Hawkeyes not humming, but their rattle has quieted

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. - So, Iowa's football team and all who pay attention to it can exhale this week.

It's the Hawkeyes' first of two bye weeks, and a 5-week stretch of tight games has ended. If I'd told you a month ago today that Iowa would play four games decided by one score, then would trail Purdue 10-0 before winning by two scores? You'd have said 'That boy ain't right.”

Now it seems logical. Why wouldn't Iowa be as much a work-in-progress at the end of September as most of the other 127 FBS teams.

For Iowa to be 4-1 against a good FCS club and four FBS teams of limited accomplishments so far, and have played close game after close game? That's simply the new normal.

'We wanted to be 5-0,” Iowa Coach Kirk Ferentz said after his team came from behind to handle Purdue, 24-10. 'We're not. After we lost a game the best thing you can do is be 4-1. That's as far down the road as we've looked.”

What we've seen from Iowa's offense in five games hasn't been the stuff of brilliance. We don't even know who its starting quarterback will be when play resumes Oct. 11 with Indiana's porous defense visiting Kinnick Stadium.

But here's what we do know: Both Jake Rudock and C.J. Beathard are better QBs than what Iowa's defense faced at Pittsburgh and Purdue. And both have the safety net of a running back who wore down the defenses of those two teams in the second-halves of those games.

Mark Weisman crossed the 2,000-yard career rushing mark Saturday, dragging a pile of beaten-down Boilermakers with him. He seems to get stacked up for very little yardage on his first five or six carries or so every week. But in the second half, there's Weisman and his line pushing, punishing, eroding the defense.

One of Purdue's football radio announcers called Weisman a mini-Mike Alstott. Higher praise is hard to find around here. Alstott was a beloved Boilermaker fullback/running back who racked up 3,635 rushing yards before going on to a very productive NFL career.

Weisman isn't Alstott. Few are or were. What Weisman is, however, is someone you'd much rather have on your side than the opponent's. Of his 164 rushing yards over the last two weeks, 111 came after halftime.

His story, leaving Air Force to walk on at Iowa to play fullback and was shifted to running back two years ago only because Iowa had no good healthy option remaining at that position, is one of the best the Hawkeyes have had under Ferentz.

In the first few games, Iowa's running back rotation seemed scattered. The one thing about it that made total sense, though, was trying to keep Weisman fresh.

But Iowa's better when the senior gets more carries. The way Weisman has pounded into and off of defenders lately, he surely can use the coming week off.

As for the Hawkeyes, will it be seven more thrill rides or something more satisfying?

'We've got a lot of rough spots,” Ferentz said. 'Nobody wants to hear this, but my experience, which is, what, 16 years, is I can't remember us ever humming at the end of September.”

The Hawkeyes were rattling just two weeks ago. This week's silence won't sound too bad.

l Comments: (319) 368-8840; mike.hlas@sourcemedia.net