Iowa football: Three biggest disappointments against Northwestern
By Andrew Wade
The Iowa football team fell to our Chicago-based rival Northwestern 14-10 yesterday, and we are taking a look at the biggest disappointments from the game.
Going into this game, I really thought it would be different. The Iowa football team has one of their most talented teams in years and coming off two straight heartbreaking road losses to Penn State and Purdue, I figured the Hawkeyes would come out ready to rock against Northwestern. Even Vegas thought so as they had Iowa listed as a ten-point favorite (which in hindsight was a little aggressive), but when the final whistle blew, Iowa fell for the third time in a row, both this season and in the last three seasons to Northwestern.
It’s truly tough for me to comprehend this loss because on paper, Iowa is a far superior team. In fact, most years, Iowa has a better team than Northwestern. Yet, Northwestern finds a way to out-Iowa the Iowa football team. As silly as that sounds, it’s the truth. Northwestern beats the Iowa football team at their own game. They focus on eliminating mental mistakes, controlling the clock, and playing sound defense.
For some reason though, what happened Saturday just shouldn’t have happened, which is why I wanted to take a look at what the three biggest disappointments were for me yesterday. Here are the three things that I walked away just shaking my head at.