Michigan Football: 3 takeaways from a strengthening road win at Iowa

3. The refs made some controversial calls in Michigan’s favor

Iowa fans were screaming and yelling from the stands throughout because of a handful of questionable penalties. The cut block on Mason Graham, the holding calls on long gaining plays, and most loudly the unnecessary roughness against Mike Sainristil. They all made the home crowd go into a raucous frenzy because of it.

Usually, the home squad gets the benefit of the doubt, but that sure didn’t seem to be the case in this one. Executing in that kind of home-field advantage for a road school is hard enough, so Michigan has to feel somewhat generous that it caught some much-needed breaks to pull through in such a hostile venue.

With the Iowa road duel in the rearview mirror now, Michigan football moves on to Bloomington and will be another week away from the Big house. It lost there in 2020 because the Hoosiers had a once-in-a-lifetime type of group that gave Ohio State all they could handle in the race for the Big Ten east division.

They were defeated by Cincinnati and should respond with a victory in Lincoln when facing a lost Nebraska bunch searching for leadership.