Iowa football: Michigan blitzed the Hawks out of Ann Arbor

In arguably the toughest test of the season, the Iowa football team put together one of their worst offensive performances in a loss to Michigan.

Coming into today’s game, I truly felt like the Iowa football team had more talent than the Michigan Wolverines. I felt like we had a better quarterback and our offensive line would make easy work of Michigan’s weaker-than-normal defensive line. Defensively, I thought the Iowa football team would have no issues with Shea Patterson.

Well if there is one positive to take away from today, it is, in fact, our defense. They did an outstanding job of shutting down Michigan as Shea Patterson threw for just 147 yards and the Wolverines managed just 120 yards on the ground.

Unfortunately, Nate Stanley and the Iowa football team’s offense looked absolutely pathetic.

To be fair, it was not all on Nate Stanley. He was just part of the problem. More seriously, the offensive line got wrecked by a Michigan defensive line that was one of the worst teams in the nation in getting to quarterback prior to this game. Michigan had just 7 sacks coming into this game, and they left with 15 after taking Stanley down 8 times.

Hats off to Jim Harbaugh and his staff as they found ways to bring pressure the entire day.

In addition to destroying us with their pass rush, they effectively shut down the rushing attack. With Stanley’s -65 yards in lost yards, the Hawks finished with 1 rushing yard on the day in 30 attempts.

And don’t forget to mention the untimely turnovers, specifically the Mekhi Sargent fumble that gave Michigan three points early in the first quarter.

After scoring ten points in the first, Michigan didn’t need any more assistance from their offense though as the Iowa football team couldn’t muster more than three points, the lowest total by the Hawks since January 2, 2017. The game ended with 10-3 Michigan.

While it is an embarrassing performance nonetheless, many had this pegged as the game the Hawks would certainly lose on their schedule so not all hope is lost for the Hawks as long as they don’t let this early season loss linger.

Much like last season after the loss to Wisconsin, it’s important that the Hawks rebound quickly as they take on a ranked Penn State team next week. If they want a chance at making the Big Ten Championship game and ultimately the College Football Playoffs, they will need to have a short memory and come out firing next weekend.