Hawkeyes Roll Past Panthers

“I’m happy with our team’s efforts this week and their focus, and that started last Sunday. They handled that well, they’ve really done a good job preparing, so I’m happy about that. Hank had a really good game. It’s tough to do much better than what he did. All three running backs, with Kamari out, all three of those guys stepped up and did well. It was good to see because they’re all young players that we haven’t seen a lot on the game field or enough on the game field. Xavier’s been a little bit injured, so it was good to see him look like his old self again, too, so that’s positive. That doesn’t happen without the line doing a good job, tight ends doing a good job, and our receivers—you may or may not notice, but they’re doing a good job getting in there and being effective. That’s how big plays happen, and I’m happy about that.

In the second half, it’s excellent to get a lot of guys out there playing on the field. There’s certainly some penalty situations we’re going to have to get cleaned up. You can’t have those kinds of penalties; we had a bunch of them. So, that’s something we’ll have to work on.

Overall, we’re at the quarter-mark now. I keep talking to our guys about how fast it goes once you get into the season—it goes really quickly. Our nonconference portion of the schedule is over so it’s now a bigger picture. I’m pleased with the way the guys were in camp and then certainly pleased with the way they’ve operated the last three weeks. Now the whole idea is for us to keep growing, hopefully we’re learning. I think they are, but just learning every day and giving ourselves a chance to have success as we move forward here.

The bottom line is, they’re playing with good effort and playing team football, which gives you an opportunity. I’m just happy with the start, and I think everybody’s aware we have a lot of work to do. We’ll reinforce that tomorrow, and they’ll see that on film. But that’s exciting. That’s what the season’s all about. So, just happy with the start.”