Our defense gave up THREE touchdowns in the past SIX games.

[NCHawker]

I could be wrong but I think our defense can compete with anyone but they need the offense to help by not turning the ball over and by getting some first downs. I admit that I am biased and could be wrong. That being said I doubt that the offense will give us enough to tell us definitely.

I know what you mean and at the same time Iowa hasn't faced a dynamic QB or passing team this year. There are a lot of those teams out there. UM can push the ball by passing but that's not their #1 tool.

 

[NCHawker]

The sad thing is Kirk won’t do much of anything different with regard to HIS offensive game plan.
Historically he has shown his propensity for playing games in a phone booth, even against far superior talent. Being an overwhelming underdog is when you need to be creative and take some chances.

Let it rip Kirk or at least show them a few wrinkles. Kirk puts so much pressure on Parker’s defense with all the three and outs.

This year the strategy is nothing more than slam away running and hope you can find a crease eventually and break a long run. The problem with that is you spend the whole game doing that, punting and maybe in the 4th quarter there is a play... one play...

 

[Teddy]

The sad thing is Kirk won’t do much of anything different with regard to HIS offensive game plan.
Historically he has shown his propensity for playing games in a phone booth, even against far superior talent. Being an overwhelming underdog is when you need to be creative and take some chances.

Let it rip Kirk or at least show them a few wrinkles. Kirk puts so much pressure on Parker’s defense with all the three and outs.

There are two approaches for a team with a significant talent disparity. Play it close, kick a FG at the end and win. Or, pull the balls off the wall and throw so many trick(ish) plays against the other side that we win a wild one.

Were I in charge we'd be throwing flea flickers, half back options, etc... I do not think KF shares my opinion.

 

[okeefe4prez]

There are two approaches for a team with a significant talent disparity. Play it close, kick a FG at the end and win. Or, pull the balls off the wall and throw so many trick(ish) plays against the other side that we win a wild one.

Were I in charge we'd be throwing flea flickers, half back options, etc... I do not think KF shares my opinion.

This is the only chance Iowa has in this game. Kurt watches the games, he knows that we will get our asses broken if we have another 41 minute stretch where the offense moves the ball 29 yards and fails to attain a first down. If we run 15 gadget plays and they all fail and we lose 56-0 I won't complain. If we run our shit-tastic base offense and don't try anything crazy and we lose 42-3 I will complain.

 

[MelroseHawkins]

It's amazing how they get guys that can repeatedly bring us a top defense without getting the top rated recruits. Say what you want about having a good eye for talent, etc, but why can't any other school do it? Just crazy.

I kind of thought about this the other day and made a post somewhere. I was talking about how weird this season is with all the injuries and distraction and whoever they throw in the game just seems to perform and it looks relatively the same from the 1 or 2 deeps. That's indicative of great coaching. When you plug players who many are 3 star players coming in and they make the correct reads or are in the correct position with technique, that's good coaching and why Iowa's D's is so difficult to play. It's amazing actually when thinking about it.

Iowa is kind of like plug-n-play which is usually a title given to the blue bloods out there, but Iowa does it being a developmental program. It's actually kind of neat to witness.

 

[MelroseHawkins]

I don’t entirely disagree. Just saying we’ll finally find out after 13 weeks. As you know, I’m a huge critic of our scheduling strategy for this very reason. Secondly, for the “all hail Ferentz crowd”, the need for a real offense is completely exposed because you simply will never win these games with no offense.

I know what we are, but it would be nice to know publicly all the deficiencies in September

We need to be rooting like hell for TOSU as they don’t have a quarterback. If we can somehow turn them one dimensional, still a longshot but you never know

I think Michigan would destroy us

Dude, the BIG 10 sets the conference schedule. Nothing Iowa can do about that but play who is on it. Now for non-conference, Iowa plays a very similar if not more difficult than many teams out there as they actually play another p5 conference team against Iowa State every year.

I know you are going to come back stating well it's Iowa State, but they are formidable and we play them on the road with home and away games each year.

Look at Ohio St's non-con schedule. They played Youngstown St and Western Kentucky as well as Notre Dame.

Alabama played South Florida, Middle Tenn St. and played freaking Chattanooga on Nov. 18th for krist's sake.

Oh and Georgia played UT Martin, Ball St. and UAB.

Michigan played East Carolina, UNLV and Bowling Green.

My point is your argument about the scheduling gets pretty old and has no teeth whatsoever. But you do make a valid point about their success and record against top teams, I'll give you that.

 

[Hawkfnntn]

It's amazing how they get guys that can repeatedly bring us a top defense without getting the top rated recruits. Say what you want about having a good eye for talent, etc, but why can't any other school do it? Just crazy.

This yr doing it seems even more wild then most if only because coming off last yr they lost Van Ness, Campbell and Moss. That's a major stud at each level of the D. Yet Dline even though they aren't getting sacks they are doing their jobs. LBs both are as great as could be Higgins is unreal and our secondary besides the big play to Nebraska there's been very little to nit pick them about and that was without DeJean. Parker is a genius.

 

[MelroseHawkins]

I could be wrong but I think our defense can compete with anyone but they need the offense to help by not turning the ball over and by getting some first downs. I admit that I am biased and could be wrong. That being said I doubt that the offense will give us enough to tell us definitely.

You are not wrong and nailed it.

When Iowa is in jeopardy is when they play a team that can move the chains and win the TOP keeping the D on the field for the majority of the game.

 

[MelroseHawkins]

The D will give up 3 touchdowns vs Michigan and that will be an accomplishment.
Offense will be offensive.
Silly talk of trick plays. Iowa doesn't have the OL to allow such slow developing plays to be executed without getting blown up, let alone the skill players to execute them.
It'll be another, humbling "know your place" loss.

But it's kind of an exciting and intriguing game and could be very interesting to watch because of what you state above. Now, will it still be interesting by the middle of the 3 Q, we will find out.

How cool would that be if Iowa ended up being the only West team to win the C-ship game?

 

[Teddy]

Dude, the BIG 10 sets the conference schedule. Nothing Iowa can do about that but play who is on it. Now for non-conference, Iowa plays a very similar if not more difficult than many teams out there as they actually play another p5 conference team against Iowa State every year.

I know you are going to come back stating well it's Iowa State, but they are formidable and we play them on the road with home and away games each year.

Look at Ohio St's non-con schedule. They played Youngstown St and Western Kentucky as well as Notre Dame.

Alabama played South Florida, Middle Tenn St. and played freaking Chattanooga on Nov. 18th for krist's sake.

Oh and Georgia played UT Martin, Ball St. and UAB.

Michigan played East Carolina, UNLV and Bowling Green.

My point is your argument about the scheduling gets pretty old and has no teeth whatsoever. But you do make a valid point about their success and record against top teams, I'll give you that.

Great response. I'm just surprised you failed to include the poster you refuted only makes negative posts about Iowa football? No matter how big the win, or how many games won, he finds some snarky remark about Iowa.

Nor do they have to be fact-based snark. As you note, Iowa's scheduling is consistent with P5 scheduling by most P5 teams.

 

[Dadman]

I think that the Mich players will be star struck blinded by the second coming, aka the return of St. Jimmy to the sidelines, and our defense will put a scare into 'em. Not saying we will win, but might be a bit closer than 99.999 percent think.............

 

[ajdwhs87]

I think that the Mich players will be star struck blinded by the second coming, aka the return of St. Jimmy to the sidelines, and our defense will put a scare into 'em. Not saying we will win, but might be a bit closer than 99.999 percent think.............

I don't know about anything scaring them I say squash J.J and knock him out of the game. then coral Corum as best you can, keep it close and try to squeak one out.

 

[SCHawkeye2]

It's amazing how they get guys that can repeatedly bring us a top defense without getting the top rated recruits. Say what you want about having a good eye for talent, etc, but why can't any other school do it? Just crazy.

And why can't our offensive staff do that?

 

[99topdawg]

And why can't our offensive staff do that?

Our offense is terrible so we can't get any recruits.
We can't get any recruits because our offense is terrible.
Lather, rinse, repeat.

Honestly though (nothing to do with recruiting), I think the biggest problem has been the OL compared to past years. Not saying Petras would've been all conference, but I think he would've been decent if we had an OL, meaning we'd have a run game, which would help our passing game as we've seen in the past. We have good RB's and TE's when healthy. Right now we don't have terrible receivers, but we don't have anything close to a #1 or #2 type WR. We're starting to see the OL come around and a few big gains from our RB's in part because we've been able to incorporate a greater variety of blocking schemes. It's been really fun to watch the last half of the season. Also, we've had a pretty healthy line so they have been able to gel like they haven't been able to in the past. Hill has improved, but it doesn't take much. He's still pretty bad.

 

[Teddy]

Our offense is terrible so we can't get any recruits.
We can't get any recruits because our offense is terrible.
Lather, rinse, repeat.

Honestly though (nothing to do with recruiting), I think the biggest problem has been the OL compared to past years. Not saying Petras would've been all conference, but I think he would've been decent if we had an OL, meaning we'd have a run game, which would help our passing game as we've seen in the past. We have good RB's and TE's when healthy. Right now we don't have terrible receivers, but we don't have anything close to a #1 or #2 type WR. We're starting to see the OL come around and a few big gains from our RB's in part because we've been able to incorporate a greater variety of blocking schemes. It's been really fun to watch the last half of the season. Also, we've had a pretty healthy line so they have been able to gel like they haven't been able to in the past. Hill has improved, but it doesn't take much. He's still pretty bad.

Iowa does recruit good players. The Colby, Stephens and Davidkov OL class was all 4*s and Davidikov just below a 5* (I think). Davidkov's career ended before it began, Stephens has suffered an almost continuous stream of injuries and even Colby has missed some games. We cannot stack classes of 5 or 6 4* and 5* recruits. So, when those kinds of guys are hurt there might even be a walk on behind them. Or some guy with zero experience or a freshman that weighs 265 pounds.

The wide receivers haven't been terrible. Kaleb Brown is obviously a #1 type WR. Keagan Johnson was, I think potentially a game breaker. Although, his portal venture didn't work out the way he thought it would. Didn't start and had only 21 catches for 196 yards, less than 10 per catch. As a freshman at Iowa he had 18 catches for almost 352 yards. 3 more catches for 60% of the yards? Keagan, if healthy, would have been the number one target, even with both TEs. Even with the poor quarterbacking the kid would have had a lot more targets and a lot more than 21 catches. Hell, Keagan stayed healthy for 10 games, just 1 less than the 11 he played while at Iowa. Iowa played 27 games in those two seasons.

You are not all wrong. While we have had a run of line trouble, mostly beginning with the loss on Ince and Britt for the years they would have been juniors and senior. Part has been the injuries, but the line play has been really bad. 2020-team weakness; 2021-team weakness; 2022-team catastrophic and 2023-improving but far from good. The poor line play is reflected in the lack of offensive production, as you note.​

 

[guffus]

Dude, the BIG 10 sets the conference schedule. Nothing Iowa can do about that but play who is on it. Now for non-conference, Iowa plays a very similar if not more difficult than many teams out there as they actually play another p5 conference team against Iowa State every year.

I know you are going to come back stating well it's Iowa State, but they are formidable and we play them on the road with home and away games each year.

Look at Ohio St's non-con schedule. They played Youngstown St and Western Kentucky as well as Notre Dame.

Alabama played South Florida, Middle Tenn St. and played freaking Chattanooga on Nov. 18th for krist's sake.

Oh and Georgia played UT Martin, Ball St. and UAB.

Michigan played East Carolina, UNLV and Bowling Green.

My point is your argument about the scheduling gets pretty old and has no teeth whatsoever. But you do make a valid point about their success and record against top teams, I'll give you that.

FWIW Bama did play Texas and Georgia played GT this year.

Of course, the SEC only plays 8 conference games, so you could argue that those games are the equivilant of a 9th conference game. In fact, Bama and Texas will be a conference game the next time they play. Georgia did not do it this year but often does play another P5 team in addition to GT.

 

[Gibsonian]

It is actually and overdue time for this concept of complimentary football. Compliment the defense for a change offense! You need to dig deep, this is your time to shine on the national stage when almost to a man in America, you are predicted to get smoked. Defense, you have to be better than you have ever been in any game yet this year. Can it be done? Yes. Can we do it? Up to the Hawks man.

 

[Gibsonian]

But it's kind of an exciting and intriguing game and could be very interesting to watch because of what you state above. Now, will it still be interesting by the middle of the 3 Q, we will find out.

How cool would that be if Iowa ended up being the only West team to win the C-ship game?

Ultra cool

 

[Seth53]

28-3 as scum shows mercy

 

[kicker22]

Dude, the BIG 10 sets the conference schedule. Nothing Iowa can do about that but play who is on it. Now for non-conference, Iowa plays a very similar if not more difficult than many teams out there as they actually play another p5 conference team against Iowa State every year.

I know you are going to come back stating well it's Iowa State, but they are formidable and we play them on the road with home and away games each year.

Look at Ohio St's non-con schedule. They played Youngstown St and Western Kentucky as well as Notre Dame.

Alabama played South Florida, Middle Tenn St. and played freaking Chattanooga on Nov. 18th for krist's sake.

Oh and Georgia played UT Martin, Ball St. and UAB.

Michigan played East Carolina, UNLV and Bowling Green.

My point is your argument about the scheduling gets pretty old and has no teeth whatsoever. But you do make a valid point about their success and record against top teams, I'll give you that.

I'll agree with you, but there's one major flaw in your argument. The difference between us and the programs you listed are those teams are starting out at the top of the polls and only have to sustain it rather than climb the ladder to reach the top of the polls. It's a flawed system, but unfortunately that's how it is. UGA, Bama, OSU, and Michigan don't need to schedule world beaters year in and year out because they're focused on winning their conferences on a yearly basis and don't necessarily care about who they play OOC.