Ball State - What we learned

Ball State was the perfect medicine for a battered Iowa team before they start the daunting Big Ten schedule.  While the competition wasn't good enough to find out a lot about the Hawkeyes, here are some things we learned:

1.  Ricky Stanzi has matured into a great quarterback.  Last season he forced a lot of passes into coverage and tried too often for the home run ball.  On Saturday there were several times where Iowa had receivers that might  have been open deep, instead Ricky opted for the shorter wide open pass.  Of his six incompletions on Saturday at least three were blatant drops by the receivers.  Through five games, Stanzi is fifth in the nation in passer efficiency.  Last season he had 5 touchdowns and 5 interceptions through four games, this year it is 9 TD's and 1 INT, and even that interception was a well thrown ball.

2.  The Iowa coaches have taken notice to opposing teams keying on Adrian Clayborn.  Several times on Saturday, you saw Clayborn line up as a tackle and Karl Klug line up as end.  It has been obvious through four games that opposing offenses are scheming to slow down Adrian, so the Iowa coaches have begun to move him around to throw off the blocking schemes.  Though it seems that the defensive line isn't filling the stat sheets, they are causing fewer receivers in routes, which helps the defensive backs.  Couple their helping the defensive backs along with their contributions to the run stopping and the defensive line anchors what is statistically the #1 defense in the nation through four weeks.

3.  Practices at Iowa matter.  All we have seen of Trent Mossbrucker this season is PAT attempts, of which he missed/had one blocked, however he has been demoted.  Michael Meyer had the kickoff duties and has now gained the field goal kicking duties.  Beings that we have not seen much of either kicker, one would have to assume that Meyer has to have been practicing better than Mossbrucker.  Meyer winning this spot during practice will make all the backups on the team work harder and make practices more competitive.

4.  The field turf will pay for itself.  In past years a rain like last Saturday would have created a disaster of a mess for the immediate future.  Now with the field turf down, the field will remain intact for the entire season.

5.  Iowa appears to be alright at the running back position.  Adam Robinson showed that the Arizona game was an ab oration and he really does have a burst.  He even did something that few running backs at Iowa have done, which is catch the ball out of the backfield.  Backups, Marcus Coker and Brad Rodgers showed that they can bring the punishment on a worn down defense.  They can handle 10-20 carries a game between them to relieve Adam Robinson.