JonDMiller
Publisher/Founder
When I look at college defensive statistics, the first two places I look are a team's scoring and rushing defensive rankings.
Iowa's rushing defense ranked 63rd in the nation last year giving up 162.08 yards, which was the most rushing yards allowed by an Iowa defense since 2000's 194.3 (Iowa gave up 156 in 2011). * Surprisingly, Iowa's scoring defense ranked 33rd in the nation allowing just 22.92 points per game.
That might be the single most important statistic in the game of football, along with what your offense is scoring. *So as challenging as last year's 4-8 season was to watch and is to remember, this could be the one thing that shines through as Iowa fans hope this year's defense is better than last year's crew.
I believe it can be but the one area that will tell that tale is rushing the passer.
My friend Kirk Haaland has a website called encyclonepedia.com. *He is a statistical enthusiast like me, with the difference being he knows how to crunch the numbers and I just know how to look at them. *Most of his commentary comes from an Iowa State angle but the data is there for us to cut up for our own Hawkeye purposes.
In his latest article on rushing totals and rushing defense, Kirk takes a new twist on old data and looks at rushing totals when removing sacks. *This means removing sacks allowed by the offense and reducing the rushing attempts from rushing totals where a sack and sack yardage was counted against a team and doing a similar exercise for the defense.
This, from his item:
"With sacks removed the Cyclones gave up 4.65 yards per carry which would chime in at 52nd*best in the NCAA.* That 21 spots jumped in the rankings for yard per carry defense when sacks are taken out is the 4th*largest in the country. Meaning the Cyclone defense was hurt the 4th*most by including sacks in the rushing yardage, statistically.*Coincidentally, the leader in that category on defense was Iowa. Their rush defense jumped from 62nd*best to 30th*best when you remove the sack data."
When you click on his link and scroll to the team ranking area, he has it sorted by biggest increases for the rush defenses and you see that Iowa jumped up 32 spots. *This makes sense as Iowa was 115th in all of college football in sacking the quarterback last year with just 13 sacks. *Here are the programs who had fewer sacks than Iowa:
Florida Atlantic
Kansas
New Mexico State
Eastern Michigan
Boston College
Texas State
Massachusetts
Iowa defensive coordinator Phil Parker was asked about the pass rush this past week at a press conference:
"I think there’s some guys that have some knack to get there. Carl Davis, Cooper as an inside guy can help you. I think Dominic outside can hit you on the edge. We might have to create some situations a little bit more to help them out, maybe add some guys to the rush a little bit to help them out. It’s hard to get there when you have five guys blocking four. We all understand that. My biggest thing is try not to give up big plays. I think the game is still about scoring and not giving up points. That’s the most important thing. I think for the last two years, we were 24, last year we were 23. That’s my main concern, is points, I think."
There is that pesky reminder; rushing stats and sack stats and the like really wash out in the end if your defense is doing a good job of keeping points off the board. When you are giving up just 23 per game in this day and age of football, you are on the right side of good as Iowa's scoring defense ranking will bear out. But lack of pressure on the quarterback was a problem last year, everyone knows it including Parker and it will be interesting to see what Iowa does to address it.
On the flip side, you need to score points and Iowa was one of the worst in the nation at doing that at 19.33 per game which was 111th out of 120 and 113 out of 124. Iowa was 100th in the nation in yards per carry at 3.65 with sacks included in the numbers. *When you take out sacks, Iowa's yards per carry jumps to 4.27 yards per carry, which is actually 101st in the nation in yards per carry less the sacks. *Either way you slice Iowa's rushing totals, the Hawkeyes struggled mightily in 2012 and a part of that is due to injuries along the line. *Part of that was due to Iowa's installation of a new system and my belief that it was probably too much of a hybrid of what Kirk Ferentz wanted to see incorporated into Greg Davis' system and my hope for this year is that Davis is allowed to do things his way so we can at least see if it works. *This isn't to let Davis off the hook; if Iowa doesn't throw the ball downfield more often this year, the running game will have no chance as the box will be too compressed.
If Iowa can avoid the injury bug on the offensive line and in the backfield, I believe they can put together a solid rushing attack. They have several and different options in the backfield, too. I just have a hard time believing that Iowa's offense could be as bad as it was last year, so they have nowhere to go but up.
On defense, I think the line is going to be more productive than last year's crew. I think Iowa will put more pressure on the quarterback and I think they are going to begin taking steps towards their destiny, which is much more positive in 2014 along the line. Darian Cooper, Carl Davis and Louis Trinca-Pasat will be the veterans on the inside this year and freshmen Jaleel Johnson and Faith Ekakitie will get a chance to play, too. Dominic Alvis and Drew Ott would seem to be your likely starting defensive ends. The defense is going to be better as a whole, too.
The question that remains is if this improvement on both sides of the ball will be significant enough for Iowa to win at least six games and qualify for a bowl bid and the more practices that come with it.
Iowa's rushing defense ranked 63rd in the nation last year giving up 162.08 yards, which was the most rushing yards allowed by an Iowa defense since 2000's 194.3 (Iowa gave up 156 in 2011). * Surprisingly, Iowa's scoring defense ranked 33rd in the nation allowing just 22.92 points per game.
That might be the single most important statistic in the game of football, along with what your offense is scoring. *So as challenging as last year's 4-8 season was to watch and is to remember, this could be the one thing that shines through as Iowa fans hope this year's defense is better than last year's crew.
I believe it can be but the one area that will tell that tale is rushing the passer.
My friend Kirk Haaland has a website called encyclonepedia.com. *He is a statistical enthusiast like me, with the difference being he knows how to crunch the numbers and I just know how to look at them. *Most of his commentary comes from an Iowa State angle but the data is there for us to cut up for our own Hawkeye purposes.
In his latest article on rushing totals and rushing defense, Kirk takes a new twist on old data and looks at rushing totals when removing sacks. *This means removing sacks allowed by the offense and reducing the rushing attempts from rushing totals where a sack and sack yardage was counted against a team and doing a similar exercise for the defense.
This, from his item:
"With sacks removed the Cyclones gave up 4.65 yards per carry which would chime in at 52nd*best in the NCAA.* That 21 spots jumped in the rankings for yard per carry defense when sacks are taken out is the 4th*largest in the country. Meaning the Cyclone defense was hurt the 4th*most by including sacks in the rushing yardage, statistically.*Coincidentally, the leader in that category on defense was Iowa. Their rush defense jumped from 62nd*best to 30th*best when you remove the sack data."
When you click on his link and scroll to the team ranking area, he has it sorted by biggest increases for the rush defenses and you see that Iowa jumped up 32 spots. *This makes sense as Iowa was 115th in all of college football in sacking the quarterback last year with just 13 sacks. *Here are the programs who had fewer sacks than Iowa:
Florida Atlantic
Kansas
New Mexico State
Eastern Michigan
Boston College
Texas State
Massachusetts
Iowa defensive coordinator Phil Parker was asked about the pass rush this past week at a press conference:
"I think there’s some guys that have some knack to get there. Carl Davis, Cooper as an inside guy can help you. I think Dominic outside can hit you on the edge. We might have to create some situations a little bit more to help them out, maybe add some guys to the rush a little bit to help them out. It’s hard to get there when you have five guys blocking four. We all understand that. My biggest thing is try not to give up big plays. I think the game is still about scoring and not giving up points. That’s the most important thing. I think for the last two years, we were 24, last year we were 23. That’s my main concern, is points, I think."
There is that pesky reminder; rushing stats and sack stats and the like really wash out in the end if your defense is doing a good job of keeping points off the board. When you are giving up just 23 per game in this day and age of football, you are on the right side of good as Iowa's scoring defense ranking will bear out. But lack of pressure on the quarterback was a problem last year, everyone knows it including Parker and it will be interesting to see what Iowa does to address it.
On the flip side, you need to score points and Iowa was one of the worst in the nation at doing that at 19.33 per game which was 111th out of 120 and 113 out of 124. Iowa was 100th in the nation in yards per carry at 3.65 with sacks included in the numbers. *When you take out sacks, Iowa's yards per carry jumps to 4.27 yards per carry, which is actually 101st in the nation in yards per carry less the sacks. *Either way you slice Iowa's rushing totals, the Hawkeyes struggled mightily in 2012 and a part of that is due to injuries along the line. *Part of that was due to Iowa's installation of a new system and my belief that it was probably too much of a hybrid of what Kirk Ferentz wanted to see incorporated into Greg Davis' system and my hope for this year is that Davis is allowed to do things his way so we can at least see if it works. *This isn't to let Davis off the hook; if Iowa doesn't throw the ball downfield more often this year, the running game will have no chance as the box will be too compressed.
If Iowa can avoid the injury bug on the offensive line and in the backfield, I believe they can put together a solid rushing attack. They have several and different options in the backfield, too. I just have a hard time believing that Iowa's offense could be as bad as it was last year, so they have nowhere to go but up.
On defense, I think the line is going to be more productive than last year's crew. I think Iowa will put more pressure on the quarterback and I think they are going to begin taking steps towards their destiny, which is much more positive in 2014 along the line. Darian Cooper, Carl Davis and Louis Trinca-Pasat will be the veterans on the inside this year and freshmen Jaleel Johnson and Faith Ekakitie will get a chance to play, too. Dominic Alvis and Drew Ott would seem to be your likely starting defensive ends. The defense is going to be better as a whole, too.
The question that remains is if this improvement on both sides of the ball will be significant enough for Iowa to win at least six games and qualify for a bowl bid and the more practices that come with it.
