The Iowa Hawkeyes were able to cobble together a 29-13 win over the Maryland Terrapins on Saturday afternoon in spite of entering the game with major distractions.

The chief distraction at hand was the status of Iowa’s quarterback situation, as the Hawkeyes were forced to roll with Jackson Stratton thanks to Cade McNamara and Brendan Sullivan both being sidelined.

McNamara’s status was particularly murky, as the initial consensus was that he would regain his starting job once it was revealed that Sullivan would be out for the season with an ankle injury.

However, confusion over McNamara’s availability made things, as head coach Kirk Ferentz would say, “cloudy,” and he ended up not being medically cleared to play due to a concussion he suffered back on Oct. 26.

Either way, Iowa emerged victorious in spite of Stratton going 10-of-14 for 76 yards. Kaleb Johnson carried the day, as per usual, racking up 164 yards and a touchdown on 35 carries. Kamari Moulton also rattled off 114 yards, with 68 of those yards coming on a touchdown scamper.

But even with the running game operating smoothly (for the most part), you just felt like the Hawkeyes were lacking.

Maryland is not a good football team, so beating the Terrapins is not really a good barometer to determine how well Iowa played.

Because I’ll be honest: if the Hawkeyes faced an even decent ballclub on Saturday, they may very well have lost with all of the opportunities they blew.

Iowa had to settle for five field goals, and Moulton fumbled inside the red zone early in the first quarter. This should have been a much wider margin of victory than 16 points.

Yes, the defense held serve, but, again, it’s Maryland we’re talking about here.

The 2024 season has been a cluster of inconsistency for the Hawkeyes. They entered the season full of promise, but it has not materialized like they hoped.

It has reached a point where it has almost feels like Iowa needs to put this thing out of its misery. The Hawkeyes have no quarterback. They have no weapons in the passing game. Their defense isn’t quite as stingy as it was last season.

Iowa is 7-4, but it has been unable to put together a stretch of consistently sound football all year long. Fans are frustrated, and just getting a run-of-the-mill bowl game is not going to satisfy them.

Things need to change at Iowa City, because what the Hawkeyes are doing now isn’t working. The offense needs an overhaul. No more skirting the issue under center and with wide receivers.

The problem is this isn’t the NFL. You can’t just sign a bunch of free agents, make trades and draft players overnight. It’s going to involve a stark change in recruiting, and Iowa is somehow going to have to land a couple of big names via the transfer portal.

I don’t want to rain on the parade. The Hawkeyes won, and that’s great. Be proud of the kids for playing their guts out in the face of all of the adversity.

But man, it has certainly been a pedestrian season.

Iowa will close things out against Nebraska next week.