ISU game analysis- Offense

QB- What would the score had been if Rick Stanzi had a good game? It would have been ridiculous. Stanzi missed a lot of open receivers almost all of them high. There have only been a couple of times this season that Stanzi has hit a receiver in stride and allowed the receiver make a play with the ball in his hands. Stanzi did throw 4 TD's, but he missed at least two other TD's. He threw two INT's that were poorly thrown. He needs to play better as Iowa gets into the meat of their schedule. James Vandenberg came in at the end of the game and showed his arm strength as he tried to drive the ball between the 1's on Nordeman's jersey. Overall grade: C

RB- Coming off of the performance last week against UNI the RB unit needed a big performance. Adam Robinson started the game and Brandon Wegher got his first significant carries as a Hawkeye. Both backs ran the ball well and more importantly blocked well. Wegher showed that he might be the featured back sooner rather than later. Both backs run the ball hard and never seem to be taken down by the defender that makes first contact. Wegher showed great field vision making cuts and moves that made him look like a seasoned veteran. Brett Morse had a great game blocking and showed that he can also be a receiving threat. Overall grade: A-

TE/WR- Another stellar game for the receivers of Iowa, you have to see the correlation between Erik Campbell coming on as a coach and the emergence of Iowa's receivers. They all run good routes. block well, and make the plays when they are called on. It was good to see DJK get some early reps and Keenan Davis pop his touchdown cherry. Moeaki is a stud, his blocking was awesome on Saturday, I saw several times that he made the key block on running plays. Overall grade: A

OL- With Bulaga out the Hawks were figured to have trouble with blocking, but they played light years better than they did the previous week. Riley Reiff filled in for Bulaga and will be a stud when he gets a chance to play. Look for him to be on an NFL roster in four years. Vandevelde and Calloway were both back in the starting lineup and it showed. There was a great pocket all day long around Stanzi, they only gave up one sack and that was on a well called blitz on a naked boot leg. The run blocking left some to be desired, but Iowa State had 8 players in the box all day long and were daring Iowa to throw it. Overall grade: B

Overall offensive observations:
Iowa wore down the ISU defense.
They score should have been a lot worse, Stanzi missed wide open targets
The running game looked a lot better in the second half.
The run blocking will get better with all the projected starters playing
This is the deepest passing game in the Ferentz era, hopefully they don't lose any players for not getting the ball very much.