If you would've told any Iowa football fan that their team would enter its bye week 5-1, they would've signed up for that in a heartbeat. 

The Hawkeyes' three-game stretch to open Big Ten play - at Michigan, home against Ohio State, and a Friday night road test at Washington - looked daunting in the preseason, but No. 20 Iowa indeed took care of business and closed the stretch with a 41-24 triumph in Seattle. 

All of the Hawkeyes' dreams are still very much in front of them, and though the win was very impressive, Kirk Ferentz and Co. will still find some things to criticize in the film room. 

Here are three things we saw in Iowa's win that it should continue doing for the rest of the season (the do's) and three things that we saw that should remain in the Emerald City (the don'ts).

Run the football: Iowa's run game took a lot of flack from just about every Iowa media member this week (including on HawkeyeRoundtable.com), but the Hawkeyes made sure to silence the critics on Friday. Iowa finished with 263 rushing yards - 208 of which came from Kamari Moulton. Moulton deserves plenty of credit for his career night, but if you go back and watch the tape, you'll see the offensive line just bullying Washington's defensive front. The Huskies were regarded as a great run defense when the night began, but Iowa made them leave Husky Stadium with a lot of questions. 

The Hawkeyes aren't going to run the football this well every night, but a consistent run game could do wonders for an offense that has already proved it can be explosive in the passing game. 

Bring the heat: Phil Parker has shown that he's willing to bring more pressure in recent years, and he used it to perfection on Friday. The Hawkeyes finished with six sacks (tied for a season-best), and Washington quarterback Demond Williams was in a blender all night long. You just never fully know what to expect from a Parker-coached defense, and that's what makes these unique blitz packages tough to defend. Iowa should continue to use them moving forward. 

Keep using play-action: Outside of the Ohio State game, the play-action pass has been there for Iowa this year. Having a successful ground game helps fuel the passing attack, and Washington simply had no answer. Every time Jeremy Hecklinski executed a play-fake, there was usually a man wide open down the field. In fact, all three of Hecklinski's touchdown passes (he finished 14/19 for 202 yards) were via play-action, and that's what really got him into a rhythm in this one. When defenses make the mistake of stacking the box against Iowa, the Hawkeyes need to keep using the play-action game to move the 

Let a backup quarterback torch the defense: Full disclaimer: it was very difficult to point out any negatives in this game, but if there's one that stands out above the rest, it was probably the fact that Iowa's defense really struggled to contain UW backup quarterback Elijah Brown. Most of the struggles can probably be attributed to the fact that the Hawkeyes didn't game plan for Brown, but Parker isn't going to be happy that his crew allowed Brown to go 28-for-39 for 251 yards and three scores. 

Turtle up before halftime: It obviously didn't matter in the grand scheme of things, but Iowa didn't help itself when it decided to run the ball three consecutive times before halftime. Though it was 27-3 at this point, Washington's offense was starting to figure things out and had a chance to double-up the Hawkeyes if they would've found the end zone at the end of the first half (UW had the ball out of half). Again, it's a moot point in a game like this, put Iowa is going to have to be aggressive in those situations moving forward. The stakes are going to be very high the rest of the way. 

Penalties: For as good as Iowa was in this game, penalties continued to be an issue. Ferentz expressed his displeasure with the mistakes during his weekly press conference on Tuesday, but his team didn't look disciplined at times on Friday. The Hawkeyes committed eight penalties for 73 yards against the Huskies, with many of them being pass interference calls on the secondary. Washington's penultimate touchdown drive featured three. 

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HawkeyeRoundtable publisher Brad Schultz has covered the Iowa Hawkeyes since 2023. To send him story ideas, scoops, or criticize his writing, reach him at [email protected]