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Iowa football: Storylines Hawk fans should watch for against Miami (OH)

By Matt Opad

TAMPA, FL - JANUARY 01: Nate Stanley #4 of the Iowa Hawkeyes calls a play during the 2019 Outback Bowl against the Mississippi State Bulldogs at Raymond James Stadium on January 1, 2019 in Tampa, Florida. (Photo by Mike Ehrmann/Getty Images)
TAMPA, FL - JANUARY 01: Nate Stanley #4 of the Iowa Hawkeyes calls a play during the 2019 Outback Bowl against the Mississippi State Bulldogs at Raymond James Stadium on January 1, 2019 in Tampa, Florida. (Photo by Mike Ehrmann/Getty Images) /
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TEMPE, AZ – OCTOBER 14: Place kicker Brandon Ruiz #1 of the Arizona State Sun Devils high fives holder Michael Sleep-Dalton #36 after kicking a 25 yard field goal against the Washington Huskies during the first half of the college football game at Sun Devil Stadium on October 14, 2017 in Tempe, Arizona. (Photo by Christian Petersen/Getty Images)
TEMPE, AZ – OCTOBER 14: Place kicker Brandon Ruiz #1 of the Arizona State Sun Devils high fives holder Michael Sleep-Dalton #36 after kicking a 25 yard field goal against the Washington Huskies during the first half of the college football game at Sun Devil Stadium on October 14, 2017 in Tempe, Arizona. (Photo by Christian Petersen/Getty Images) /

Punting

You know you officially write for an Iowa blog when you start talking about punting. It makes you wonder why the best punters don’t beg to come to Iowa City. What other fan bases acknowledge the position like we do?

The impact of punting has been huge for Iowa. Punting may not be winning, but bad punting definitely meant losing occasionally last year.

Based on the box scores of the Iowa-Purdue game and the Iowa-Northwestern game last year, Iowa punted a combined 12 times and averaged less than 35 yards per punt. That’s…really bad.

Was that why we lost those two games? Not exclusively, but when you lose one score games and rely heavily on field position, punting that poorly certainly doesn’t help.

What I’m hoping to see, first of all, is fewer than 6 punts. Our offense should be good enough and their defense should be weak enough where we aren’t punting that frequently. When we do punt, however, Iowa should be averaging 40+ yards.

That really isn’t asking too much, especially since our new starting punter averaged over 42 yards per punt last season at Arizona State.

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