You aren’t getting it. Dominating but up 14-0 against a bad team is not dominating. Scoreboard matters. When playing ball control, pissing away two out of 4 possessions means the opponent is still in it. It reduces the margin for error. That’s how you end up 14-0 despite being much better. Our frequent “random” execution errors are why our version of ball control isn’t good. We don’t win the margins, we win the culture.
And we are good as pissing. Those small “randon” mistakes are what we do. Against UNLV they ended promising drives. Against UNI and Iowa they killed drives before we could get going.
The same execution lapses why we couldn’t convert clear talent advantages into more than a 14-0 lead with a few minutes left in the half is why we wouldn’t have been doing well against a better team. It wasn’t much different quality play as the first two games in the first half, just a more forgiving opponent. Putting ourselves behind the down and distance and/or making mistakes wasn’t as prohibitive. Bad play sequence easier to overcome.
Although it was nice to see the play calling not quite as poor, but that generally becomes a little more nuanced as the season goes.
If Manning utilizes his talent on offense and gets them to execute like Heacock the defense, it’s a 10 win team. We are already one win behind due to that not happening imo