The Reactionary Take: IU at Iowa

Indiana Hoosiers quarterback Fernando Mendoza (15) passes the ball against the Iowa Hawkeyes Sept. 27, 2025 at Kinnick Stadium in Iowa City, Iowa. I never write an immediate reaction to these games because I need time to digest and watch it again. When IU beat Iowa in Kinnick on Saturday, I had an insane range of emotions that I am glad I didn't put down on paper (digital paper, I guess). I hadn't felt as "daunted" during a game since...well: I had seen someone repost the locker room video of IU's 4 OT win from 2023 at home against Akron a couple days before the game where the players looked absolutely pissed. For those that don't recall, that was a game IU should have lost if not for a missed 32 yard FG in regulation that they ended up barely pulling out. The Akron win was one of the most disgusting wins I've ever watched for any team I follow. I was absolutely pissed the entire game and any hope I had that Tom Allen could right the ship were gone. And, I thought to myself just before IU stymied Iowa's offense and forced a 42 yard kick, were these at all similar? And about two seconds later, I snapped out of it and I realized the answer was a resounding NO...and then the kid missed the kick. (It's still wild that game was *just* two years ago...my, how far we've come.) In just two years, IU has gone from squeaking out games at home where they were multiple score favorites and shouldn't have won against the likes of Akron to winning an absolute battle on the road at Iowa where they fought like hell and made huge plays on both sides of the ball late to get a win and play their way into the national top ten. This was the best win of the Curt Cignetti era for me. It wasn't pretty at all. IU didn't have their "A" game by any stretch (which we'll dive into), especially offensively, and still found a way to beat a team that probably isn't given the credit it deserves in on the road in front of an electric crowd. How many IU teams would have folded after the INT to put them in that spot of a FG to potentially end it? This vintage of Indiana Football didn't fold. IU then took the ball down right down the field and capped a drive off with a brilliant throw, catch and run to put them up by a TD. Even the writers who do the AP poll, who I've been yapping about for weeks on here, took note of just how good of a win this was and moved up IU three spots to #8 (even though a couple top 10 teams lost). I'll break down what I liked, what I didn't and talk a bit of big picture as IU heads into a much needed bye before facing an insane test in Autzen Stadium as they take on the #2 Oregon Ducks coming off their own wild OT win at Penn State. (via Yahoo!) IU Reactionary Prediction: IU 28-17 Final Score: 20-15 — Iowa Covers +9.5 and the UNDER Season Betting Record: 4-4 Click Here for Odds I have a lot to discuss about this game but I'm treading along at .500 so far in the betting arena. The line on this game moved from IU -7 that I previewed it with to finishing at IU -9.5. I had IU winning by 11 mostly because I didn't think Iowa could score 20 points on IU's defense...and they didn't...which is why I took the under. What I failed to understand was just how tough the sledding for IU's offense would be. Like the past couple games, I'm going to name a player or group and just give some analysis on them and I'm going to start at a place I've never started... The Kicking Game I thought the MVP of the game for IU was K Nico Radicic. He hit two absolutely massive kicks in this game, including drilling a 46 yarder as the first half expired that was by far the biggest kick of his career...oh yeah, and it was his career long. I had previously been annoyed with the staff not letting him kick the longer field goals but if you're a college team with a kicker who's basically nails from 50 and in, that's a real weapon and Radicic has proven he's a FG maker. He's now 16/17 in his career and a staggering 103/103 on extra points in two seasons plus one game in '23. And I can't forget about KOS Brendan Franke who continues to just blast balls out of the end zone. Iowa's best play maker, Kaden Wetjen, might be the best kick/punt returner in college football and it was imperative to not let him beat you. He had a nice return on a punt but Franke didn't let him return a single kick. Random aside but on their post game podcast for The Voice of College Football at Indiana. Alec Keezer and Brad Loomis made a very good point: If I'm an Iowa fan I'm furious. Why is Kaden Wetjen, Iowa's most dynamic player, only getting 4 offensive touches? That kid should be 10+ and if he had gotten 10+, the outcome may have been different. Fernando Mendoza The lore of Fernando Mendoza got a bit deeper on Saturday. What a warrior. Mendoza finished 13/23 for 233 yards (10.1 ypa) with 2 TD's and an INT. He also ran the ball 8 times for 26 yards (3.3 ypc). I'm going to get into the OL and their struggles in a bit but this is about Mendoza. After a very easy first TD to Omar Cooper, the sledding got much tougher. Iowa blitzed on 2/3's of his drop backs and he was under pressure on 43% of those drop backs. Illinois only blitzed on 41% of his drop backs and pressured him on just 33%. The difference in this one, to me, was the crowd and the silent count. After two to three possessions, Iowa's entire defense was timing it up and jumping off the ball before it was even snapped. Hell, Iowa's safeties were moving up into the box and basically in a full on dead sprint as the ball was being snapped. As with most really good QB's, if Mendoza was kept clean, he was basically elite going 11/16 for 188 yards (11.8 ypa) and 2 TD's. The drive he led with :22 left before the half to get IU into a spot to tie it 10-10 was brilliant. After an awesome, explosive run by Roman Hemby, Mendoza delivered a strike to Elijah Sarratt who got out of bounds. Mendoza got clobbered well after the whistle and that provided all Nico Radicic would need to tie the game. Just masterful by the players and staff to get nearly 50 yards and three huge points in just :22. Mendoza's one INT was with pressure in his face where he threw the ball behind and open receiver. A bad throw, but the right read. Had he not had the pressure drill him the second he was letting go of the ball, Omar Cooper may have scored a TD. The defender was three yards behind and off of him. Instead, it went for an INT and a return into IU territory that nearly lost the game for IU. It's such a fine line. The one throw that really frustrated me was a deep shot to EJ Williams. On one play, Mendoza threw a 44 (air) yard dart from the far hash to the near sideline above the CB and before the on coming safety and hit Williams in stride for 37 yards. Just a brilliant pass and catch. However, on a different play Williams had beaten his 1 on 1 coverage and had a full step on the CB. If Mendoza just lays it out there correctly, it's a TD. If he underthrows him, it's either a big catch or a pass interference. Instead, he sailed it and IU got nothing. I'm sure he'll be sick in the film room about that one. In my rewatch, it was pretty wild what the refs seemed to be letting Iowa get away with on the outside. I hate complaining about the refs but I thought it was a poorly officiated game overall. I will talk about them when I talk defense later but I guess at least they were consistent as they let both teams battle all over the field. So maybe I'm not really that angry. Back to Mendoza, if you had told me pregame he was going to finish with 233 yards and 2 TD's, even with one INT, I would have taken that all day. It may have been a bit of mixed bag in that he didn't torch Iowa but with the pressure he was facing all day, I thought he was awesome. Roman Hemby This is why you go out and get a guy like Roman Hemby. His numbers haven't looked the best but Hemby is always going against the ones at the start of the game and he was a work horse in this one. Hemby finished with 15 carries for 86 yards (5.7 ypc) and added one catch for 5 yards. But that doesn't tell the whole story. He had multiple plays where he was hit in the backfield and made positive plays out of sure losses. He finished with 6 missed tackles forced on his 15 runs (40% rate) with 61 of his 86 yards coming after contact. Add to that three runs of 15+ and we're talking about a brilliant game that might go a bit under the radar to some...but not me. Now this is going to sound like I'm dumping on him after praising him but the RB's really need to tighten up their pass blocking. It was simply terrible. On the INT by Mendoza, Hemby allowed a rusher to run right by him and force the errant throw. Hemby finished with a 39.6 pass blocking grade on 14 snaps and Kaelon Black was even worse at just a 5.3. Yes, 5.3 pass blocking grade. This game with the RB's pass blocking (or lack their of) gave me IU vs Michigan vibes last year where they were routinely confused as to where they were supposed to actually be covering and chose the wrong guy when they did. Still, Hemby was terrific for the most part and I'm excited to see him the rest of the season. The Front Seven This is going to be a long one but the way that IU's front seven played against what PFF graded as the best OL in the nation was amazing, especially against the run. IU had trouble getting pressure on QB Mark Gronowski but he was getting the ball out fairly quickly (2.53 seconds in time to throw overall) and he never threw the ball 20+ yards down the field. So, while the Iowa OL did get the better of the IU pass rush for (just a 14% pressure rate on 29 drop backs), that was somewhat mitigated by the utter destruction that the front seven had on Iowa's bread and butter: the run game. Iowa finished with 30 carries for 99 yards (3.3 ypc) for the game and, per PFF, Iowa's net yards before contact for the game was -3. Think about that. Add to that that Iowa also managed just 3 missed tackles forced on those 30 attempts. Kamari Moulton, who had two of those missed tackles forced, had *72 of his 75 yards after contact*. A staggering number. IU was in the backfield all day and finished with 18 Stops (tackles that constitute a "failure" for the offense). Five of those credited Stops were by All American LB Aidan Fisher. And Fisher played like an All American in this one. Some other individual shout-outs in the front seven: Tyrique Tucker, Hosea Wheeler and Mario Landino were once again a wrecking crew on the interior combining for 7 Stops, 5 alone for Tucker. Stephen Daley (84.1 run defense grade on the season) was awesome again against the run and is now second to only Tucker (86.5) with the best run defender grade on the team. Daley ranks 10th in the nation in run defense for edge rushers while Tucker also ranks 10th in the nation among iDL. As a whole, the defense had 6 TFL's, 1 sack (.5 for Isaiah Jones and .5 for Kellan Wyatt) and 2 INT's (Louis Moore and Amare Ferrell). Even though Ferrell and Moore aren't in the front seven, the pressure from the DL forced off balance or tipped throws and IU's DB's made the plays. What makes all this more impressive was just how much the refs were letting Iowa's OL get away with. At least three times, Mikail Kamara, who didn't have a great game, was being tackled or head locked with a ball carrier right near him with no call. His day looks a lot better than his rough 59.9 overall grade for this game if he's able to draw penalties that should have been called. Elijah Sarratt There really aren't enough superlatives to give this kid. On the rewatch, if Mendoza had even a half second more time on a couple plays, I think he, EJ Williams and Omar Cooper probably make multiple more catches for big time yards. His tackle breaking ability is as amazing as his route running. He's just an elite WR and is up to 29th overall in receiving grade by PFF among *all* pass catchers (WR, TE or RB). He finished with 6 catches for 132 yards and that game winning TD...which was his only missed tackle forced but it was a huge one. The kid just continues to step up in big games and makes play after play. So happy he's on my team. Mikail Kamara I mentioned him briefly above. This will not go down as a great game for Kamara. I thought there were plays out there that he probably could have made but didn't. I also thought he was being abused by the Iowa OL with no calls the entire game so it's a bit hard for me to criticize him too much. I just wanted to point him out because I still think a break out is coming. He still has just one sack this season but he's been better than just that number. He's still tied for 63rd in total pressures (13) and 50th in win rate (19.1%) out of around 500 qualified edge rushers. It's coming. I feel it. Louis Moore Another outstanding game by Lou Moore. He had his court battle with the NCAA over his eligibility more or less decided. On Wednesday we learned that a decision was postponed until after the season ends and he came out flying at Kinnick. His final line was 7 tackles, 3 Stops and an INT. I didn't really know where to mention this but I'll mention it with Moore because IU really needs to figure out how to limit over the middle throws in their zone heavy defense. Gronowski picked apart IU with short passes over the middle going 12/17 for 80 yards and they used it almost like a run game...Run a 5+ yard route in between the LB's and below the safeties, sit down, ball is out on time and you're getting 5-8 yards. I realize IU isn't going to dramatically change how their defense is built but Iowa nearly dinked and dunked their way to a win with short passes over the middle. In fact, they didn't attempt a pass past 20 yards all game. I was fine with how Ryland Gandy and Jamari Sharpe played on the outside in the absence of All American D'Angelo Ponds. They played soft coverage keeping everything in front of them. Fine. But IU really got killed on those short middle passes and I'm not totally sure what the remedy is given the zone heavy scheme they run while trying to not get beat deep. The OL I saw a lot of hand wringing about how they played. I thought Bray Lynch, Zen Michalski and Kahlil Benson had major issues all game containing pass rushers. Outside of those three, I didn't think the OL was that bad. Carter Smith, Drew Evans and Pat Coogan all graded out average or well above in pass blocking grade per PFF and I thought looked pretty good given that Iowa was blitzing from everywhere (67% of Mendoza's drop backs). The problem was that once Iowa found the weak spot in the OL, they hit that right side over and over. But I just don't know how much blame I can give the right side here. In the rewatch, the snap was being timed up on the run and the pass. Guys were literally moving the second Lynch gave Coogan the signal to snap. Iowa's safeties were running full speed into the box just before the snap. The RB's were also lost on a bunch passing plays as Iowa was doing a great job disguising where the pressure was coming from. It reminded me a lot of what happened against Michigan last year except this had more to do with the snap count than just having three 1st rounders on the DL. It's definitely something that must be worked on or IU is going to have a hard time doing anything offensively in front of an equally hostile crowd at Oregon in two weeks and it could turn into an OSU or Notre Dame situation from last season. You just cannot let Oregon time up snaps like Iowa was doing. It can't happen if you want to be considered at top 10 team. The Passing Game During the game I was annoyed that IU wasn't just opening it up more with throws down the field. Having watched what Athan Kaliakmanis and Rutgers did to Iowa last week (330 yards passing and 10 deep shots of 20+ yards), I was expecting a similar style, deep passing attack into 1 on 1 coverage looking for big catches or DPI calls (of which, he got two). IU, however, threw just 9 total passes past 10 yards in this game, but then again, they only threw 23 total times. We have to give legendary Iowa DC Phil Parker a ton of credit in disguising his blitz's and confusing IU's front. With Iowa blitzing on 2/3's of IU's passing snaps, IU did have a ton of 1 on 1s on the outside. Many felt IU got conservative and wasn't really throwing enough. I had thought that until my second watch and now I'm not sure that's the case. There was a lot of pressure in Mendoza's lap and he wasn't holding onto the ball particularly long (2.68 seconds). It can be hard for any QB, regardless of level, to find guys or even get to a second read when you near instant pressure on key downs in your face against lots of press man on the outside. Mendoza was kept clean on 57% of his drop backs (67% against Illinois) and when he was, he was very efficient. As mentioned above, PFF had him for 11/15 for 188 yards and both TD's. The issue was he simply wasn't good at all when under pressure (2/7 for 45 yards and his lone INT) and Iowa leaned into that...perhaps too much as that's how the game winning pass to Sarratt took place. It makes sense that a QB is better when kept clean but I do wish they had thrown more back shoulder type routes. Kurtis Rourke was really good at these and we've seen Mendoza do it...he had a perfect one on the final TD drive to Sarratt...but they were few and far between. I really liked the play I mentioned above just before the half where Sarratt and Cooper were lined up on the short side, one ran a 7 yard out and the other ran a 15 yard out. Mendoza got whacked but he stepped into it and threw a dart to Sarratt. The other thing was that IU was running the ball fairly effectively as outlined by what I wrote about with Roman Hemby. He was really hard to tackle on Saturday. IU's defense was on the field a long time and IU needed to keep them fresh in order to keep giving the offense more shots at the apple and shortening the game, in my opinion, wasn't the worst thing as it eventually paid off. Therefore, running more helped burn some clock and give time for their defense to catch their breath. Big picture, this is he first time in program history that IU has started 5-0 in consecutive seasons. As a fan of this team for 20 years now, and many reading this for much longer than that, it's been a long, hard slog to get to this point. During the Cignetti era, I have tried to embrace the "never daunted" mantra but, man, it can be really hard when you get into a game like that. But IU pulled it out. They lose that game in almost any other year in my fandom...but they didn't. They made the plays when necessary. I know I said "big picture" but had IU's defense not stiffened up after the Mendoza INT, Iowa could have salted the entire game away and kicked a shorter FG. But they didn't. They made a stand and kept them to a 42 yard FG that was pulled left. IU forced that. In my years of fandom, they rarely have played such complimentary football in order to win a massive game on the road facing a good team. But Oregon is not Iowa. Oregon is coming off a win at Penn State and the early lines I've seen are around Oregon -10.5. That feels about right to me although, I can see the public being all over Oregon after their big win and IU's "struggles" at Iowa. Oregon has their own things to figure out as they were largely held in check by PSU's defense for lots of that game and IU's defense has allowed just 6 TD's through five games this season, including a beat down of a ranked team at home. IU has to remedy the the silent snap count issues. They need to switch it up for a one count once Lynch taps Coogan. Something to slow down the pass rush and give their OL a better chance for success. Last big picture thought: IU really needs D'Angelo Ponds back and it can't be understated just how important it is to have a bye right now (although, Oregon also has a bye). I liked what I saw from Gandy and Sharpe. They didn't make any bad mistakes which is good, but no team can replace the leadership and ability of a guy like Ponds. He tried to give it a go and was dressed, so hopefully that's a good omen. Either way though, IU is 5-0 in a game I picked as a loss in the preseason. IU needs to take care of business but a second consecutive double digit win season is very much on the table (ESPN's FPI has IU 10.6 projected wins) regardless of how this game in Eugene goes. What a time to be a Hoosier fan.

The Reactionary Take: IU at Iowa

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