Iowa football has ‘good understanding of the opportunity’ in 2023 despite ugly Penn State loss

IOWA CITY — Joe Evans has moved on from tough losses before this weekend.

He was on the Iowa football team that suffered a 42-3 loss to Michigan in the Big Ten title game in 2021. He started on the team that suffered a 54-10 loss to Ohio State last year.

But the past pain did not numb any of the current pain for the Hawkeyes as they took their standard 24 hours to look back at the 31-0 loss to Penn State.

“If you care as deeply as you should, it’s just going to tear you apart, and it should,” Evans said. “We put in countless hours in this game.”

Even for someone who has been around college football for as long as 25th-year head coach Kirk Ferentz, the aftermath of a big loss is “never fun.”

“It's not easy to put it behind you,” Ferentz said. “It's easier said than done. But at some point you have to do that so you're not burning time on something that's already happened and wasting an opportunity maybe to get ready for this (next) one.”

It perhaps is a little easier to pivot past Penn State’s domination considering what still is on the table for the Hawkeyes.

Iowa, despite the ugly loss, still has a realistic path to Indianapolis.

ESPN’s Football Power Index gives Wisconsin a 59.7% chance of winning the Big Ten West. But if the Badgers falter — a possibility with a first-year head coach — Iowa has the next-best chance of taking the division crown at 23.2%. No other team is above 8%.

“All of our goals are still out there,” Evans said. “We can still go and win the Big Ten West. We can still go win a Big Ten championship.”

ESPN’s advanced analytics, while far from perfect, give the Hawkeyes odds of at least 60% in every game except for their trip to Wisconsin on Oct. 14.

“I feel like our team has a good understanding of the opportunity we have this season,” linebacker Jay Higgins said. “This is probably the most confident this locker room has been, and I’m saying that coming off a hard loss.”

An October/November turnaround would not be totally unfamiliar territory for the Hawkeyes. Almost exactly 11 months ago, Iowa suffered a 54-10 loss to then-No. 2 Ohio State on the road.

Then the Hawkeyes won four straight against Big Ten West foes. Only one of those four — Minnesota — finished the year with more than eight wins, but the streak turned Iowa into the Big Ten West front-runner again until its untimely loss to Nebraska.

“I think you just stay the course and focus on improvement,” Ferentz told reporters on Tuesday. “It's kind of what we've done.”

Somewhat like last year, Iowa is going from one end of the spectrum to the other when it comes to opponent difficulty.

Penn State, now ranked No. 6 in the country, could be in the conversation for the Big Ten title and a College Football Playoff berth. ESPN’s FPI gives the Nittany Lions a 27.6% chance of winning the conference, which is second to Ohio State.

Michigan State, on the other hand, has been outscored 72-16 in its two games against Power Five opponents this season.

Most of Iowa’s remaining opponents are closer to Michigan State than Penn State on the difficulty spectrum.

Iowa’s eight remaining opponents, including the Spartans, have a combined 6-14 record against other Power Five teams. When excluding the four games in which Iowa’s future opponents played each other (and therefore accounts for both a win and a loss), that record goes down to 2-10.

Even with the favorable schedule, Iowa still needs to bolster its production, especially on the offensive side of the ball.

The Hawkeyes are 127th out of 133 FBS teams with 4.50 offensive yards per play. The defense, meanwhile, ranks ninth out of 133 teams with 4.21 yards allowed per play.

Iowa’s defensive players do not seem to be dwelling on that discrepancy, however.

“One day, the offense might have its struggles, and one day, the defense might have its struggles,” Evans said. “But we're a team. We're going to win together, and we're going to lose together.”

When the latter happens, like it did in an embarrassing fashion on Saturday, those on Evashevski Drive cannot be thinking about it for long.

“There’s a game every week, and you can’t dwell too much in the past,” Higgins said. “Or you won’t be ready for the next game coming up.”

Comments: john.steppe@thegazette.com