He Iowa Hawkeye got off to a great start against UCLA Bruins on Friday night, but it didn’t take long for things to reach a stalemate.

After intercepting UCLA quarterback Ethan Garbers a couple of times, resulting in Iowa taking a 10-0 lead, the Hawkeyes allowed 17 unanswered points, resulting in a seven-point deficit in half.

Fortunately for Iowa, Garbers fumbled into the end zone on UCLA’s second-to-last drive of the half, and the Hawkeyes recovered the ball for a touchback. So things could have been much worse.

But while the Hawkeyes’ defense certainly made some magic in the first half, creating three turnovers, this is not the way Iowa expected to perform against UCLA.

Brendan Sullivan was 5-for-7 with 138 yards and one interception, and Kaleb Johnson carried the ball nine times for just 31 yards and a touchdown.

The Hawkeyes’ offense certainly looked better with Sullivan under center instead of Cade McNamara over the past few weeks, but it’s not exactly like Sullivan was throwing the ball incredibly well against Northwestern and Wisconsin.

Sullivan had been making plays with his legs, but that wasn’t really available to the signal-caller for the first 30 minutes against UCLA.

The Bruins also dominated possession, running 43 plays compared to 22 for the Hawkeyes.

Perhaps in some ways, Iowa is lucky that the game is so close as the half progresses, because a better opponent probably would have buried the Hawkeyes.

We’ll see if Iowa, which has already turned the ball over twice, can turn things around in the second half.