What we learned - Eastern Illinois

Unlike last year, Iowa took care of business in a convincing fashion in their season opener.  Here are ten things that we learned in Week 1 about the 2010 Iowa Hawkeyes:

1.  Barring injury Iowa will be fine without Brandon Wegher in the backfield.  Adam Robinson showed a burst that he didn't display at any point of last season.  He ran with a purpose and did not allow the first defender to bring him down and was consistently gaining yards after contact.  He did a great job on the zone runs making one cut and then getting up field, which is crucial in Iowa's offense.  Coming into the season it was widely thought that Jewel was the #1, if that remains true, than Robinson might be the best #2 back in the Big Ten and gives Iowa one of the best running back duo's in the league.

2.  Iowa will not be out performed on special teams this season.  Everyone knows that Ryan Donahue is good, he didn't get much work on Saturday, but his one punt went for 43 yards and was downed inside the five yard line.  Paki O'Meara blocked, scooped, and scored a punt and is a valuable special teams weapon.  Eastern Illinois' average starting position on kickoffs was the 20.5 yard line, while Iowa's average starting position was the 37 yard line.  We didn't get to see and field goals, so that will remain to be seen.

3.  It won't be easy to run on this defense.  We all knew this coming into the season, but the defense works so well together, there is no "I" in the front seven, they all know their responsibilities and know that if they take care of theirs that someone else will make the play.  On the day, if you take out the fake punt run that was on the special teams, not the defense, Eastern Illinois only amassed 29 yards on 23 carries.

4.  James Vandenberg is more ready this season to step in than he was last year.  In my ten things to watch for, I said that Iowa needed to come out of the game relatively injury free, and the entire Hawkeye Nation held its breath when Ricky Stanzi went down awkwardly.  He was fine and James stepped in and the offense didn't seem to miss a beat.

5.  Ricky Stanzi may have finally had the "it" click.  Several times on Saturday you saw Stanzi progress through his reads and not try to force passes into receivers that may not have been open.  His best play of the day in my opinion came then Iowa was in the red zone and ran double slants and he pumped, pumped again, and then tucked and scrambled for a half a yard gain.  Last season that would have been a pass the Stanzi forced into coverage.

6.  Stanzi doesn't play favorites with his receivers.  He has two great ones in DJK and Marvin McNutt, but combined they only caught three passes.  Overall ten different Hawkeyes caught passes on Saturday, 8 by the wide receivers, 8 by the tight ends, and surprisingly 5 by the running backs.  This makes Iowa tougher to defend as they don't have a single go-to guy on the team.