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I believe Iowa overall has equaled expectations but in Big Ten Play they so far they are slightly below expectations.

In pre-season Iowa fans expected Iowa to finish 9-3.  They were supposed to lose @ISU, @Mich, @Wiscy.  They weren't supposed to lose to PSU in Iowa City.
So at this point Iowa was supposed to be 7-3 overall but 5-2 in the Big Ten.

So far I would give Iowa a very small minus.

I guess that's based on original expectations, but I think PSU and Minnesota have been a lot better than expected, while Iowa might be about what they were expected to be, and perhaps slightly better. 

SP+ rankings:

7. Penn St. (9-1)

25.0

10. Michigan (8-2)

22.4

13. Wisconsin (8-2)

20.8

16. Minnesota (9-1)

19.2

22. Iowa St. (6-4)

16.3

23. Iowa (7-3)

16.1

Home field should only be worth 3 points, and PSU is 8.5 SP+ points better than ISU, and perhaps 10 points better than you expected them to be preseason.  So it really doesn't make sense to count PSU as the win and ISU as the loss with where things stand now.

If we just look at SP+, Iowa should be 6-4 with a loss to ISU as mentioned, so is doing one game better than predicted by that metric.  You could even say that the Minnesota game was a tossup that they won, so 1.5 games above expectation.  Minnesota I'm sure is another case where they have done much better than expected in the preseason.  If you can't adjust your expectations based on PSU and Minny being much better than expected, then I guess for Iowa to achieve those results, they would've needed to be about 6 SP+ points better than they currently are, probably by being quite a bit better on offense and slightly better on defense.  In which case, a loss to ISU would've probably made you sick with how good of a team Iowa would need to have.

I would argue that Iowa is playing above expectation then, because they are winning their tossup games and have been very competitive in games they were supposed to lose.

Kirk will get it for earning another contract extension.

If your argument is that Iowa really is only #23, that does not help the argument that Iowa is exceeding expectations.  In fact it helps the argument that Iowa is performing lower than expected. 

SP+ doesn't take record into account, so even if Iowa was 5-5 (lost close ones to ISU and Minny), they'd be at roughly the same spot.  I think based on the actual quality of their opponents, Iowa's expectation is 6-4, so 7-3 is slightly exceeding.  Look at Washington as an example of grossly underachieving as they are 6-4, but ranked #12 by SP+.  It makes sense, because they pass the eye test, but are piling up losses, including 2 bad ones to Cal and Stanford.  They really should be no worse than 8-2, and likely should be 9-1.