Big Ten power rankings Week 3: How shakeup at the top impacts Penn State Football

How about those Iowa Hawkeyes.

Iowa went to Iowa State on Saturday and handled their rivals easily, winning 27-17. The defense was excellent once again. A week after picking off Penix twice, they intercepted Iowa State’s Brock Purdy three times, handing him one of the worst performances of his career.

They also held Cyclones star running back Breece Hall to just 69 yards on the ground, in addition to forcing  him to fumble, which was returned for a touchdown.

While defense is playing at an elite level, the offense still leaves something to be desired. The Hawkeyes totaled just 173 yards of total offense in this game, with just 67 yards on the ground. Like last week, the offense was only responsible for 20 points.

Part of it is that the defense is giving this group short fields, but they did punt eight times on Saturday and had a missed field goal. Unless this group starts to sustain more drives without the help of the defense, things could get interesting against more competent offenses.

This defense is going to win Iowa a lot of games, probably 9-10 of them, but the offense is going to have to show up in the other three for this program to finally break through into the playoff discussion.

For now, they clearly look like the best team in the conference.