Mark this down: the Iowa Hawkeyes may take the Big Ten by storm this year. Or they may fall completely apart. Coach Kirk Ferentz had his team finish 6-6 last year and lost some key players going into this season, but he also returns some decent stock and with some breaks here and there, you may be seeing the surprise team of the year.

Not that they’ll pull a Kansas, largely because of some glaring question marks on the offense. What? How can that be? They return 8 starters. Yes, they do, but consider that last year’s leading passer Jake Christiansen hasn’t even locked up his job, and the Hawkeyes are razor-thin at running back. At receiver, they have a solid corps returning, but 2 of those players missed much of last year due to injuries. If they can get this together, they’ll have a formidable attack.

The defense is young but hungry. The interior defense should hold, but other than that, Iowa has talent but lacks experience. The big advantage they have this year is in the schedule, where they miss both Ohio State and Michigan, and their toughest game on the road is at Illinois, while hosting Penn State, Wisconsin, and Purdue. Ferentz couldn’t have asked for a better set up with trying to break in some of his youngsters. But with youth their comes large rooms for error, so it’s anybody’s guess how the team will in fact execute against more experienced teams. Just keep an eye on them—they could very well pull a shocking year.