Hlas column: Without bowl win for warmth, winter sets in for Hawkeyes

TEMPE, Ariz. - Its season began with a game suspended because of lightning.

It ended with a bowl game suspended because of a fallen television camera.

It had a 1,300-yard running back suspended before that bowl.

Here's what else is suspended for Iowa's football program: The off-season warmth that has been enjoyed the previous three seasons from bowl victories.

The 2011 season was the description of nondescript for the Hawkeyes. It had a second-straight gruesome loss at Minnesota, but without the redemptive Insight victory a la last year against Missouri.

Redemption certainly didn't come in the form of Friday night's 31-14 Insight Bowl loss to Oklahoma here, even if the Hawkeyes did well to briefly play themselves back in the game in the fourth quarter.

This season did have more wins than losses, unless you only count games against teams from BCS conferences. Then, Iowa was a mere 5-6 instead of 7-6.

It was a year without enduring positives. The comeback win against Pittsburgh was nice, sure. The home victory over Michigan, that was good. Finally defeating Northwestern? That sure beat the alternative.

No one I know of in Big Media other than ESPN's Kirk Herbstreit picked Iowa to win the Big Ten's Legends Division (Herbie had the Hawkeyes losing to Ohio State in the Big Ten's title game), but you could have fleeced many a gambler by betting on Iowa to lose six times.

How ironic is it that Iowa's much-maligned defense of 2011 gave a nice account of itself in the bowl against a high-octane (albeit battered by attrition) Oklahoma offense, surrendering just 275 yards? Landry Jones came to Tempe averaging 358 passing yards, but only bit off 161 against the Hawkeyes. OU was a mere 4-of-12 on third-down conversions.

But the offense, which won the Pittsburgh and Northwestern games and kept the Hawkeyes alive until the third overtime against Iowa State, buckled against the best defenses it faced.

James Vandenberg completed half his 34 passes against Penn State, less than half against Michigan State and Nebraska. He was 23 of 44 against Oklahoma after being 9 of 22 at one point.

But offense became a team problem too often. Junior receiver Keenan Davis, who did a lot of nice things this season, still dropped too many passes. He said so himself after Friday's game. ESPN's Sean McDonough noted Davis' drops before the last of Davis' drops against the Sooners.

Old archrivals Nebraska and Oklahoma were on the same page about jamming up ace senior receiver Marvin McNutt and dimming some luster of the player now widely regarded as Iowa's best-ever at his position.

As for Coker, he was 219 yards and two touchdowns short of repeating his 2010 Insight Bowl performance. Replacement Jordan Canzeri gamely carried 22 times for 58 yards.

It almost surely wouldn't have changed the game's result, but Iowa still missed Coker a lot more than it missed Adam Robinson in last year's Insight. Which, thanks to Coker, was not at all.

While Oklahoma scored on its last two possessions to negate Iowa's fourth-quarter rally, at least the defense was representative of Norm Parker's large body of good work in his 13 years as Kirk Ferentz's defensive coordinator.

It's easy to wonder what might have been had Vandenberg and McNutt not been out-of-synch with each other on the first-quarter pass Jamell Fleming picked off and returned to the Iowa 5 on Iowa's second possession. Two plays later, OU led 7-0. It was a gift the Sooners welcomed given their own offensive struggles, which included nary a first-down in the first quarter.

But Oklahoma, like good teams do, woke up on offense in time to take care of business. Iowa, which wasn't an especially good club, didn't.

So whither the Hawkeyes? I'd prefer to wait to speculate on that until I see how Ferentz's off-season staff restructuring turns out.

Who's the new defensive coordinator? Does LeVar Woods replace Rick Kaczenski on the defensive staff? Will the rest of the current staff stay intact?

Will Coker return? Via social media, he has suggested he will. This isn't like the end of last season when Robinson got booted and Coker was a proven replacement. Canzeri has skills, but Coker is a Big Ten horse.

Whatever he did to get held out of bowl practices and the game itself, Iowa fans surely hope it's a forgivable offense.

Iowa is swimming with sharks in the Legends Division. Michigan is already back in a BCS bowl under Brady Hoke, and will probably only get better as its defense solidifies. Nebraska sure doesn't seem to be going backward, and Michigan State has all the goodness that winning the division brings.

It will be interesting to see if Ferentz has any kind of real reboot in mind for his program, something to try to make another run at returning to the Top Ten under his guidance before too many more nondescript seasons roll past.

Was it really only two years ago when Iowa finished the season ranked No. 7 in the nation? It seems more distant that that.