Personally I think the offensive struggles the last couple of years have been the result of a perfect storm of events.
1. Petras was the best QB we had and was the prototypical game-manager that fits well with this system and defense. He had a big arm, could hit all the throws and didn't throw interceptions. For that type of QB you need to have weapons at every level, a competent running game and above all else you have to protect him. For the most part the last 2 seasons Petras had none of those 3. Square peg round hole.
2. Recruiting misses and injuries on the OL. Blame Petras and BF all you want, the real problem has been the OL. If you are only taking 3 or 4 OL in each class you don't have much room when 2 of them get injured and the other is a miss.
3. Loss of Charlie Jones and especially the timing hurt. Who would have thought Tyrone Tracy would have digressed so much. Arland Bruce sucked and KJ was pretty good but a pretty good player on the bench is the same as no player. Vines constantly hurt and Nico even hurt half the time. Hard to expect an offense with a below average offensive line, with a non-mobile QB and go-to receivers of Arland Bruce and Alec Wick to move the chains.
4. Late to the transfer/NIL party: hard to blame the coaches here, if there is no NIL in place how could they get anyone decent to fill the holes? I know they slow-played it because they wanted to follow the rules and be classy about it, but those they basically cheated got rewarded. That cost them last year.
5. The whole racist thing sure as hell didn't help anything. That probably cost Kallenberger in 21, Alt in recruiting, Doyle, but the resonating effect in recruiting of what we don't know probably can't be measured.
6. Now BF. I actually think he is an effective offensive coordinator but from a management position. I actually think BF will be a better head coach than a coordinator. I look at BF like Petras, they are both probably really good in a narrow window if everything else around them lines up, but, they don't have the tools to adjust on the fly. I still say that the entire goal of KF and BF was to bring that TE centered offense from New England and adapt it to Iowa, and while it was a sound plan, for the most part they couldn't get the right pieces in place. That offense is deadly and could be done at Iowa, but it needs everything to work together. That is in comparison to a basic read-option type offense where a great QB and a couple of other pieces can make it effective. I think BF is capable of coaching that, but beyond that, doesn't have the offensive creativity and experience to adapt. For 2023 they are doubling down on that premise and went out and got the pieces for their philosophy. I think they did that part well and I definitely think BF can coach that because I do think he does a good job play-calling and setting up his plays.
7. One other thing: defenses on our schedule are really good. Last year alone we faced 3, 4, 6, 9, 11 and 14th rated defenses. Every team struggles with that, let alone a team like Iowa with massive offensive deficiencies mentioned above. All of those teams have great and elite pass rushers and totally destroyed anything this offense was going to try to do. Really for the most part every team played us like we play them; a lot of zone on the back end, rarely rush more than 4 and keep everyone's eyes in the backfield. Where that does not work is against teams with elite outside weapons, efficient offensive lines and an accurate quarterback, none of which we have had.
