Pushing the right buttons

PHOENIX -- The hardest part of Ken O'Keefe's job this season might've been sitting through Iowa's medical meeting every Monday.

"Everything becomes inconsequential," Iowa's offensive coordinator said Saturday afternoon. "It's like you're taking Novocaine during the injury report meeting. You just keep on going and kind of triage it along the way."

The question that led to this was about the Hawkeyes' creativity and balance during the '10 season.

At times for Iowa this season, it was difficult to be creative or achieve the type of balance an offense needs to be dangerous because personnel dwindled at running back. Going into Tuesday's Insight Bowl against Missouri (10-2), the Hawkeyes are again down to true freshman Marcus Coker at running back.

Iowa finished ninth in the Big Ten in rush offense (142.0 yards per game), eighth in sacks allowed (1.67 a game) and, finally, sixth in scoring (29.1 points per game).

The big stat was 19 points per game during a 1-3 November. That's what has Hawkeye fandom wondering what happened to the offense more than anything else.

"Are you asking me why we didn't score more points after Michigan State (a 37-6 Iowa victory)?" O'Keefe asked. "It's probably because we didn't execute well enough."

This was a bit of a surly moment. O'Keefe didn't take to the creativity question. Understandable, given this season, which was essentially an exercise in trying to find and push the right button, team-wide, across the board.

"We've probably taken more shots down the field than we ever have in any season before," O'Keefe said. "I'm not sure what the definition of creativity is other than execution and making bigger plays. We've done that at times and we haven't at times. That's been the difference in certain situations."

Iowa didn't achieve the balance that coach Kirk Ferentz likes, rushing 412 times to 336 passes. Although those numbers were comparable to 2009, when Iowa went 454 rush and 392 pass and finished with an 11-2 record.

"You can't achieve balance when you have as many personnel issues as we had," O'Keefe said.

Basically, this means that there is no one answer for 7-5 and so maybe it's time to stop looking. The finger can't point definitively at anything, offensively or defensively. Perhaps, that fuels the frustration on the outside and inside of the program.

This week, the Hawkeyes have simply rolled up their sleeves and tried to pound out a few of the dents.

"I don't have some complicated solution for what could or couldn't have been done," O'Keefe said. "And we're not offering any explanations or excuses. If we didn't get something done, we try to examine it, fix it, find the solution and go to work on it."

O'Keefe, Iowa's offensive coordinator under Ferentz for 12 seasons, answered the predictability question on Saturday.

"Do these people have all our stats, down and distance. Do they have all that available?" he said. "If you've been following us for 12 years, you would know that we have changed a lot over 12 years in different ways.

"We're not going to tell everybody how we've changed because it's what we are."

Iowa does change and it's mainly toward what it has at quarterback.

In 2004, Iowa's last co-Big Ten title, O'Keefe handed the keys to sophomore quarterback Drew Tate because Iowa was down to a fifth-string walk-on at running back. In 2002, Iowa had Brad Banks and called more QB runs than it ever has that season. By far, Banks leads Ferentz-era QBs in rushing with 423 yards and five TDs that season.

In '03, Iowa went from Banks and the possibility of a QB run to Nathan Chandler, a 6-foot-6, 260-pounder. And then, Tate. And now, it's been Ricky Stanzi for the last three seasons.

And even he's changed, in how he plays and what's been asked of him.

When Stanzi broke in as a sophomore, Iowa had running back Shonn Greene, who rushed for 1,850 yards and won the Doak Walker award and is now a New York Jet.

"As you get more experience in the system, as you play more, any guy's job is going to become bigger, especially at quarterback with the way we run things," Stanzi said. "The more you know, the more you can do. The plays are going to change a little bit and they're going to tailor more now to what you can do as a player."

This season, that led to Stanzi, a strong-armed 6-5, 230-pounder, throwing the ball down field, 20-plus yards down field, more than, as O'Keefe said, Iowa has in 12 years.

And some of the big plays Iowa hit this season (the Hawkeyes had 43 plays that went for 20 or more yards, just two fewer than '09) were out of designs that were "totally different than what we've used in the offense before," O'Keefe said.

"When we had Brad Banks, there were approximately 50 plays where the quarterback ran the ball that year in our offense," said O'Keefe, who acknowledged that, yes, that 2002 team had four NFL O-linemen on it. "In 2002, we knew what Brad could do, so we ran more option."

Bottomline . . .

"The system has to be flexible enough to get you where you need to go," O'Keefe said.

Which leads back to the conclusion that there is no one answer for 7-5.