DES MOINES, Iowa– The Hawkeyes have high expectations for the 2024 season, but of course, everybody is talking about the offense. Recently Athlon Sports released its annual college football magazine. One of the most interesting components of the magazine is the comments made by coaches across the league.
Throughout the years, Iowa’s defense and special teams have been consistently great. It’s almost taken for granted because of how frequently they produce. That’s why the majority of the focus is about Tim Lester and Kirk Ferentz’s offense.
“Everything here is automatic except the offense,” one coach said. “They’re a premier development and depth program at how they scout, build and develop on defense and special teams. It’s just the offensive component.”
“How much is Tim Lester really going to affect this program?” Another coach said. “How much can Cade McNamara do coming off the injury? Are they going to come out in 11 personnel on first down? Lester was a three-receiver, four-receiver look guy at Western Michigan.”
The talk during spring practice was that Lester has full control of the offense. Numerous Iowa defensive players said that the offense looks different and that they’ve had to switch the way the practiced defense because the offense was adjusting so much. The emphasis on pre-snap motion, route-running and run/pass options weren’t on full display during the open spring practice, but it would have been surprising if it was any different.
Of course, Iowa quarterback Cade McNamara is expected to be fully-cleared in the near future. Right now, the plan is that he will be Iowa’s starting quarterback when the season begins on August 31. McNamara was never fully-healthy during this past season before suffering a torn ACL.
“Yeah, it’s been hard on Cade. He wants to go so bad. He’ll get cleared here in the next couple months and be on his plan that he needs to be on,” Lester said during his only spring availability. “It’s been fun to do a couple individual drills with him, and he’s fighting through all the frustration of wanting to be out there.”
“I called it as if Cade was in there, really because of the other 10 guys in there,” Lester said of spring practice. “If I was calling a game with each and every guy as I’m learning about them, I would probably call certain situations differently, but that doesn’t help the other 10 guys in the fall. We’re going to have to be aggressive at times. So that was kind of the plan, the mindset going in.”
Brian Ferentz departed this past offseason, but there are still some that believe that Iowa’s offensive issues are deeper than the offensive coordinator.
“I don’t think anyone really knows what it’s going to look like, but the idea that Kirk Ferentz’s son was the sole problem on offense?” one coach said. “No way.”
It would be hard to believe that one person would make that drastic of a difference in the offense, but change needed to happen regardless. There are other factors at hand including quarterback development, route trees for wide receivers and an inconsistent offensive line. The Hawkeyes will return plenty of experience, including tight end Luke Lachey.
Iowa football is back on campus and will begin summer workouts.
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