Grading Iowa Football's Loss To Minnesota

MINNEAPOLIS - No. 15 Iowa's potential dream season may have ended at the hands of rival Minnesota. 

The Golden Gophers made just enough plays to eek out a 13-10 upset victory at Huntington Bank Stadium in Minneapolis on Saturday night, silencing any offensive momentum the Hawkeyes had. 

It's now back to the drawing board for Iowa, which will undoubtedly have a tough film session on Sunday morning. 

Here's how we graded each position group. 

There was a chance Jeremy Hecklinski was going to regress a little bit after he seemingly couldn't miss against Washington, but what we saw from him was anything but what we saw at any point this season. Hecklinski simply wasn't comfortable under center, and it's hard to pinpoint the reason why. Maybe it was a poor run game, bad play calling by Tim Lester or all of the above, but Iowa completely botched whatever game plan it had for Hecklinski. 

Once the Hecklinski experiment didn't work, the Hawkeyes decided to go with their old starter Hank Brown. Though Brown has produced some good moments as a starter this year, he too had a rough game, with his stats inflated because of two big catches from Tony Diaz and Reece Vander Zee. 

Both quarterbacks committed a combined four turnovers in this one, and that's just not going to cut it moving forward. Iowa has major quarterback problems yet again. 

This game was disastrous for this running back room. There was a lot of optimism that they could maintain their momentum after an impressive outing against Washington, but nothing went right for this group. Minnesota came in boasting one of the Big Ten's worst rushing defenses, but the Hawkeyes managed just 90 yards against the Gophers and lost top back Kamari Moulton to an arm injury in the first half. Major step back for Jay Norvell's crew. 

It's very hard to succeed as a pass catcher when your quarterback is struggling to get you the ball, but this group did the best it possibly could under the immense circumstances. Iowa tallied 198 yards through the air, with most of that yardage coming on one drive. Diaz broke free on a slant for a 57-yard catch and run, and Vander Zee followed up with a 37-yard touchdown a few plays later for the Hawkeyes' only score of the game. 

There were some chances for Iowa's wideouts to make plays, with Hecklinski badly missing a wide open Diaz for a touchdown in the first half being a great example, but this was a poorly-called game from Lester. Every receiver was blanketed and most of the yards came after the catch. 

If you thought Minnesota's defense was a challenge for this corps, a feisty Wisconsin defense is up next at Kinnick Stadium.

Phil Parker's group was phenomenal on this night. Minnesota quarterback Drake Lindsey had a hard time finding open receivers and threw an interception to Deshaun Lee in the first half (Iowa's sixth takeaway of the year), while the run defense yielded just 72 yards on 35 carries. This group shouldn't be hanging its head, but there were two plays that it would love to have back. 

The first was Jaylen Watson lining up offsides on a 4th-and-goal that led to the Gophers' only score of the game, and the second was blown coverage that set up Minnesota's game-winning field goal. Both will be tough to look back on in the film room, but there's nothing to be overly concerned about here. 

Both kickers were listed as probable on the availability report in the days leading up to Saturday's game, but Caden Buhr ultimately stayed in his usual starting spot and nailed a 32-yarder to tie the game in the first half. Punter Boston Everitt was also stout by collecting 279 yards on six punts, but the real knock on this group was punt returner Evan James. 

Ferentz has expressed his confidence in the Furman transfer to continue returning punts, but James certainly didn't back his coach in this one. Tied 10-10 late in the game, Iowa had all the momentum on its side after it forced a Minnesota punt, but James' fumble cost the Hawkeyes field position and prevented them from starting a potential game-winning drive already in field goal range.