All the people decked out in white had gone home, presumably to ice their wrists and soothe their throats from waving their white pom poms and screaming their lungs out for more than three hours.

They had taken most of their clever little home-made signs with them, too, all except one that was left lying on the rain-speckled turf near the Penn State sideline: “Tonight’s Special: Hawkeye.’’

It seemed fitting because this was a pretty special night for the Hawkeyes.
They did what few people thought they could, overcoming a very hostile crowd, the nation’s No. 5-ranked team and the revenge factor to defeat Penn State 21-10.

The victory made a statement not only about the Hawkeyes’ physical abilities but also their character and it elevated all future conversations about this team to a whole new level.

Before this game, most Iowa fans probably figured their team had a very good shot at another bowl bid although I doubt if many aspired to anything better than the Capital One Bowl. Now they may be thinking BCS bowl, possibly even that game out in Pasadena that Iowa hasn’t visited in 19 years.

That sort of thinking is all very premature, of course. The Hawkeyes have played only one fourth of the regular season and only one ninth of the Big Ten season.
But it seems much more plausible today than it did a few days ago.

Saturday night’s game at Penn State is important in the Big Ten standings and for getting into a quality bowl game and all those things, of course.

But it’s also important for the Iowa football program in one other respect: Recruiting.

The Hawkeyes have made an effort to open some new recruiting territories in the East the past few years so any success they can enjoy against the highest profile Eastern power is bound to help them in those efforts.

The Hawkeyes already have three of the best high school players in Maryland verbally commit-ted to sign in February. And another Maryland high school star who didn’t get into Iowa academi-cally this fall – wide receiver Stephane Ngoumou — is now in prep school at Milford Academy in New Berlin, N.Y. (the same prep school that produced Shonn Greene) and apparently is planning to enroll at Iowa next fall.

The three current recruits from Maryland are more highly regarded than many of the Hawks’ previous East coast signees. Greene wasn’t necessarily a big-time recruit (although he turned out to be a big-time player) and Ngoumou was a true sleeper.

But running back Marcus Coker of Hyattsville DeMatha and defensive tackle Travis Ferguson and linebacker Jim Poggi of Baltimore Gilman all are three-star prospects. The Hawks beat Penn State in a head-to-head battle to get Ferguson.

And getting Coker sounds like a major coup. The 222-pound back rushed for 392 yards in 24 car-ries and scored five touchdowns in a game against Maryland’s No. 2-ranked team last week. The only bad thing: He did it against the Gilman team that includes Poggi and Ferguson.

It was pretty easy to see the biggest area of improvement for Iowa on Saturday in an impressive 27-17 victory over Arizona: The Hawkeyes’ defensive line, especially end Adrian Clayborn, played much better than it did in the first two games of the season.

The other two layers of the defense – the linebackers and secondary – were solid (and occasionally spectacular) in the first two games of the season and the line also came together in a fairly thorough shutdown of what had been a pretty good offense.

The statistics don’t really tell how well the D-line played although the stats weren’t bad. The Hawkeyes had two sacks, five tackles for losses and four quarterback hurries (three by Clayborn). They’d had only two sacks in the first two games against less talented, more pass-oriented teams.

They also allowed 148 yards rushing (about half Arizona’s season average), with almost none of it coming between the tackles. Most of it came on three plays – a reverse, a quarterback scramble and a draw play in the final minutes against a prevent defense.

All told, it was an important step forward for an area of the team that had to be retooled following the graduations of Mitch King and Matt Kroul.

With kickoff for the Iowa-Arizona game less than 24 hours away, the main focus is not so much on which players will be playing in the 2:30 p.m. ABC regional matchup but which players may not.

There are rumblings that the Hawkeyes not only may be without left tackle Bryan Bulaga again but also could take the field without tight end Tony Moeaki and wide receiver Derrell Johnson-Koulianos. Of course, the Hawkeyes don’t go out of their way to let the public or the media know about these things. We’ll need to wait until pregame warm-ups to find out for sure. Check out our pregame blog, starting at 1 p.m. for late  updates.

Bulaga sat out last Saturday’s game with Iowa State because of an undisclosed illness, DJK was a game-time decision in that one because of lingering injuries and Moeaki apparently played that game with a sore ankle that he supposedly “tweaked’’ in practice this week. Iowa coach Kirk Ferentz admitted on his Wednesday radio show to being uncertain about the status of Bulaga and Moeaki.

Meanwhile, Arizona also has health issues. Tight end Rob Gronkowski, a first-team All-Pac-10 tight end, will miss his third straight game because of nagging back problems and rangy receiver Delashun Dean also is questionable.

This is a tough to game to pick. However, when forced to make a prediction on a Friday morning radio show, I said: Arizona 20, Iowa 17.

Just as it was easy to be pessimistic after the season-opening 17-16 escape against Northern Iowa, I suspect there may be a temptation this week for Hawkeye fans to get too optimistic after a 35-3 romp over Iowa State.

Don’t get me wrong, there certainly were positive signs. The offensive line, even without Bryan Bulaga, looked better. Brandon Wegher’s debut at running back was encouraging. The defense played well, especially that dynamic safety duo of Tyler Sash and Brett Greenwood.

But to be honest, I think the Hawkeyes played a tougher opponent the first week. It’s hard to imagine Iowa State winning more than four games this season. Paul Rhoads has a lot of work to do to clean up the mess Gene Chizik left him. When the opposing team gives you six turnovers, as the Cyclones did, you’d better win by 30 or 40 points. Hostile atmosphere aside, this really wasn’t a major test.

We’ll learn a little more about the Hawkeyes next Saturday. Arizona isn’t a great team, but it definitely will be a step up in class. The Wildcats moved to 2-0 late Saturday night with a 34-17 victory over Northern Arizona, thanks largely to a career-best 207-yard effort by veteran running back Nic Grigsby. Arizona is very similar to Iowa right now. It is 2-0, but it has beaten two teams it was expected to beat. It has been solid defensively and has made progress offensively, but it’s still not clear how good a team it’s going to be.

It’s probably exactly the sort of game the Hawkeyes need right now – a slightly more challenging test before getting thrown into a major test the following Saturday at Penn State.

One of these weeks maybe Iowa will get that potentially impressive offensive line together and intact. It’s not going to be this week. Word arrived a little while ago that star left tackle Bryan Bulaga will miss the game because of an illness. Bulaga apparently spent some time in the hospital this week but he is out now and reportedly will be at the game. But he won’t be in uniform.

We don’t know yet who will step in to play left tackle in his place. Kyle Calloway, who has started every game the past two seasons, returns from a one-game suspension and was expected to step back into his familiar right tackle spot. Dace Richardson, who played right tackle last week, was expected to start at one of the two guard positions. Chances are, one of those two will now play left tackle. Richardson started there for most of the 2006 season and Calloway started all but one game there in 2007 before Bulaga took over last season.

Bulaga is a big loss, but hopefully this is just a one-game setback. As so often happens in these cases, there are rumors flying that this could be some career-ending disease. My guess is that’s all they are is rumors.

The Hawkeyes also will get Julian Vandervelde back for Saturday’s game. He is a returning starter who was sidelined by surgery on his arm. Vandervelde has stayed in shape by doing a lot of running and even though he hasn’t practiced much, I have a hunch we’ll see a lot of him today. Iowa’s guards were pretty feeble last week against UNI. If they ever get this group together and healthy, with Bulaga and Calloway at the tackles, Vandervelde and Richardson at the guards and Rafael Eubanks at center, it has a chance to be an exceptional line.

As always, there are some intriguing little side stories surrounding this year’s Iowa-Iowa State game. For example:

– Michael O’Connell, Iowa State’s starting free safety, is an Iowa City native who grew up rooting for the Hawkeyes.

– Brett Greenwood, Iowa’s starting free safety, is the son of a former Iowa State lineman.

– Joe Conklin, Greenwood’s backup, is the son of a former Hawkeye player but began his college career at Iowa State before transferring to Iowa.

And that just covers the free safety position.

It’s just an example of the intrigue that surrounds a game that annually generates more discussion and anticipation than any other game on either team’s schedule.

That’s why it’s ludicrous to me that every year someone in the media raises the question as to whether or not the annual series should continue.

Why in the world would they want to stop playing this game? Why would you want to put an end to something that arouses so much interest and excitement.

Some on the Iowa side of things have suggested that a victory over Iowa State doesn’t carry much weight these days. But it certainly looks better than a conquest of Arkansas State or a 1-point win over an FCS team.

If the Big Ten were to go to a complete round-robin schedule, limiting each league member to only two non-conference games, one of them would still have to be Iowa State.

You never know what Kirk Ferentz might do, but it really would be kind of shocking to see him start Paki O’Meara at running back again next week when Iowa visits Iowa State.

O’Meara was that bad Saturday. And Adam Robinson was that … well, he was better than O’Meara.

Robinson, an unheralded redshirt freshman from Des Moines, rushed for 63 yards in 15 carries in Saturday’s too-close-for-comfort 17-16 victory over Northern Iowa. He handled almost all the Hawk-eyes’ ballcarrying duties in the second half.

The insinuation was that Robinson got all the action after halftime because O’Meara suffered a nasty cut on his head when his helmet was knocked off during a play.

“My helmet popped off and I tried to keep going and get a few more yards, and I think I got hit again,’’ O’Meara explained. “It was bleeding a little bit and I needed a couple stitches.’’

However, as I recall, that happened very early in the game. O’Meara didn’t take a seat on the sidelines until after he fumbled the ball away in the opening minutes of the second half. He finished with 16 yards in nine carries with his longest gain being five yards.

Robinson was much more effective and scored a third-quarter touchdown on an 11-yard run.

The other running backs on the roster – Jeff Brinson and Brandon Wegher – both saw some action on special teams. It not be long before we see them running the ball, too.

Kirk Ferentz managed to put a happy face on a pretty unhappy situation Tuesday when he revealed that Jewel Hampton will undergo knee surgery and will be sidelined for the entire season.

You never know when coaches are being completely upfront with you, especially when this particular coach implied on a teleconference at 11:45 a.m. Tuesday that Hampton might be back in a week or two, then less than an hour later announced he was gone for the year.

But the hunch is that Ferentz was being genuine in saying the Hawkeyes will be OK with Paki O’Meara as the starting running back, possibly as part of a committee of backs.

As I’ve written in the past, Iowa is going to need to throw the ball much more this season no matter who lines up at running back. O’Meara, although not the most explosive runner of the group, may be the best receiver and the best blocker. So he may, in fact, be the best fit.

Redshirt freshman Adam Robinson could provide a change of pace with his quickness. Jeff Brinson, when he gets healthy, may provide more of a power element. And true freshman Brandon Wegher, if his high school numbers are any indication, should be a big factor once he gets some experience. It might be a good blend.

None of them figures to be a big star. Obviously, none of them is going to be Shonn Greene. But between them, they should be able to get the job done.

And the future at this position is extremely bright. O’Meara will still be around next season as a senior and all those other guys – Hampton, Brinson, Robinson, Wegher – will be sophomores. And all of them may have trouble holding off Marcus Coker, a 222-pound stud from Hyattsville, Md., who has made a verbal commitment to sigh with the Hawkeyes in February. The problem next season may be finding enough playing time to satisfy everyone.