Iowa falls to 3-3 after a loss to Illinois this weekend. Despite holding Illinois to 9 points and no touchdowns Iowa still lost by a field goal. This is Iowa’s first loss to Illinois since 2008.
Where it all went wrong
I went into this game, as I do every game, with high hopes. To be fair, Iowa kept my hopes high for the majority of the first quarter. This was until Iowa had an offensive drive I will now refer to as “the drive to end all drives”.
The Iowa defense had just forced a fumble to set up Iowa in an excellent field position. Iowa began on the drive on the Illinois 5-yard line but proceeded to go negative yards a settle for a field goal. This tied the game at six. Had Iowa advanced 5 yards they would have gone up 10-3 and likely won the game as Illinois only scored 9 points the entire game.
Illinois has one of the better defenses they have had in a while, but starting on their five-yard line against anyone should be a guaranteed touchdown. Going negative yards in this situation is unexplainable. That simply can’t happen.
Following this disaster of a drive the game was tied, but it sure didn’t feel like it. After a sequence like that, it was hard to believe that a lot of success was coming.
I’m a Spencer Petras Truther
I have been saying this all season. Spencer is not the terrible QB everyone wants to claim him as. It’s so easy for a casual fan of football, or Iowa to throw all the blame on this kid. They see a 12 QBR in the first game and assume he is the worst QB to ever play the game. I’m not here to say a 12 QBR is good. I’m not here to tell you Spencer is a Heisman trophy QB. He’s just simply not the biggest issue going on in this offense.
Spencer is in a challenging situation in that the play calling he is working with is very predictable. Hard to get past a defense who knows what your doing 8/10 plays. Not enough people talk about the O-line who I honestly feel bad for. Considering their youth, they probably are doing a decent job. They are just set up to fail when a true freshman or sophomore is tasked with guarding a grown man who knows exactly what play Iowa is running.
How is he supposed to succeed in this situation? Whenever he actually gets more than a half second to throw the ball he actually ends up doing good things. Crazy how that works.
Everyone wants this guy pulled, but I don’t see how that going to improve anything right now. Alex Padilla is just going to run into the same issues and everyone will be mad at him too. Until we mix up the play calling a little and provide some protection our Qb can only be asked to do so much.
Spencer, I have your back.
All Around Frustration
You would be pressed to find a more frustrating team in college football this year than the Iowa Hawkeyes. Sure you can find plenty of 3-3 teams this year, but few have gotten to this point the way Iowa has.
Iowa has one of the best defenses in the country this year. Holding teams to low scoring each game, and forcing lots of turnovers each game usually means you’ll win a lot of games.
Iowa held Iowa State to just 10 points and lost the game. Iowa held Illinois to nine points and still lost the game. Iowa has gotten more attention than usual for playing these types of games this year, but this has been happening forever.
Stats like this bring in a different level of frustration to fans. You should win every game you hold a team to 10 points. You should win every game you hold the other team to just field goals while on the road. Those are hard feats to accomplish, but losing those games is even harder. If Iowa just had an average offense, they would be so good.
Iowa. I love you. I always will. But this is getting ridiculous.
Scramble Sports 
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