Iowa football: Five observations in win over Rutgers

I’m so glad Michael Sleep-Dalton is here

If you are excited about your teams punting game it’s for one of two reasons. Either your team’s punting game was so disastrous it has actually cost you games, or you’re an Iowa football fan who has been raised on the Hawkeye culture of running the ball, playing great defense, and winning the field position battle.

Well, you can check both of those boxes for Iowa football fans.

Last year, the punting unit was terrible, which is a big reason why the Hawkeye coaching staff dipped into the graduate transfer pool to snag former Arizona State punter Michael Sleep-Dalton, who interestingly enough, can punt with both feet.

Although there was an apparent punting competition heading into the season, I just couldn’t imagine a scenario where Colten Rastetter came out ahead. And I am glad whatever unimaginable scenario I couldn’t think of didn’t come to fruition.

Sleep-Dalton is a beast and on multiple occasions, he gave the Iowa football team’s defense a fighting chance by launching booming punts with great hang-time to at least push Rutgers to their side of the field.

I’m not kidding when I say this. If Rastetter is back their punting the ball, I think Rutgers puts at least 12 points on the board because of bad field position leading to easy field goals.

For the day, Sleep-Dalton averaged 48.3 yards per punt, and believe me when I say, it made a difference.