Freaking iowa does not make mistakes against us. Every kickoff is a touchback. Every punt pins us deep. No turnovers, no penalties. Our defense played more than well enough to win. But offensively, you have to be prepared to get into a rock fight...grind out yards in the run game and make accurate passes. Those picks were on Purdy for not putting the ball in the right spot. If you have accurate Purdy like we saw from 2nd half Baylor up until the B12 title game, we win going away. It's not like the pass rush was getting to him, he just threw bad passes.
I fully expect iowa to have multiple turnovers against NW and Pudue. They make mistakes against those teams, not against us.
It's because Iowa treats this game against us with the respect it deserves. It absolutely IS the biggest game on both of our schedules every year, for many reasons. And that's why they are always prepared, because they know how critical it is to their entire brand to keep little brother in its place.
I find it funny reading through these threads how much our fanbase is hanging their hat on "holding Iowa to 173 yards" or whatever. Seriously folks, I
get trying to be positive, but its not hard to understand how meaningless "total yards" is. Iowa was in complete control of most of the game. Did our defense do well shutting down their crappy offense and not allowing lots of big plays? Sure. But when their offense needed points, it got them. It got. in the endzone several times. crucially in the first half. Their offense capitalized on every turnover by putting points on the board. And when we made big stops, they calmly and instantly flipped the field with special teams, and forced us into even more mental mistakes. T
heir offense did exactly what they needed it to do. And they as a team controlled Iowa State throughout. It was an absolute clinic. They won the game exactly as they intended to, and I can assure you give absolute 0 sh**s about their offensive yardage output.
Only losing teams point to these meaningless stats.