Halftime Thoughts: Iowa 21, Indiana 17

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. - As Iowa was driving to go up 14-3 early in the second quarter, Indiana radio analyst Buck Suhr said this about the Hawkeyes:

'This is an old-fashioned football team. They tackle with ferocity. Until you watch them live, you don't know how good this team is.”

Well, that team needs to show how good it is in the remainder of this game to extend its Magical Mystery Unbeaten Tour. Indiana, as expected, has come here to try to break its 4-game losing streak and get its fifth win of the season.

Football, like most sports and life itself, is a game of inches. If the ball had squirted out of Iowa quarterback C.J. Beathard's grasp a foot sooner than it did on his 7-yard touchdown run with 17 seconds left in the half, it's a fumble.

That was a play Iowa needed, and Beathard's battered body provided it. The Hawkeyes need 30 more minutes of game time from this guy today. And then 60 more next week, and the week after, the week after that, and possibly, the week after that back here in the state of Indiana

Indiana's offensive line is dominating Iowa in pass-protection and run-blocking. The Hoosiers get the ball to start the second half. Big possession, eh?

The yardage: Iowa 266, Indiana 241. Not shocking. Fun to watch. Not a typical Iowa football game. I said it before the game, and it wasn't going out on a limb. This is the best offense the Hawkeyes will face in the regular-season.

I came very close to being critical of Desmond King on Twitter for fair-catching an Indiana punt at the Iowa 5-yard line.

You can't do that, right? Take your chance that it will bounce into the end zone for a touchback.

But this year's Hawkeye offense seems to function at its best when it begins drives inside its 10. Iowa proceeded to go 95 yards on 11 plays to open a 14-3 lead with 12:17 left in the half. Beathard was 5-of-5 passing on the possession, for 76 yards. Jacob Hillyer broke his single-game catch high mark on that drive alone, with three.

OK, so Iowa's fourth drive began at its 7 and ended after a 3-and-out. What, you want perfection?

Akrum Wadley went 65 yards on the game's second offensive play, and Iowa led 7-0. The game was 50 seconds old.

Iowa now has rushes of 75 yards from Jordan Canzeri, 65 from Wadley, and 57 from Beathard. That kind of thing wasn't in vogue from this program the previous three seasons.

Sophomore Hawkeye linebacker Josey Jewell made a star turn on Indiana's second possession. If he wasn't batting down a pass, he was making authoritative open-field tackles. By the end of Indiana's second possession, Jewell had accumulated five solo tackles. Rather monstrous.

But this game has ebbs and flows, to use the lingo of Kirk Ferentz. Jordan Howard's 37-yard TD run that cut the Iowa lead to 14-10 saw Howard running through arm-tackles of Jewell and Cole Fisher.

Howard, who has nine carries for 116 yards and two touchdowns, is really, really good. You don't miss a game and still rank second in the Big Ten in rushing by being average.

UAB didn't do Iowa any favors when it shut down its football program after last season, and the Blazers' players were allowed to transfer elsewhere and compete right away.

The main reason Howard doesn't lead the conference in rushing is because of how Ohio State's Ezekiel Elliott ran amok on Indiana's defense here last month.

Symbolic gestures are great, I guess.

But if I were in the military, I'd become an instant fan of a coach or a team that said 'Instead of symbols and gestures, we want to go on record here and say our veterans should get better health care than they're getting, and we should do everything we can for the families of people currently serving in our armed forces.”

I could be out of line here, I admit. I'm not a vet, and I feel vastly inferior when I'm in the presence of those who have served. Maybe military women and men see teams doing their tributes to the troops and think 'I feel appreciated.”

If that's the case, then that's wonderful. Whether it is the case or not, I have no idea.

StubHub had tickets for this game going as low as $29 Saturday morning.

The cheapest seats at the site for next Saturday's Minnesota-Iowa game in Iowa City? Try $115, as of 9:30 a.m.

Seriously? There were thousands of seats for this game sitting idle for months, and now you can put one online and get a minimum of $115 for it?

Why didn't someone tell me Iowa would go 8-0 and I could basically double my money if I bought a fistful of tickets?

The cheapest seats on StubHub for the Purdue-Iowa game the following Saturday go for $37. If Iowa wins today, though ...

I saw a Confederate flag flying from a pickup truck this morning outside of Ellettsville, Ind.

That doesn't represent everyone. But it represents someone.

So, I was in an Old Navy store this morning in Terre Haute. Why? To buy a shirt. I do it every year, whether I need one or not.

Anyway, there was a guy in front of me in the checkout line wearing an Iowa shirt. He was buying a belt. Why? Because he needed one.

He started putting the belt on before he even got his receipt from the clerk. Then he hustled out of the store into a waiting car.

I guess he had a tailgate waiting for him in Bloomington. I didn't ask.

What is the point of this story? What information pertains? The thought that life could be better is woven indelibly into our hearts and our brains.

Train in the distance.