I find it hard to believe that muzzling DJK from the press prohibited him from being a leader on the team. Besides being talkative =/= being a leader.
However, I do believe we could have utilized his skills in a better fashion.
1) We could have found ways to unleash his return abilities. He's shown us what he can do with an open lane and some blocks on kickoffs. Yet we never tried him out on punt returns?
2) Could have worked with Stanzi to loosen him up a bit, and get that deep throw working. Stanzi had protection and often was up against secondaries that weren't that great. With dangerous WRs like McNutt, DJK, even Davis and Chaney, we could have opened up the playbook and found ways to utilize perhaps one of the better WR corps Iowa's seen in some time.
3) What do Paul Chaney Jr, Marvin McNutt, DJK, Nordmann, and Sandeman all have in common? They all had experience playing QB in high school. Now, that doesn't make them all QB superstars, but seriously... open up the playbook a little, will ya? I'm not 100% sure, but I've only ever seen a fake reverse/end-around pass twice from Iowa in recent history. Once in 2005 when Hinkel caught a pass from Solomon for a TD and earlier this year from McNutt to DJK (incomplete). I'm not calling for a fake reverse every other play or something, but do something...anything...to be a bit more unpredictable. When your fans can predict most of your plays for an entire series, it's not surprising when an opponent can, is it?