Iowa football: How can Hawks improve after shootout victory over Gophers?

Turnovers

This has to be the most frustrating thing to watch the last two weeks, and it was one of our key takeaways from the Minnesota game. The Iowa football team needs to protect the ball better. It’s absolutely unacceptable the ways they are giving the ball to the opposing teams lately.

Against Wisconsin it was two special teams turnovers. The first was a “forced fumble” in the loosest sense considering Kyle Groeneweg was barely touched and the second was just a communication error that resulted in Wisconsin getting the ball in the red zone.

Against Minnesota, Iowa handed the ball to Minnesota twice in the red zone. Both were from the Nate Stanley turnovers we alluded to on the previous slide.

Four big turnovers resulted in 21 points. It was quite possibly the biggest reason Wisconsin managed to beat Iowa and it was the only reason the Gophers were able to keep this game relatively close.

What’s even more odd about this is that it is completely uncharacteristic of a Kirk Ferentz team. The Iowa football program really has three key focuses: play sound defense, run the ball, and protect the ball. To beat a team like Penn State, Iowa cannot have these plays continue to plague them.

The Hawks take on the Indiana Hoosiers football team in less than a week, and it would be nice to see improvements from both Jackson and Stanley as well as a reduction in the boneheaded turnovers.