I think that a lot of the deal still boils down to injuries ... particularly at LB and at RG.
If Tarp, Nielsen, and Hunter remain healthy throughout the '10 season ... then we have a mighty talented and pretty-darn experienced group of LBs then. All the team then has to do is shore up our early-season special teams woes and allow for Hyde to purge himself of "green" errors ... and then the D will be enough to bank on through the latter part of the season.
Instead, Hyde gets over his "greenness" only to have our coverage take a HUGE hit with Tarp and Nielsen out. That's simply too much pressure to put on the DL ... particularly when they're playing against Os that are still throwing max-pro at them most of the time. They just don't have the time to get to the QB. The result is long-sustained drives at the end of the game ... and that is a PREDICTABLE consequence.
Furthermore, it could be argued that we could have shouldered some of the injuries at LB if we had a bit more production on O. And, in my eyes, that statement is mostly true. However, IMO, a big part of the equation there is that we have to recognize that the OL had to fill a lot of big shoes from the prior season. Consequently, when you get hit by two big injuries at the same spot ... that tends to undermine the whole unit. Heck, considering that Boffeli was dinged too and he was capable of playing at the RG spot ... I'd argue that we were down 3 guys who could have played the RG spot. Not to marginalize Koeppel, but he was a good player who was a bit undersized. Ordinarily that wouldn't necessarily be the biggest issue ... however, he was also playing alongside an undersized C and an undersized RT. As a result, Stanzi had to run for his life a bit more than any of use would have liked ... and that really impacted his production and decision making in the latter part of the season.
If Iowa could have banked more on its running game in the latter part of the season, then we don't lose to a number of the teams that we ended up losing to. I'm willing to bet that we wouldn't have lost to Northwestern or Minnesota. Stanzi would have never felt forced to throw that fateful pick that changed the entire momentum of the game against Northwestern ... and Iowa would have been able to control the pace of the game against Minny.
Quite frankly, if you were to pinpoint the biggest loss due to graduation ... I'd probably say that it was Angerer. And, what's funny is that it wasn't even his play that was as missed as the leadership he brought to the table. Angerer played the "enforcer" role on the team ... and guys who crossed him were set straight (whether they liked it or not). People don't always like the "enforcer" ... but the "enforcer" tends to keep the ship in the right direction, even when adversity strikes.