Iowa Football Doesn't Need Style Points – It Just Needs To Keep Winning

College Football Playoff expansion certainly has its pros and cons. 

Everyone that follows the sport knows this by now, but there's a common phrase that's beginning to circle throughout every fanbase in America – style points. 

No. 15 Iowa definitely isn't an exception to this, but what exactly are these so-called style points? Don't expect to find this in the urban dictionary of course, but ask a fan, and they'll tell you that it means to run up the score in order to make your win look better and in theory appeal more to the CFP selection committee when the next set of rankings release on Tuesday. 

Hawkeye fans didn't expect any style points when Iowa handled business at Northwestern last weekend, but as the calendar flipped to a contest against one of the Big Ten's worst teams in 3-6 Purdue, fans wanted and expected a blowout victory to pad the numbers. 

The fans had every right to have those expectations considering the Boilermakers entered Saturday's contest fresh off allowing 27 points at home to Maryland last weekend (which turned around and beat Wisconsin on Saturday, so the chance for the Hawkeyes to score a big victory – at least in terms of margin of the win – was definitely present. 

Iowa did what it was supposed to do and easily took care of Purdue by 21 points, 28-7, but that final score wasn't enough to satisfy some Hawkeye fans. Some voiced their opinions on X saying that they felt like Iowa could've scored more points. 

They are right about that – to a certain degree. While the Hawkeyes left at least nine points on the board because of three Caden Buhr missed field goals (he had only missed two all season prior to Saturday), it was clear that Iowa was trying to score more points in the fourth quarter when this game was already decided. 

If Kirk Ferentz wanted to call the dogs off, he definitely would've. He essentially did it last weekend against Northwestern when he called inside zone runs throughout the entire fourth quarter, but the starters remained in this game until its end. 

Iowa just didn't execute when it wanted to, with the three-and-out inside Boilermaker territory after Purdue turned it over on downs being a great example.

Quarterback Hank Brown admitted that he and the offense needed to finish games better in the second half no matter what the scoreboard says, but here's the thing: the Hawkeyes won the football game in the first place. That's never an easy thing to do in college football no matter who you're facing, and Iowa did just that on Saturday. 

Will the selection committee devalue the Hawkeyes for not adding a few more style points against Purdue? That's a question for another day. Ferentz himself said that he's not using the "p word" (playoff) until he and his team go back to work tomorrow morning, but when they wake up on Sunday, they can say that they took care of business in November. 

It's just not that easy to do. Ask No. 11 Kentucky and No. 14 Houston. Both played unranked teams this weekend and lost, which should open the door for Iowa to climb a few spots higher in next week's poll. 

Al Davis' "just win baby" motto is certainly working well in Iowa City.