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Or how I learned to stop worrying and love Iowa’s coordinators
I’m not going to lie to you and say that I wasn’t concerned after Iowa’s first drive went 3 and out and Washington then went 73 yards in 14 plays (even if they came away with no points). I was certainly happy that Iowa answered with a 9 play, 80 yard TD drive (fueled by some nice runs by KJ2 and KM28), but Washington came right back another 14 play, 75 yard TD drive and it felt, to me, like it was only a matter of time until their offense took over.
If I’m being honest, I was very doom and gloom in the first quarter (who am I kidding, I didn’t relax at all until Jermari Harris’ INT) and even though we took a 2 score lead into the break, I wasn’t sure it would hold. To tell you the truth, I thought we were staring straight down the barrell of Week 2 part Deux, what we got, instead, was Week 2 Redux, and I very much enjoyed this version of the Iowa Hawkeye football team.
When Tim Lester was announced as the new Offensive Coordinator in January I’m pretty sure the majority of the state responded with a giant “Who?” Well, what he didn’t have in name recognitiion, he has more than made up for in production and Saturday felt like the first time he really got to introduce his symphony to the Iowa faithful. There were so many plays debuted on Saturday that felt like he had been setting up since week 1.
There was this one to Kaden Wetjen:
There was this one for Kamari Moulton:
There was this, beautifully executed, pass to KJ2:
And this perfect pass to Dayton Howard off play-action:
In one offseason Tim Lester has taken the moribund Iowa offense to 65th in the nation in scoring (up from 132nd) and from 133rd to 70th in ypp average (3.9 to 5.8). Tim Lester said coming in that his goal for this season was to cut Iowa’s rankings in half and he’s well on his way to achieving that goal, and he’s already faced the 4 of the 5 best defenses he’ll see this year (Iowa State, Ohio State, Minnesota, Washington), the only remaining defense in the top 25 is Nebraska, so I won’t be surprised if those rankings are even higher by the end of the year. Rushing yards are up 48% over last year, passing up 12%, total yards up 34% and scoring has nearly doubled. There’s a lot of season left, but those are numbers that should make even the most cynical Iowa fan happy.
Iowa’s defense did not look good in the first quarter on Saturday. Yeah, Yahyah Black blocked a FG and Washington shot themselves inthe foot a couple times, but Will Rdogers was having a pretty good day through the first 2 quarters, even if they only put 10 points on the board. If I’m being honest, I wasn’t sure Iowa was going to be able to hold off that passing attack all day and just kept waiting for the Jonah Coleman run that never really happened.
It didn’t happen because Phil Parker spent the first half letting Jedd Fisch show him his cards, developing his strategy and then implementing the fixes necessary to shut it all down, and did he ever. In the first half Washington ran 33 plays for 214 yards (6.48 ypp) and scored 10 points. In the second half (excluding garbage time) Washington ran 22 plays for 104 yards (4.7 ypp) and scored 0 points. Adjustments are everything, and Phil Parker is the king of halftime adjustments.
There wasn’t anything flashy about it, just small changes like using more athletic DBs (Entringer, Lutmer) on UW’s monstrous TEs, or putting Jermari Harris on Denzel Boston pretty much fulltime, allowing the DL to pin their ears back and focus on pressuring Rodgers (resulting in 4 sacks and an awful lot of hurries). Phil turn the right levers and Iowa’s defense played it’s best half of football this year.
Listen, I know we love punters around these parts (and Rhys had a day), but what we saw on Saturday is a reminder that we are pretty spoiled at Iowa. Drew Stevens may not end up our leading scorer this year (which would be the first time that Iowa’s Kicker has not led the team in scoring since 2017 – Akrum Wadley) but he’s been all but a sure thing all year (and most of last year). The kick at the Shoe was neither short nor from a great angle and likely wouldn’t have made much of a difference anyways. Against Washington he was 4/4 with a long of 51 and 4/4 on XPMs, not much more you can ask him to do.
Washington’s kicker, Gabe Gross, had his first kick blocked, has missed 7 FGs so far this season and, essentially, forced Jedd Fisch to go for it on any 4th down where the team was more than 22 yards out or had more than 6 yards to go. Not having a solid kicker directly impacts your options to score points and Iowa has been blessed with a long string of very reliable kickers. Nuff Said.
Oh, and Rhys Dakin only go to punt twice and man did he impress with a 55 yarder and a 61 yarder, both downed inside the 20 (inside the 15 really). Kick and punt coverage was on point Saturday which forced Washington into long drives. Iowa, on the other hand, was treated to 5 returns (4 Kicks, 1 punt) from Kaden Wetjen which averaged 26 yards, including this 37 yard punt return that left Washington with a net of just 6 yards.
Levar Woods’ boys came to play, and they were impressive.
I know I was pretty doom and gloom last week, I think I just needed the catharsis that a blowout loss at the hands of (I still think) the best team in the country can bring. Going into last Saturday Iowa had not played a complete game and OSU was the first time that they really paid for it. Yeah, losing to ISU wasn’t great (and I still think they’re more paper than tiger), but if they keep winning that loss will keep looking better and better. There’s no shame in losing to OSU, and this team should be proud of the way it bounced back against a Washington team that will give people problems when they’re firing on all cylinders. If this is the team that shows up for the next 6 games, I like our chances.
Last but not least, take the time to watch these Kaleb Johnson highlights, because we’re not going to see him after Black Friday.
As always, GO HAWKS!!!
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