DITV Sports: Hawkeye Offense Explodes for 40 in Home Opener

game one of the season for the Iowa Hawk guys as they hosted the Illinois State red birds at kennick Stadium a lot of offseason hype coming in with this team with the offense and defense the offense was a little shaky but the defense picked up right where things left off in front of a soldout crowd the kick off the season it was a seller performance all around from the hot guy defense to hold on for four quarters a shutout football this is a defense that returns eight of their 11 starters from last fall and today they only allowed 89 total yards of offense from Illinois State this was highlighted by an interception and two fumble recoveries showing it took the entire defensive chemistry to put up the goose head I mean we we could have you know TW 11 uh returning guys and if we don't play good ball we could lose anybody it takes everybody everybody ones twos it don't matter when you on the field you're on the field and we expect you to keep that standard now as everyone expected the defense was a highlight for this team but in that second half of football Kade and the offense really picked things up after missed opportunities and issues in the first half a healthy kid complemented by some midpoint adjustments looked incredible you no today felt really good to be actually healthy and run around a little bit I wasn't expecting to run as much as I did today but it felt good and you know some confidence was built with that on top of his rushing his arm proved fantastic he's the first Iowa quarterback in nearly three seasons to record three passing touchdowns heading targets Rees vandery and Jacob Gil he also led the team with 492 total yards the most from Iowa in 5 years but from one leader to another Seth Wallace took over the head coaching job with Kirk faren suspended for the game and he really brought the energy he had us fired up and I think he really had his fired up that halftime and I think something that stck out to me was when we were on the field and once the offense started gaining some momentum I could tell like how much more fired up he was now even though coaches and players alike still say there's a lot to fix up between now and week they have a lot of confidence after winning 40 nothing before taking on instate rival the Iowa State Cyclones from kenck Stadium con CRS di TV