Iowa football: My wishlist for today’s game vs Middle Tennessee State

In a game that should be an easier win for the Iowa football team vs MTSU, here is my wishlist for I want to happen in addition to securing a victory.

The Iowa football team takes on Middle Tennessee State this morning, and it should be a game they have no difficulty winning. Like the opening game against Miami of Ohio, an easy game against a non-conference opponent means there is an opportunity for the Iowa football team to explore a bit and work on a few things to get ready for future games.

With three games already past, we are past the point of seeing if the offense is comfortable if the defense is as stout as it expected to be and who the new kicker will be.

Now we are on to a bit more specific things. With that, here’s my wish list of things I want to see happen today:

1. Spencer Petras gets a quarter of play: This live game action hopefully doesn’t matter for this season (otherwise we are talking about a Nate Stanley injury which is not good), but it’s really important for the future. As we saw against Rutgers, Brian Ferentz realizes this and he did a great job of opening up the playbook so he could see what Petras could do. If the Iowa football team can jump out to a big lead, I would love to see a full quarter of Petras in the game to get his comfort level up.
2. Backup corners look good in coverage: The secondary continues to be banged-up, and although the overall talent level of the Middle Tennessee State wide receivers isn’t higher than a Michigan or Minnesota for example, this is a solid group that is quite deep. In general, the secondary versus MTSU’s wide receivers is one of my top matchups, but more specifically, I want to see the backup corners who are young guys (true freshman Jermari Harris and redshirt freshman Terry Roberts) get playing time and show the stage isn’t too big for them. Given how injured the secondary has been, we may need them later in the season.
3. Cole Banwart looking as good as ever: Coming into 2019, Banwart was the only returning starter from the interior offensive line, but due to his own injury and the emergence of Kyler Schott, Banwart hasn’t seen meaningful action. That, however, changes today when he is the starter after Schott went down with an injury in practice this week. He’s a seasoned veteran at this point considering he has more starts than everyone but Tristan Wirfs on the offensive line, but I would love to see him come out and not look rusty today. His presence will be great for an ever-changing offensive line.
4. Injured guys get some snaps: This is probably the least likely to happen but I would like to see Alaric Jackson, Julius Brents, Kaevon Merriweather, and Matt Hankins get a few snaps in the game just to get the feel back before next week’s game against Michigan. I see the flip side though, no sense is potentially a setback for a game such as this one, but if they are healthy, it would be good to see them go.
5. Leave with no injuries: For my fifth and final wish, I just hope nobody gets injured on the Iowa football team. This team has had quite a bit of unfortunate luck, and if they could leave this game with the same number of guys as they come into it with, that would be the icing on the cake.

In addition to a win, if the Iowa football team can manage even 3 of the 5 above, I would be pretty stoked.

Furthermore, I believe it would go a long for future games this season and next season, especially if we can see a bit more from Spencer Petras.