What a team that was in 1997. Banks, Dwight, Wheatley at TE, Bollers at FB. Then the Defense had Devries, Eppy, Matt Hughes, Jared Goff, etc... How did they ever get beat?
You're not remembering the 97 team accurately. Wheatley backed up Chris Knipper at TE. Bollers backed up Michael Burger and Rob Thein at fullback. Defensively, Eppy wasn't a starter (that line was Devries, Aron Klein, Jason House, John Lefleur, and Jeff Kramer). Jared Goff was a quarterback for Cal 18 years later. You might be thinking of Mike Goff, who was an offensive guard for that 97 Iowa team.
As
@Kinnick.At.Night said, injuries hurt. At linebacker, Vernon Rollins came into the 97 season preseason All Big Ten. He had a devastating knee injury against Iowa State that ended his season and he wasn't the same after that. As someone above said, the 5-2 Iowa was running was a little antiquated and we just didn't have the speed to compete with elite teams.
Offensively, we had the firepower at a couple positions in receiver and runningback, but Damon Gibson at the other receiver spot was far from Dwight's equal (23 receptions, 516 yards, 4 TDs). We could've beat National Champion Michigan at their house, but QB Matt Sherman was playing with a broken finger. Sherman to Sword still stings.
The schedule was similar to this years', in that we played at Ohio State, at Michigan, at Wisconsin, and at Northwestern. We lost the latter 3 games by a total of 8 points. We were outclassed at the Horseshoe as Andy Katzenmoyer lived in the backfield. Here's that 1997 team looking pretty pedestrian against a 10 win Ohio State team that finished the year #12. Below is the game at Michigan. The last one is a fun one, which was Iowa having their way with Indiana 62-0.