Iowa 62, North Texas 16

IOWA CITY — You saw that most of Iowa's starters didn't play a second in the fourth quarter of the Hawkeyes' 62-16 victory Saturday over North Texas.

You know that the Hawkeyes (4-0) under coach Kirk Ferentz are extremely task-centered. That's really all of football. No one talks about next until next is on the plate.

But hey, it was 62-16 in the fourth quarter. Most of you guys were gone. Heck, a lot of you guys didn't show up. The crowd of 56,041 at Kinnick Stadium was the smallest since 54,471 showed up for Buffalo in 2003. It was the fourth quarter. You were gone. The starters were out, so, you know, they are human.

Their minds started to drift to next, which happens to be Wisconsin and Camp Randall Stadium and the Big Ten opener.

'As soon as I came out of the game, honestly,' said senior wide receiver Tevaun Smith, whose 81-yard TD reception in the second quarter was Iowa's longest since TE Jake Duzey went 85 yards at Ohio State in 2013. 'I looked at all the other scores from other games on the scoreboard. That had me thinking about the next game. That's going to be a big game. We're going to have to be ready for them.'

Saturday was nice. The score was inflated by two pick sixes by the Iowa defense in the second half (linebacker Josey Jewell went 34 yards and linebacker Bo Bower one-upped him with an 88-yarder), but running back Jordan Canzeri tied a school record with four touchdowns (16, 10, 3 and 1) and quarterback C.J. Beathard connected on his first 15 passes for the fastest start in a game since Wisconsin's Russell Wilson connected on his first 16 passes in a 2011 game and the Hawkeyes skated against Iowa City native and former Iowa player and coach Dan McCarney's North Texas Mean Green (0-3).

Saturday was nice. No one, however, is putting that ribbon up in their bedrooms. On to Wisconsin.

Center Austin Blythe was really, really on to Wisconsin.

'The real fun starts now with conference play, where the games truly mean something,' said Blythe, who admitted that, yeah, he started to think about the Badgers when he went to the bench in the fourth quarter. 'Not that this first four didn't, but we put ourselves in the best position we could after four games and we're ready to get into conference play.'

Iowa, 4-0 for the fourth time under head coach Kirk Ferentz, did have a physical bill to pay. Left tackle Boone Myers left in the first quarter with what looked like a neck injury, perhaps a stinger (he had ice on it while on the bench in the first half). Cornerback Greg Mabin and safety Miles Taylor came out for some early warmups to try to work some leg strains. They sat out a lot of the game.

Safety Anthony Gair, Taylor's replacement, left the game in the third quarter with a hamstring strain.

'I think the guys who were out of the game are going to be fine,' Ferentz said. 'We've had some nagging injuries with a lot of players. Boone's one of those guys. So, the big thing we want to do is make sure we weren't going backward.'

Beathard finished 18 of 21 for a career-high 278 yards and two TDs. At one point, Beathard was 10 of 10 for 198 and two TDs. That's a pass efficiency of 332.32.

Passing yards

For a more detailed breakdown of this game, click here.

The 62 points tied a Ferentz-era high (vs. Northwestern at Kinnick in 2002). Smith caught four passes for 115 yards, the first 100-yard game of his career. Tight end George Kittle caught his first career TD pass (a 43-yarder). Defensive end Drew Ott, two weeks removed from a dislocated left elbow, had a sack and caused a fumble. Duzey saw his first action since suffering a torn patellar tendon late in spring practice.

OK, kicker Marshall Koehn missed a PAT kick, the first PAT miss for the Hawkeyes since 2010 (a span of 185 straight that started Oct. 30, 2010 vs. Michigan State).

It wasn't perfect, and the Hawkeyes know and said they will have to be much better at Camp Randall next week. And for the record the number of Hawkeyes who said they already were thinking Wisconsin before North Texas was over was roughly the same who said they hadn't given the Badgers a thought.

Cliches, of course, are cliches because you hear them all the time. But even Ferentz pulled the curtain back ever so slightly on Wisconsin. He made sure to add that Wisconsin prep begins Monday morning, but he didn't shy away from the magnitude.

'It's always exciting to play in conference play, I'm not going to lie about that,' Ferentz said. 'There's just something about that that's special. . . . I don't think we'll have any problem motivating our team, because we know it's going to be a big, big challenge going up there.'

Big, big challenge, big, big Big Ten opener.

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