What other teams do before or after they play Iowa has no impact on what games Iowa will win in the future. Iowa plays lesser opponents early in a lot of very successful years. It will only impact strength of schedule.
In all fairness, Iowa gave them 1/3 of their losses. The fact that me absolutely abused ISU gives me hope that we can still be a really good team. We beat them worse than 09 when we almost lost to UNI and Arkansas State, but still went on to win the Orange Bowl. We beat them worse than in 10 when we had legit National Championship talent but got Ferentzed. We still have a chance to be good this year but our oline HAS to be healthy and our defense HAS to start attacking. The 2nd one is less likely to happen than the first.