Iowa First Year QBs

[WinOneThisCentury]

Does Petras have a Drew Tate / Brad Banks type of year in him? The skill positions are as deep as I can remember...at WR anyway. You also have a pretty deep offensive line to find a top five. My hunch is that Petras is going be a more consistently accurate QB than Nate was. The question then becomes...can he make the right decision on where the ball should be going. I'm thinking we are finally leaning toward a year where the offense may be able to go out and win games by outscoring opponents. Smith, Smith-Marsette, Tracy, Ragaini, and some young TEs...then you add in Goodson, IKM, and Sargent...we have plenty of weapons on offense.

I guess the question becomes...are we going to be good enough defensively to get us in the Championship hunt? It won't take long to find out...3 games.

 

[NikeHawk21]

Does Petras have a Drew Tate / Brad Banks type of year in him? The skill positions are as deep as I can remember...at WR anyway. You also have a pretty deep offensive line to find a top five. My hunch is that Petras is going be a more consistently accurate QB than Nate was. The question then becomes...can he make the right decision on where the ball should be going. I'm thinking we are finally leaning toward a year where the offense may be able to go out and win games by outscoring opponents. Smith, Smith-Marsette, Tracy, Ragaini, and some young TEs...then you add in Goodson, IKM, and Sargent...we have plenty of weapons on offense.

I guess the question becomes...are we going to be good enough defensively to get us in the Championship hunt? It won't take long to find out...3 games.

Until proven otherwise, I don’t think the question mark for Iowa football can be defense. Especially with PP back there. Still plenty of talent/experience around on defense. Golston, Nixon, Colbert, Niemann, Hankins, Koerner, Belton, Waggoner, Evans, Brents, Moss, Shulte, Shannon, Johnson, Campbell etc.

The offense certainly looks poised to take a step forward and that’s certainly exciting. Let’s keep in mind we couldn’t score in the 2H against a bad defensive Nebraska team, and USC was a bad defensive team all year. I’m not crowning this an offensive juggernaut until I see results, but with that said I am very excited to watch this group.

Gun to head if you asked which side of the ball will be better for Iowa this year I think you’d have to say defense, just based on history.

 

[WinOneThisCentury]

I'm going to argue the offense is going to be better. It typically starts closest to the football as usual.

It's hard for me to see losing three starters on the DL and one who arguably should have been a first round draft choice and say...we are going to pick up where we left off. A lot of good things have to happen on the DL to say that...in particular Nixon and Golston need to become All-Big Ten first team players. I'm not saying it can't happen...but if you ask me which line looks poised to dominate, it's the Oline.

On offense you have an All Big Ten center, a legitimate NFL left tackle, and several young highly recruited guys battling it out for essentially two spots on the interior. Cronk, the Indiana transfer, is going to play somewhere. That dude was a stud and a sure NFL draft pick...likely high round draft pick. The other thing...is going to be size...we have some serious size and athletes on the OL. I think the running game improves greatly...as long as we don't have the injuries to key players.

Like I said above...Iowa is as good at the skill positions as I can remember. If LaPorta progresses like you expect him to after what he did as a true freshman...damn...we have offensive weapons everywhere. If Petras keeps the chains moving with accurate passing...this offensive will grind you up. I'm anxious to see Brian Ferentz's offense with an extremely accurate QB...65-68%. We are going to be tough to stop.

 

[trj]

The running game and TE play will determine Petras success. What they get out of that is the difference between 10-2 or 7-5.