I kept on thinking about how Iowa's OL just manhandled their DL ... and I was kinda wondering what was up with that. It briefly occurred to me that maybe their DL was just horribly inept and lamed their entire D. However, after that though, I realized that while ISU's DL wasn't particularly good ... it was also comprised of Big 12 battle-tested personnel. Specifically, Parker is a multi-year starting DE and both Bailey Johnson and Patrick Neal owned quite a number of starts from last year. Lastly, Ruempolhamer saw plenty of action last year and was one of the emergent stars from their past 2 camps. In other words, lack of experience on the DL really wasn't as applicable as I originally anticipated for the Cyclones. Of course, what might have been applicable was the size-differential ... however, Iowa has had plenty of success in the past with undersized guys on the DL. Besides, it's not like Iowa has a hulking-big OL anyhow.
It's true that ISU's LBs were inexperienced ... but they certainly are promising talents. Of course, it really didn't help them at all that their LB depth sucks and then their top MIKE LB went down with a broken leg.
Also, with Benton out, they were even in a tougher spot with respect to being able to bring pressure. They simply couldn't afford to put CBs on an island against Iowa's WRs ... because Iowa would and could simply abuse them there. Fortunately for the Cyclones, Ferentz placed emphasis on the Hawks executing their base fundamentals once the game was out of hand. As a result of that "teaching exercise," the score didn't get run up too badly.