The Hawkeyes perfected posing for the camera last weekend after six touchdowns and eight scoring possessions in their statement victory against Northwestern.
It was the third game in a row Iowa scored at least 31 points, but the team reached full throttle Saturday with a 38-point first half.
"You're always seeing some subtle improvements going on, and then every now and then you'll get a Kodak moment," Iowa coach Kirk Ferentz said this week. "We just happen to have a couple of them the other day."
In the 48-7 rout, running backs Akrum Wadley and Mark Weisman combined for 200 yards and four touchdowns, and quarterback Jake Rudock completed 63 percent of his passes for 239 yards and a touchdown.
Leading up to Northwestern, it didn't look as if the Hawkeyes were building a nice 2014 scrapbook. Three weeks ago, Maryland scored two fourth-quarter touchdowns to beat the Hawkeyes, and then the team moped its way through the bye week, Ferentz said. But against a Northwestern team that beat Wisconsin and challenged the Gophers, the Hawkeyes put it all together.
"I don't think the [turnaround] was anything magical," Ferentz said. "At some point you just have to do a better job concentrating and better job executing. And that's never easy because you're playing good opponents week in and week out."
Iowa's remaining schedule is arguably the lightest of the four teams fighting for the top spot in the Big Ten West division. They travel to Illinois next week and then host Wisconsin and Nebraska. Ferentz said his team knows the dangers of looking too far down the road. The Hawkeyes got ahead of themselves three weeks ago in Maryland, and that led to their first conference loss. Gophers coach Jerry Kill is expecting the Hawkeyes to line up Saturday more focused than the last time they went on the road.
"When you're dealing with young people and so forth, you get on a roll, you gain confidence," Kill said. "Iowa's always done that. They've gotten better as the year goes on. Their quarterback is playing at a very high level, and they're a team that always seems to get better as the year goes on.
