentz deserve better than that as Iowa’s all-time winningest football coach?

Because I certainly think he does.