And best since Bama in 2011, wow! Also Urban Meyer did a segement on Iowa D on BTN yesterday, well done! Highlighted Noah Shannon several times and Van Ness, all about hands, leverage and pad level.
Iowa D giving up only 3.85 yards per play, best in FBS...
- Thread starter BigOHawk
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they are great group
imagine if we had an average offense
imagine if we had an average offense
Yeah having that 3.85 number with Michigan and OSU on the schedule is very good. It does help that Iowa has also played Rutgers and Nevada, who are two of the worst teams in college FB in offensive yards per play.
But if you look at Iowa vs OSU, Buckeyes averaged 5.8 yards per play, for the season they are at 7.3, best in the country. Michigan's season average is 6.5 yards per play, and Iowa held them to 4.2 yards per play. Some of that was Harbaugh pretty much shutting it down after they got ahead 20-0 as he knew Iowa's offense couldn't score enough to win.
So Iowa hasn't arrived at that number just by playing bad offenses (although they have played very well against the bad offenses too). They have played well against the good offenses.
Illinois and Purdue are both Os that haven't been ranked too bad offensively this season.
Actually Ghost neither Illinois or Purdue are very good offensively this year, at least on a yards per play basis. Purdue is 83rd in the country at 5.2 yards per play. Illinois is 87th at 5.1 yards per paly. For all the hullabaloo Purdue gets about their offense, they just aren't very good offensively this year. They throw the ball a lot, and Jones gets a lot of catches which makes for nice memes and digs at the Iowa offense, but for all the bluster Purdue's offense doesn't actually get much done this year. Now, they are better than Iowa's offense (Iowa sits at 4.4 yards per play, 118th in the country). Jones was targeted 19 times against Iowa and had 11 catches for 108 yards. 11 for 108 sounds good, but it was the epitome of empty calories. Just 5.68 per pass attempt when Jones was the targeted receiver. That is very inefficient.
And when O'Connell targeted receivers other than Jones Purdue's efficiency fell off a cliff. When throwing to receivers not Jones, O'Connell was 9-24 for 60 yards. That is 2.5 yards per pass attempt. Oh and add in 2 interceptions for good measure. It is almost impossible to be that inefficient throwing the football. Upon further examination, Phil Parker's D put Brohm's offense in a lockbox of epic proportions last Saturday.
If we look at how Iowa's defense handled Purdue and Illinois compared to their season averages, it is interesting.
Illinois - averaging 5.1 yards per play on the year, Iowa limited them to 4.2 yards per play. Of course, the issue in that game was that Illinois put an even bigger chokehold on the Iowa offense, holding Iowa to 3.36 yards per play.
Purdue - averages 5.2 yards per play for the year, Iowa held them to 3.44 yards per play while the Iowa offense put up 6.48 yards per play against Purdue. That is a 3 yard per down difference in efficiency. Domination.
I know it' been said many times, but it's too bad the Iowa offense couldn't have shown just a few bits more improvement earlier in the season. It took epic levels of bad offense to lose games to Illinois and Iowa State. Iowa's defense held the Cyclones to less that 4 yards per play, got 3 Cyclone turnovers, blocked 2 punts. And STILL LOST. Still amazing to look at from the raw numbers with the emotion off a couple months later.
Iowa and Illinois are basically the same team, except Iowa's special teams are better and Illinois' offense has been just a teeny bit better. And still, if the ball pops out of the Illinois' player's hands a millisecond sooner before his butt hits the ground, Iowa wins that game on the returned fumble for a TD.
This is way too long, sorry for that but just started looking at these numbers. I would summarize by saying:
- Iowa has played great defense consistently against both bad and good offenses.
- Iowa is/has benefited from playing a number of offenses that aren't very good, which helps the overall numbers. But the defense's performance against Michigan and OSU shows Iowa D of high quality. And the defense has made those bad offenses look really bad. That is what good defenses do.
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