After a defensive battle today resulted in a Hawkeyes win in Madison, Iowa is sitting at 6-1 and in the driver's seat of the Big Ten West.
Critics of Brian Ferentz and the Hawkeye offense are still out in full force following the 15-6 win that was short on style points, but they were able to grind out a win behind an effective run game for the second consecutive week.
In their second week being led by backup quarterback Deacon Hill, the Iowa offense found some rhythm on the ground behind Leshon Williams, who notched 174 yards and an important 84-yard touchdown in the second quarter that broke a 0-0 tie.
The Hawkeyes grinding out a win with the run game is typically good news, but there was also some adversity that struck as well today that will serve as an additional challenge to the points objective outlined in Brian Ferentz's contract that we continue to cover each week.
Do-everything tight end Erick All, who joined Cade McNamara as a transfer from Michigan, left the game in the first quarter with an injury that Kirk Ferentz shared after the game did not look good, and they'll know more on his availability this week.
The highly unusual contract for Brian, with a specific 25 points per game objective drafted up by Gary Barta before his retirement, where it was then highly publicized (for some reason) made an already tough job a whole lot tougher, and now Brian and the offense are down two high profile transfers in McNamara and All, making that points per game objective significantly tougher.
The 15-point output tonight dropped the Hawkeyes to just a hair under 21 points per game on the season.
So far this season, the Hawkeyes have posted point totals of:
24 (Utah State)
20 (Iowa State)
41 (Western Michigan)
0 (Penn State)
26 (Michigan State)
20 (Purdue)
15 (Wisconsin)
So far this season, the Hawkeyes have averaged over 25 points per game at just one point - following their 41 point explosion against Western Michigan. Combined with a 24-point outing at Utah State, and a 20-point day against Iowa State the Hawkeyes were sitting at 28 points per game.
With games remaining with Minnesota, Northwestern, Rutgers, Illinois and Nebraska, Brian needs one more win to hit the 7-win mark outlined in his contract.
Hitting that 7-win mark is going to force Iowa's new athletic leadership, starting with new AD Beth Goetz, to ask themselves if winning is the goal, or winning a certain way - with style points or being sexy - is more important.
As we asked last week, if the style points matter, why do they matter?
...more on that topic and the corner that Barta painted himself, and the football program into with the most unpopular coaching contract ever, to come.
Stay tuned to The Scoop for the latest.