This Isn't Your "Classic Iowa" Offense
The Iowa Hawkeyes and new QB, Spencer Petras, come to TCF Bank Stadium to play the Minnesota Gophers on Friday. This isn't the Iowa offense many might remember, though.
www.minnesotasportsfan.com
Lets look at yards per play in the big ten to measure offensive competency. Yards per play because it (helps) get us past the issue of pace and the contribution of good defense/special teams. (short fields are a good problem to have)
2021:
| 14 | Iowa | 8 | 840 | 1492 | 527 | 2332 | 4.4 | 21 | 291.5 |
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2020:
| 8 | Iowa | 9 | 1563 | 1748 | 618 | 3311 | 5.4 | 29 | 367.9 |
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2019:
| 7 | Iowa | 13 | 1789 | 2976 | 864 | 4765 | 5.5 | 33 | 366.5 |
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Don't have yards per play, but do have other stats from further back in Brian's tenure:
2018:
Iowa 4th PPG, 10th rush YPG, 5th pass YPG
2017:
5th PPG, 11th rush YPG, 9th pass YPG
Take a look at QB yards and TDs from a few years ago:
Nathan Stanley stats:
| *2017 | Iowa | Big Ten | SO | QB | 13 | 196 | 351 | 55.8 | 2432 | 6.9 | 7.6 | 26 | 6 | 135.1 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| *2018 | Iowa | Big Ten | JR | QB | 13 | 235 | 396 | 59.3 | 2852 | 7.2 | 7.4 | 26 | 10 | 136.5 |
| *2019 | Iowa | Big Ten | SR | QB | 13 | 237 | 399 | 59.4 | 2951 | 7.4 | 7.4 | 16 | 7 | 131.2 |
So we see that Iowa certainly hasn't been at the bottom of the power five conference, the big ten, often under Brain Ferentz. The offense looks to be on average middle of the pack. Yes, 2021 is really sucking. Arguably, though, we have the least amount of (developed) offensive talent we've had in a while. Our WR talent is young. We don't have a sure fire NFL TE. We have a QB that I'm not very impressed by, and our OL is young/injured.
As noted above by Urban and the article, Brian has updated the offense quite a bit. We've got lots of spread looks now. We're actually really multiple in our formations. That's not the problem. I don't think the predictable label applies as much as it used to. At least not in the pass game, where Brian has had more of an influence. I get the feeling our run game and its adherence to this particular zone blocking scheme is much more KF controlled. Our pass game has also generally out-performed our run game over Brian's tenure as OC.
Am I saying BF is anything amazing as an OC? No. Is he bottom of the barrel in college FB? No. Does KF still exert quite a bit of influence over how our offense is run conceptually? Very likely so.
Now shower me with your hate.
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