Spencer Petras echoed all of Iowa’s frustration after Saturday’s 9-6 loss at Illinois.
“It sucks,” the Iowa quarterback mentioned. “It sucks placing up six factors.”
Iowa has held 5 of its six opponents to 10 factors or much less this season, and the Hawkeyes are 3-3 general, 1-2 within the Large Ten.
“We simply have to determine a manner right here to muster up some factors,” coach Kirk Ferentz mentioned on his post-game radio present.
Iowa had 222 yards on 66 performs, a mean achieve of three.4 yards per play. That doesn’t
It’s arduous to name this defeat a low level, as a result of it’s arduous to tell apart the low factors at this level of the season. The Hawkeyes head into their bye week on the midway mark of the season with no solutions.
A breakdown of among the takeaways (trace: they’re all in regards to the offense).
THE PENALTIES
Iowa was penalized eight instances for 67 yards, and Ferentz had no criticism with the officiating.
“As we speak, those we obtained had been legitimate calls,” he mentioned. “There’s no argument there. A part of it’s youth, a part of it’s just a bit little bit of sloppiness.”
With an offense that may’t get factors, the very last thing you want is key imperfection, and the type of penalties the Hawkeyes had on this sport fall into that class.
“We don’t assume it’s a matter of effort,” tight finish Sam LaPorta mentioned. “We predict it’s a matter of execution. We’ve been hurting ourselves on offense — penalty yardage and damaging performs — and we’ve obtained to wash that up in the course of the bye week.”
THE FAILURE TO RUN
Iowa had 30 speeding makes an attempt for 52 yards in opposition to one of many nation’s finest run defenses.
Leshon Williams had seven carries for 32 yards. Kaleb Johnson had 9 carries for 26 yards. Gavin Williams had 4 carries for 4 yards. Iowa obtained simply three first downs on speeding performs.
“It’s a bit of powerful when you possibly can’t run the ball efficiently,” Ferentz mentioned. “I assumed we had an opportunity to try this tonight, and it didn’t materialize.”
Ferentz knew it could be a battle to run the ball.
“They made it powerful,” he mentioned. “All that being mentioned, I assumed we’d run it higher tonight. That was a bit of disappointing.”
THE FAILURE UP FRONT
Iowa’s offensive line had bother containing the Illini all evening.
Moreover the poor speeding numbers, Petras was sacked 5 instances. And Petras’ interception late within the sport because the Hawkeyes had been making an attempt to rally got here below a heavy rush by which linebacker Seth Coleman tipped the ball as Petras launched it.
“We’re studying on the job, and we have to be taught sooner,” Ferentz mentioned. “We’re going to need to. It confirmed at present. Among the youthful guys, it was a bit of bit aggravating for them. We knew they had been a very good defensive entrance. We knew that. I hoped we’d do some higher, fairly frankly.”
PETRAS
The quarterback was 18-of-36 passing for 170 yards. He was visibly upset in his post-game press convention.
“I really feel like a variety of it’s self-inflicted,” he mentioned. “It begins with me. We are able to’t maintain doing this. So, it simply sucks.”
He did present a very good rhythm with LaPorta, who has been a favourite goal all through his profession. LaPorta was focused 16 instances, with 9 catches for 100 yards. Large receiver Nico Ragaini was focused 10 instances, with seven catches for 46 yards.
STREAK SNAPPED
Illinois scored its first win over Iowa since 2008, snapping an eight-game Hawkeye successful streak within the collection.
The 15 factors had been the bottom mixed complete within the collection since Illinois’ 14-0 win in 1948.