By Pat Harty

IOWA CITY, Iowa – I picked the Iowa football team to finish 8-4 this season, but now I’m not so sure about that prediction.

Iowa is better than I thought, and the schedule is just what I thought, if not worse, considering Penn State already has two losses.

But it’s more than just what has transpired on the field that has me buying into Iowa.

It also is because of these subtle signs that Kirk Ferentz keeps giving that make you think that he thinks his current team could prove to be special.

Ferentz never would say anything close to that publicly, so you really have to dig and, yes, maybe reach a little bit.

Ferentz has a better chance of landing feet first on Pluto with P.J. Fleck riding on his shoulders than on an opponent’s bulletin board, so these subtle signs have nothing to do with disrespecting or dismissing an opponent.

They have everything to do with Iowa’s performance on game day, in practice and wherever else the players and coaches interact.

Ferentz was asked about the importance of building team chemistry at his weekly press conference on Tuesday and it seemed that he was waiting and hoping for the question to be asked because he was so eager to answer.

“I think it's huge in success,” Ferentz said. “I think it's huge in any team activity or group activity. I do see it. It's been ongoing.”

Ferentz then described how it has been an ongoing process with his current team, which is 5-1 overall and 2-1 in the Big Ten and ranked 19^th by the Associated Press heading into Saturday’s homecoming game against Maryland.

“It's interesting,” he said. “I think teams develop personalities, good bad or indifferent, as the season goes on, year goes on. I said it back in April, I'm not sure what our personality was. It was kind of bland. We had good guys, don't get me wrong, but I don't think the team started. Took place over the summer. Usually does, because it's a really intense period of training.

“Things show themselves a little bit I think during the month of July. But as it went on, the guys in front have been so consistently doing a good job. We don't have many of them. As I said the other day, I think we got a lot of guys in the junior, sophomore class right there with those seniors. That's kind of come together a little bit.”

That was sort of Ferentz’s indirect way of saying that he likes the leadership and the togetherness on his team. He trusts that his senior class, which includes defensive end Parker Hesse and center Keegan Render, will continue to steer the group in the right direction, and he trusts that the younger players will continue to embrace their leadership.

“We're going to get tested the next six weeks,” Ferentz said. “We're only halfway through the season. There are going to be more bumps in the road, more adversity to face, those types of things. We'll find out more about the team.

“I feel good about the guys we have. They're all committed to doing things well. I haven't seen any cases of ego setting in or that kind of stuff, this or that. Those are the kinds of things that get teams off the track sometimes.”

Ferentz is always quick to balance his optimism with some perspective, and he is so right to point out that Iowa is just half way through the regular season.

Iowa was also 5-1 in 2010 and had a roster filled with future NFL players, but still lost its final three regular-season games and finished just 8-5 overall.

It is easy to become a prisoner of the moment and get carried away with Iowa’s success because the last two games have been spectacular, especially on offense where Iowa has scored 48 and 42, points, respectively.

But the last two games were also against Minnesota and Indiana, and they’ll both likely finish with a losing record in conference play.

Iowa still hasn’t defeated a ranked opponent this season and might only get one more chance to do it, considering Penn State is the only team on Iowa’s remaining schedule that is currently ranked.

Iowa blew its only chance against a ranked opponent so far this season, losing to Wisconsin 28-17 on Sept. 22 at Kinnick Stadium.

As much as it hurt losing to Wisconsin for the fifth time in a row at Kinnick Stadium, the loss hasn’t lingered.

“Moving forward and putting it behind was the biggest thing we did,” Render said. “Just realizing, hey, we got humbled a little bit and we might have thought we were a little better than we were and just let things slip a little bit. And that just causes us to tighten things up in practice and meetings, just be a little more focused.”

Never one to dwell on a loss, Ferentz quickly flushed the Wisconsin game and seemed optimistic about the rest of the season, calling it a great opportunity for his team. And that to me was another subtle sign.

Iowa was favored to win five of its first six games and will almost certainly be favored in five of its remaining six games, the exception being at Penn State on Oct. 27.

Opinions might differ on what it takes for a season to be considered special, but it should take at least 10 wins and a Big Ten West Division title.

Injuries have made things more challenging and more complicated, but they also have made Iowa better from a depth standpoint, especially at linebacker and in the secondary.

The depth combined with all of the individual talent makes Iowa hard to beat for teams that are average, slightly above average or slightly below average.

And that pretty much describes the rest of Iowa’s schedule with exception to Penn State.

Junior quarterback Nate Stanley is on course to pass for nearly 3,000 yards and 30 touchdowns, while Iowa’s dynamic duo at tight end of T.J. Hockenson and Noah Fant has combined for 692 receiving yards and nine touchdown catches in six games.

The circumstances are cause for optimism, but that also can lead to complacency.

That’s where the leadership takes over, or so you hope it does.

“We address it as players, and the coaches have addressed it, too, to not become complacent and to just really push ourselves in practice,” Stanley said. “Have that leadership out on the field to continue to push ourselves at practice because we know we still have a long ways to go.”

Iowa will be hard to beat if Stanley keeps performing at his current level because he is helped significantly by a rock-solid defense that is ranked second in the conference in total defense, allowing just 282 yards per game.

The defense has actually been more consistent than the offense has been this season. So it’s easy to take the defense for granted when the offense is flexing its muscles.

Iowa has a reputation for sometimes playing down to its competition under Kirk Ferentz, but the current team has shown no signs of that yet.

But it has shown signs of being special on offense under second-year coordinator Brian Ferentz, who is Kirk Ferentz’s oldest of five children.

It’s way too early to anoint Iowa with anything, but the season is far enough along at the midway point to know that Iowa might be poised to do something special.