By Pat Harty

IOWA CITY, Iowa – How a team responds to adversity says a lot about its resilience, grit and potential.

The Iowa football team showed all three of those strengths in Friday’s 41-24 victory over Washington in Seattle.

Don’t be misled by the 17-point margin of victory because the game wasn’t even that close.

Washington scored a touchdown on the final play of the game, but there never was any doubt in Friday’s game about which team was superior.

Iowa dominated the line of scrimmage on both sides, outgaining Washington 263 to a minus-3 yards on the ground.

Iowa quarterback Jeremy Hecklinski also performed well in his first career start in college, passing for 202 yards and three touchdowns. The Georgia native also completed all of his passes after the first quarter.

But this game was decided in the trenches where Washington offered hardly any resistance.

Iowa made it abundantly clear right away that it was on a business trip, and that there was no hangover from the 31-14 loss to Ohio State six days earlier.

Washington was a depleted and wounded opponent with its top three running backs out with injuries, but there is no mercy in football, especially football in which millions of dollars are at stake.

Iowa pounced on the Huskies and didn’t let up until maybe a little bit at the end of the game.

Iowa is trying to make the College Playoff for the first time under veteran head coach Kirk Ferentz, and right now with records of 5-1 overall and 2-1 in the Big Ten, that goal is well within reach midway through the regular season.

“We’re a pretty young team still experience wise,” Kirk Ferentz said after the Washington win. “So this is six games now. Every week of gained experience is so valuable.”

Ferentz is right about Iowa’s lack of experience.

The defense has eight new starters while the offensive line has three new starters to go along with a new starting quarterback, a new starting punter, a new starting kicker and new return specialists.

Iowa also had to replace long-time special teams coordinator LeVar Woods, who now coaches special teams for Michigan State.

And yet, this Iowa team is showing signs of being better than last season’s Hawkeye squad, which finished 9-4 overall.

Yes, it’s still early, and it’s easy to be a prisoner of the moment coming off the impressive win at Washington.

But mixed in what all that inexperience to which Kirk Ferentz referenced is a group of veteran players that seem to have a firm grip on the attitude of this team.

From fifth-year linebacker Jayden Montgomery to fifth-year tight end Addison Ostrenga to fifth-year cornerback Deshaun Lee, Iowa has highly respected veteran players at multiple positions that help to set and sustain the daily standard.

Even with three new starters on the offensive line, the starting five still consists of one fifth-year player (right tackle Jack Dotzler) and four fourth-year players, all of whom have played their entire career at Iowa.

The importance of veteran leadership can’t be overstated.

We can assume when the time came to move on from the loss to Ohio State, it was the veteran players that helped lead the way as it should be in a developmental program.

Kirk Ferentz can only say so much as the head coach.

At some point, the players have to take it upon themselves to get back up on their feet and to keep fighting and scrapping.

But the players also feed off the culture that Kirk Ferentz has built and sustained for over a quarter century.

Proof of that culture is that the Hawkeyes have now won their last five games following their first loss in five straight seasons.

So what happened on Friday in the Pacific Northwest was hardly a fluke.

Another reason to be excited about this team is that Iowa appears to have two quarterbacks that are capable of playing winning football in Hecklinski and Hank Brown, who started the first five games before injuring his shoulder late in the third quarter against Ohio State.

Hecklinski certainly rose to the occasion when his team needed him, but was it enough to make him the full-time starter?

Kirk Ferentz will ultimately make that decision, but based on Ferentz’s track record, it seems unlikely that Brown would lose his starting position after missing one game due to an injury.

Hecklinski also had lot of things working to his advantage in Friday’s game, most notably a dominant running game and a Washington pass defense that was repeatedly out of position, leaving Iowa receivers wide open, including on all three of Hecklinski’s touchdown passes.

Brown was the toast of Iowa City after throwing a game-winning touchdown pass against Michigan as time expired.

But then he was injured against Ohio State after having struggled in the game, leaving the door open for Hecklinski, who has since shown what he can do.

Hecklinski completed all five of his passes for 67 yards in the loss to Ohio State and he followed that with a highly efficient performance against Washington.

“Jeremy has been practicing really well, and then last week he had a series and did a good job there, too,” Kirk Ferentz said. “So we’re not surprised. He just played well.

“I thought our team played well, a little sloppy in the second half, but I couldn’t be more pleased.”

Iowa now enters a bye week with momentum, with the 12-team playoff still within reach and with time to exhale and heal.

What’s weird about the schedule is how much it has changed from a perception standpoint since the games started being played.

The second half of Iowa’s schedule was thought to be perhaps the easiest part of the schedule compared to the three-game stretch against Michigan, Ohio State and Washington.

But Michigan and Washington aren’t nearly as good as previously thought, while Minnesota, Wisconsin, Northwestern, Purdue and Nebraska are all better than previously thought, at least so far.

Illinois is the only team left on Iowa’s schedule that is currently under-performing based on preseason expectations. But Iowa also has to play in Champaign, and against a head coach that played for Iowa under Hayden Fry in Bret Bielema.

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Iowa’s 2026 schedule

Sept. 5 – Northern Illinois, W, 40-0

Sept. 12 – Iowa State, W 16-13

Spt. 19 – Northern Iowa, W 55-0-

Sept. 26 – at Michigan, W, 20-19

Oct. 3 – Ohio State, L 31-14

Oct. 9 – at Washington, W, 41-24

Oct. 24 – at Minnesota

Oct. 31 – Wisconsin

Nov. 7 – at Northwestern

Nov. 14 – Purdue

Nov. 21 – at Illinois

Nov. 27 – Nebraska