It doesn't matter who helps who as long as it ends in W's.
The defense didn't need any help for Iowa to have averaged 9 wins the past two seasons.
Only so many things can be emphasized, or else nothing ends up getting emphasized.
Unfortunately the emphasis took on a different life this year to help install and execute a new offense. And it has come at a price, which it almost always does. This is exactly what I warned could happen if ANY emphasis were to be taken off of the defense.
Iowa proved that they could average 9 wins with the worst offense in the country. This only happens with an elite defense. An elite defense only happens when it is the emphasis.
This season has given a prime example. Almost the the entire defense returned and it has been a shell of itself. Sure, Cooper was a difference maker. But Iowa's D also performed very, very well when Cooper was out last season. Evans and Logan Lee were good players, but many times over the years Iowa's defense has lost more talented players and simply reloaded the following season. I don't want to hear that the difference on D has been a personnel issue. It's been an emphasis issue.
It's been the price of Iowa trying to forge a new identity. Again, a 9 win average with the worst offense in the country tells you that the emphasis for Iowa should ALWAYS be defense. Twice as many losses already this regular season with vastly improved offensive production tells you that NO emphasis should have EVER been taken away from the D.
Again, this all paints the picture of fans having been wrong all along to have given KF and Iowa football such a hard time.
It also should put to rest the narrative that Iowa wasted a couple seasons when the defense was elite. There is no "just add offense" recipe. As we've seen, even without changing to a spread offense, ANY shift away from an emphasis on defense, and simply winning, has come at a price
