To call the Iowa Hawkeyes’ Week 1 first half anything but slow would be generous. Iowa looked a bit stuck in the mud on offense and had to take a drive of getting punched in the mouth to wake up on defense.
Some of that could be rust and new players getting their first live action, paired with some jitters of playing in front of nearly 70,000 rabid fans in Kinnick. This week, that intensity will be ratcheted up even more when the Hawkeyes enter Jack Trice Stadium to take on the Iowa State Cyclones in the Cy-Hawk game.
Iowa needs to take a step forward from Week 1 to Week 2, and head coach Kirk Ferentz has seen that in the past. This week, he discussed teams growing week-over-week.
“I think it can be, but it’s not automatic, and like most things that happen, you have to make that happen really. Especially in our program, like historically, this has been a big month for us, not just this week but a big month for us in terms of development. We’re probably a little bit alike, both our teams are, and you’ve got some guys playing now that maybe haven’t played. They’ve played football but not in the roles that they’re playing. We certainly have a lot of those types of guys.
“Getting on the field, having that first game experience is really critical, and then if you take something out of that and learn from it, just how to prepare better, and then certainly compete better on Saturday, hopefully you’re taking a step forward, and that’s really the biggest goal, I think, for all of us right now.
“Hopefully we’ll take that step, but I think it really gets back to how you practice, how you prepare, the time that you invest. Big difference from this week and last is — at least for our first opponent this year, we’re looking at a bunch of film that you wonder how pertinent it is, whereas Iowa State has got an identity, so anything you see on them, even from last year, it’s going to have value.
“We kind of know their roster. They kind of know ours, too, just because of the familiarity over the years,” Ferentz said about Iowa growing from Week 1 to Week 2.
Iowa features a ton of new faces on both sides of the ball. Quarterback Mark Gronowski will be entering a hostile environment where he will need to command the offense behind a very experienced and talented offensive line.
On defense, the trenches need to get home to rattle Iowa State QB Rocco Becht and not force the secondary to have to hold up too long.
Iowa won in Week 1, but Week 2 is an entirely new challenge, which will require some rapid maturing across the board to take down the No. 18 Iowa State Cyclones.
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This article originally appeared on Hawkeyes Wire: Iowa football discusses potential Week 2 leap
Reporting by Riley Donald, Hawkeyes Wire / Hawkeyes Wire
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
