In the 2017 game against Iowa, we played outstanding football on the offensive side of the ball, however struggled on the defensive side. Joel Lanning was playing his first true test as the MLB and he got exposed quite a bit. This was all before we switched our defensive scheme, which happened in the Texas game, in which Joel had around 20 tackles.
Last year, our defense played outstanding football, however our offense had a ton of issues. Some of those issues coming from Iowa having a good defense, and some of those issues could have stemmed from it being Coach Campbell's first true game as the OC. Our offensive line sure did not help, as it put our offense constantly in 3rd down and long distances.
With Tom Manning back calling plays as the OC, and our defense having played in this system for a while, I see a lot less confusion on both sides of the ball. Brock Purdy is also an x-factor in this game in my opinion. Iowa has struggled when facing a QB that can do everything.