With the talent PSU had on offense, PSU should have won by at least two scores. Iowa is playing at least 11 freshman. I like this young group. I'm not sure how quickly they develop, or how many wins it translates into, but watching Iowa football, especially when you travel to all away games, is not always fun to watch, so that's a plus.
PSU is a legit CFP contender. This said, the left side of their offensive line, and their field goal kicker are going to be problematic for them going forward.
Very few college teams check into anything except a few set plays. PSU has enough talent that they did this on both sides of the ball, and it wasn't always called in from the sidelines either.
Rushing the football and defense wins championship at every level of football. PSU will be fine, but they have a tough road ahead of them still.
With respect to Iowa State, finally they have a coach that seems to understand developing an offensive line with in state recruits. Something that if it was done previously would have resulted in seasons of at least 6 wins for some time now.
Where Iowa State and Penn State were similar is they would often intentionally collapse the week sides of their offensive lines. This would suck in defensive players, and both were able to get playmakers in space. It was by design at PSU, not sure about ISU. ISU obviously doesn't have the talent level to call in plays and do this after looking at the way the defense sets up, so I'm guessing they are compensating. Also, their head coach doesn't ever speak to it, not that most casual observers of the college game could recognize and understand it anyway.
IOwa has a long way to go. They're a young team, and we still don't know if they've played anyone outside of Penn State. We actually don't really know that much about Penn State either. It is quite possible IOwa isn't that good, and Penn State has played no one of any talent level. Remains to be seen.
Preseason I had thought Iowa would have a better chance at beating OSU rather than PSU. Based largely on returning players.
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