IOWA HAWKEYE REPORT CARD

So the Iowa Hawkeyes football season came to an end on Friday. The Hawks will play in a bowl game, but lets look back at the season that was. The Hawks did a good job of defending their house. The hawks only loss at home was to Michigan State. The Hawks didn't play well, and Michigan State won the Legends Division for a reason. The Hawks didn't play well on the road this year at all. In fact the Hawks only win on the road came against a Purdue team that was kind of like the Hawks, inconsistent.  The Hawks struggled on offense at times, and was their worst enemy most of the time with either penalties, passing routes short of the 1st down marker, or just bad play calling. The defense was not very good either.The front four didn't do much until later in the season, but never really applied pressure to the QB in which in the Norm Park defensive scheme the front four has to do. But not getting any pressure on the QB, it really proved that our veteran corners and linebackers aren't that good. One bright spot on the defense was Jordan Bernstein at safety. He was a hard hitter and flew across the field. Tanner Miller got better as the season went on, but I'm not too sure he was ready to be a starter this year. The Hawks were not suppose to be too good this year, and with the O-line and Coker coming back along with Vandenberg at QB I think some of us drank the kool-aid that we were going to be something that we clearly were not. Vandenberg was not consistent all year, and I think Hawk fans now know how good Ricky Stanzi really was. Vandenberg can become a really good QB, but he has to be more consistent, especially on the road. He was like a different person on the road. I'm not sure that the Iowa Defense is going to be much better next year, as the Hawks lose some more D-lineman along with Shaun Prater, Tyler Neilson, and Jordan Bernstein.Oh by the way, we lose the best WR that has ever played at Iowa on the offensive side to go with it in Marvin McNutt.
The Hawks did beat Michigan which is a highlight along with a come from behind victory over Pittsburgh. The Hawks finally beat Northwestern to get that monkey off their back, but lost to Iowa State and now Minnesota 2 years straight after dominating both recently.
My final grade for this years Hawkeyes is a C, because they were pretty average this year.

Best offensive player of the year: Marvin McNutt. Going to miss his skills and crazy one handed catches. Was awesome to see his career with my own eyes.
Best Defensive Player of the Year: This is tough cause Broderick Binns played outstanding late in the year, especially that Michigan game, but I have to lean towards Jordan Bernstein as he brought it ever week.