Iowa's schedule looks "decent" on the surface. They have wins against Wisconsin, Pitt, and NW who all have decent records. But if you dive down another level, those good records don't really mean much (except for NW). If you take out the FCS teams, here are the number of wins Iowa's opponents have against teams with a winning record:
Iowa State - 0
Pitt - 0
North Texas - 0
Wisconsin - 0 (ILL is .500)
Illinois - 0
Northwestern - 2 (Stanford and Duke are good wins)
So if you combine all 7 of Iowa's FBS wins, those teams have beaten exactly TWO teams with winning records. Yikes.