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.

Position Battles - Running Back

Here we are another off season and another big question mark at running back. Going into last season, Iowa was staring down the barrel of having Paki O'Meara as their feature back. No offense to Paki, but he is not an every down Big Ten back. Then Shonn Greene showed back up on campus and rewrote the single season rushing records on his way to winning the Doak Walker Award as the top running back in the NCAA. The one good thing about Greene being the feature back was that he was not in good enough shape to take every snap and the Hawks were able to see what some of their other running backs could do in the Big Ten. Sophomore Jewel Hampton rushed 91 times for 463 yards in limited action for an over 5 yard per carry average. He had his best game of the year in mop up duty against Indiana rushing 22 times for 114 yards. For a true freshman he came in and turned more than a few heads. His strengths would be his speed and his ability to hit holes. What he is going to have to prove is his blocking ability and ability to carry the bulk of the carries. The other back that figures into the mix will be Jeff Brinson. Brinson redshirted last year and figures to be in the mix for some first team reps with Hampton. Brinson has the skills, rushing for just short of 2,000 yards as a senior in high school at Northeast High School in Fort Lauderdale, FL. He found the end zone 24 times as a senior and averaged over 7 yards a carry. Word out of Fort Kinnick was the Brinson was more than impressive running the scout team as a redshirt, so the Hawks could be looking at a running back controversy. Between these two the Hawks have a very solid 1-2 punch at running back. If anything happens to one of those two, you will have Paki O'Meara step in and be a very serviceable backup. Most of O'Meara's time will be spent on special teams, where he showed last season he can excel. After that you would be looking at true freshman Brandon Wegher, who comes to Iowa after a very successful career at Sioux City Heelan. Look for Wegher to get most of his reps on special teams as a returner, but don't be surprised if he ends up making a few plays while covering kicks as well.

At fullback the Hawks return both Wayne Leppert and Brett Morse who both helped pave the way for the Doak Walker award winner. Like any Iowa fullback neither touched the ball much after warm ups, but both are great blockers and will continue to do that for whatever back lines up behind them in the backfield in 2009.