A quick look at Iowa's performance/Big Ten schedule

At PSU who had Clifford the entire game. UM also led most of the game.

Clifford was healthy throughout, it was on the road, and at no point was UM down 17-3.  I do think Iowa can beat UM but they've absolutely struggled against the better teams they've faced.

Iowa played PSU at Kinnick and was down by like 10-14 points when Clifford got hurt.  The backup PSU QB then played absolutely horribly and PSU couldn’t move the ball the rest of the way.  It was just enough for Iowa to eke out a win.

We played PSU in State College when Clifford was back in the lineup.  Big difference.

We only beat Rutgers by a TD as well.

Maybe I'm living in the 90s, but between Iowa's defense and lack of offense I'm expecting an old school, low scoring game.  I think Moody comes up big and we win 20-10.

They've been out gained in four of their wins this year, and Penn St and Nebraska were both well on their way before collapsing late. Give them credit for playing clean and letting others beat themselves, but their record is anything but impressive. 

I disagree with your assertions that you compare our loss to MSU to their loss to Wisconsin. Wisconsin took it to them by the way. We shredded Wisconsin. MSU on the road in a rivalry game a 4-point loss is not the same. 

Hold that opinion….Iowa was getting pantsed by Wisconsin the entire game and Michigan was up by 16 in the 3rd after also having a defensive TD taken off the board against MSU , and then MSU played the perfect game for 1.5 quarters which still needed to be aided by an untimely UM turnover and controversial ref-review help down the field on the game tying drive. So let’s not act as if UM’s loss to MSU is equal to Iowa’s loss to Wisconsin. Michigan also beat Wisconsin by 3 scores (4 without garbage time) on the road. Bad comparison.
 

Michigan is clearly the better team on paper….only comparable games might be Nebraska (who was playing at night with all their best shots, winning season on the line, and crowd energy with starting QB Martinez against us) and maybe Indiana (whom we clearly shelved our offense for, got 1/8 of starters hurt, and didn’t need to force any turnovers to win by 22 points, granted no Penix). 
 

Michigan is better, Hutch and Ojabo should feast on Petras, no truly explosive or NFL receivers, and the interior should also keeping their running game in check. Biggest worry is maybe Goodson breaks one, or they are very successful with quick passes to tight ends. Offense needs to play mistake free and don’t allow Iowa into a major field position advantage. But I will admit, thoroughly beating Ferentz, especially when he has one of these out of the blue 10 win years is a tough task because Iowa is sort of a “spooky” team, but thank God this game isn’t at Kinnick. 

Like I said I think they're dangerous and UM can absolutely lose to them but how they did so, especially early on, was unsustainable.  For example, they're 6-0 start was fueled by a TO margin of +15; in the 6 games since they are -2.  Of that 4-2 final kick they also won games against NW, Minnesota, and Nebraska by single scores and in their 10-point win vs. Illinois they were outgained both overall and per-play by decent margins.  And on the season they've been outgained by around 200 total yards of offense despite having top-4 defense, and the margin is even worse if you through out non-conference numbers.

They're talented but so much of their early success hinged on TO luck and it proved impossible to sustain.  What we've seen the past half of the season is a team that's around .500 and maybe that continues for another game but UM has shown an ability to grind teams like this down.  I think it'll be a sludge fart of a game but UM is the better team and I think Iowa's record is a bit inflated from playing in the West.

Nebraska was also missing Martinez.

I think I heard a stat come up during the Iowa/Nebraska game that Iowa has the current longest streak of holding teams to 30 points or less in the nation (again, no Ohio State on the schedule since 2017 though), and in impressive company for last couple decades with some great Bama defenses and such, and that is a very impressive fancy stat. With Iowa’s overall record though, that would also indicate that it’s fairly rare that they also score over 30 points.

So, as an outsider who isn’t too well versed in fancy stats, it seems to me with our overall defensive success keeping teams to lower than average point outputs this year, as well as the general makeup of the Iowa offense being not too complicated to stop, offensively, we probably need 24 or so points to secure a victory if our defense has a normal day. If we break 30 points on offense I would say we win going away by multiple scores, but if we score 20 or below we are likely holding our breath till the clock says :00 in the 4th. BEAT IOWA! 

To be fair, I have seen a lot of complaining about continued posts regarding The Game and that there are other more pertinent things to post about.  A post about our upcoming opponent would seem to fit that bill.

I'm kind of with you on this.  We're going to pull off the biggest win for this program in the past 20 years and then go out and lose to Iowa?  That's like the US Hockey Team beating the Soviets in 1980 and then losing to Finland in the Gold Medal game.

That said, I don't think we're losing to Iowa.  These guys have shown all season an awareness of what they're playing against and I think they realize that if they lose on Saturday, they'll still get dismissed by the haters in the media.  The goal in that locker room is the B1G Championship and beating OSU was a step to that goal, one that hasn't been cleared in a long time.  

I think we get that ring on Saturday.

Spot on...as Harbaugh said:

"It feels like the beginning, everything about the team. Every day, every week, every month. This has always felt like the beginning."

True. Shift PSU or MSU to the west.