Daily briefing: On road games, opportunistic Iowa and Kentucky

Ivan Maisel’s “Daily Briefing” for On3:

Keeping it together on the road

Alabama looked rattled on the road. Penn State took a two-touchdown lead with a senior quarterback and lost it with an untested one on the road. LSU got humiliated on the road. Undefeated Wake Forest needed overtime to win at Syracuse. We may be at the halfway point of the season, but I remain convinced that teams in general, and young players especially, are not accustomed yet to playing with composure in front of hostile crowds. Stanford coach David Shaw, speaking with Mark Packer on ESPNU Radio last week, said that he considers any player who has yet to play 12 games a freshman, regardless of age. That rings true now more than ever.

Iowa offense hasn’t had far to go

No. 2 Iowa leads the nation with 16 interceptions and a turnover margin of plus-15. The Hawkeyes added four more picks Saturday in the comeback win over Penn State. One measure of what those takeaways mean: The Hawkeyes have scored 19 touchdowns and 11 field goals this season. The average scoring drive, thanks to the field position created by those turnovers, has been only 44 yards. The average touchdown drive has been 56 yards. Offenses come and defenses go. Field position never goes out of style.

A Kentucky history lesson

So you may have read that Kentucky is 6-0 for the first time since 1950. What that note doesn’t tell you is those Wildcats were the first great team coached by a 37-year-old Navy veteran named Bear Bryant. Kentucky raced to a 10-0 record and a No. 3 ranking before losing its regular-season finale 7-0 at No. 9 Tennessee. Kentucky went on to upset No. 1 Oklahoma 13-7 in the Orange Bowl. You want to know why Bryant put such great stock in beating Tennessee during his time at Alabama? He went 0-5-2 vs. Vols coaching legend Gen. Robert Neyland at Kentucky. In fact, from 1948-51 — four games — Bryant’s teams did not score.