Iowa football: Five observations from win over Nebraska

The Iowa football team secured their 9th win of the season yesterday. Here are my five observations from the win over Nebraska.

What a game. Kudos to Nebraska for making it significantly more interesting that second half, because it was looking like the Iowa football team, was about to do some damage to the Huskers.

However, if Nebraska doesn’t mount a nice comeback, we don’t get the late-game heroics of Keith Duncan, the likely favorite to win the Lou Groza Award this season.

Here are my five quick and dirty observations from the thrilling victory over Nebraska.

The officiating was atrociously bad

• I try to not blame things on officiating because I believe that teams should play well enough to not let officiating be the issue. That being said, the officials were garbage yesterday. How do you call unsportsmanlike conduct on Ihmir Smith-Marsette and miss the facemask on Tyler Goodson? How do you overturn the Nico Ragaini catch? How do you not call taunting on Marquel Dismuke multiple times?

Nebraska is undisciplined

• I know this isn’t a take on the Iowa football team, but it does impact them as the Huskers are in Iowa’s division. Until Scott Frost learns how to control his team, Nebraska will never be a real threat in the West. I don’t care it’s a rebuild, some of the things the Huskers showed me yesterday has nothing to do with talent. Missed tackles, defenders consistently overpursuing, etc. This team is undisciplined and that has nothing to do with talent. As Iowa football fans, we’re used to not necessarily having the most talented team, but we do have one of the most disciplined teams.

Ihmir Smith-Marsette needs more touches

• He’s so fast, and it’s honestly a shame we don’t manufacture more touches for the explosive wide receiver. He had two huge plays for the Iowa football team yesterday starting with the reverse and ending with the kickoff return for a touchdown. I would love to see him be an even bigger piece of the offense as a senior next year.

Tyrone Tracy Jr struggled

• I am really glad the Iowa football team won because if they didn’t, one of the players who would likely catch some heat is the redshirt freshman. He’s put together a fantastic season, but he struggled mightily yesterday while dropping two passes that would have been huge completion for the Iowa football team. I know the weather was bad, but you need to haul that stuff in.

The punter search continues

• Michael Sleep-Dalton runs out of eligibility at the end of this season, which means the Iowa football team will be left searching for a punter again. But if we’re being honest, Sleep-Dalton has been inconsistent at times this year. There will be games like the Rutgers game where he was trading big booming punts left and right, and there will be games like Penn State where he averaged 35 yards per punt. While yesterday’s numbers were respectable, multiple times he had an opportunity to help the Hawks flip field position and couldn’t get it done.

And that officially concludes the regular season for the Iowa football team.

Now, we just wait to see where the Iowa football team will be playing their next bowl game.