The UNI football team is still looking to build consistency as they open Missouri Valley Football Conference play this Saturday. Panther coach Mark Farley says his team has been up-and-down through their first three games, which included match-ups against both Iowa and Wisconsin.
“We did a really good job on defense at Wisconsin, average job on offense. At Iowa we did an average job on defense and I though a good job on offense,” Farley says. According to Farley, the Panthers simply did not perform very well against Iowa.
“I thought their offensive line did a good job, but when you go back and look at it on film, we got outphysicalled at the line of scrimmage, and that doesn’t happen very often,” Farley says.
Farley says that if nothing else, those two games against Big Ten opponents have given him a very good idea of his players’ abilities.
“Right now we will have to make some adjustments to utilize the players to get the most out of their strengths,” Farley says. He says they have a great evaluation of their strengths and now need to find out the best way to use those strengths to win.
Farley can’t say for sure if UNI will ever play two BCS-level opponents in the same season again, but if they do, he wants to get a win.
“We wanted to take them into the last play, into the last series. I think we did do that to Wisconsin, we didn’t do that with Iowa,” Farley says. He says they had opportunities in both games that they did not convert.
The Panthers play at Youngstown State on Saturday.
By Jesse Gavin, KCNZ, Cedar Falls