Intro:

Guys, I don’t know if The Football Thing is happening this year.

As far as a Football Thing goes…Iowa doesn’t fare too badly. Maryland has September Maryland. Michigan State has Sparty No! Indiana, if it had a Football Thing, would be “every 23 years for 23 games…it gets to eat…”.

Ever since Iowa sacrificed the requisite number of live chickens to banish Angry Iowa Running Back Hating God back to the netherworld…Iowa football has mostly become Iowa Football™. They don’t overachieve, they don’t underachieve. They don’t have a hilarious tendency to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. They play to their level.

Except. Iowa has a Football Thing. Their Football Thing is that every season, for one game, usually at home, they get to turn into the mid-aughts New England Patriots. They aren’t the Greatest Show on Turf: they’re the team that defeats the Greatest Show on Turf. Every team on Iowa’s schedule lives in abject, groveling fear of this game, and, once Iowa has their Patriots Game, sighs in relief. Because they only get one.

We all have to keep cowering, because I don’t think we can say it’s happened yet. They DID win 41-0 vs noted powerhouse Western Michigan and 22-0 vs Rutger, but honestly I don’t think those count. Team is frightening as: an unnoticed, unopened can of spinach somewhere in the vicinity of Popeye.

Week 12 Update

One-Sentence* Summary:

Ladies and Gentlemen, presenting your Big Ten West Division Champions: the Iowa Fightin’ FERENTZES!

The Hawkeyes came into this game needing a win against EITHER Illinois or Nebraska, and clinched it on Saturday vs. the Fightin’ Berts in the usual Iowa Football way (complete with a safety!), 15-13. Iowa may not have a functional offense, but their defense is so good that neither do any of their opponents: they outgained Illinois by a single yard. They are a Cooper DeJean (who went down in practice last week and is out for the season) arm movement and an overzealous ref away from absolute domination over the West Division, and of their opponents, only Penn State looked like they deserved to beat Iowa.

Last time Iowa was in the Championship game was, of course, 2021, when 11-1 Michigan (ranked 2) lit the 10-2 Hawkeyes (ranked 13!) on fire to the tune of 42-3. The 2021 Iowa offense, all Spencer Petras of it, was miles better than what Ferentz The Younger has rolled out this year.

We don’t yet know whether Michigan or Ohio State will get the honor of deleting Iowa from existence in the B1G Championship Game. Michigan has been playing two games per week (one against the actual opponent, one against the entire B1G Conference) since our BYE. Ohio State has been collaborating with the rest of the conference and playing the commissioner like Nero’s fiddle.*

Stop, Stop! He’s Already Dead

I think Iowa scores need a multiplier. Anyone (all 5 of you) who watched their “game” last week against “planning is hard without Ryan Day’s help” Rutgers knew that as soon as they kicked their first field goal, 3-0 might as well have been 30-0, and the final score of 22-0 might as well have been 220-0. Likewise, they wouldn’t be able to close their 31-point scoring gap against Penn State if the game was still going on and PSU replaced all their defenders with 11 cardboard cutouts of Taika Waititi in a Cover 2 shell.

They’re still a painfully fascinating team: basically ANY lead is safe, and basically ANY deficit is insurmountable.

Futility Rate

Iowa had fewer 3-and-outs on Saturday than Michigan did. Deacon “The Deacon” Hill is slowly but surely leading Iowa on drives that gain first downs, and his receivers are slowly but surely learning how to catch, after, apparently, realizing that they have hands for the first time in their lives somewhere around Game 8.

RB Receptions are Moneyball, Dammit

Zero and zero this week. Guys. Guys…

Ok, I’ve been pounding the table that RB receptions are Moneyball, dammit…but I don’t think that acknowledges how necessary they are; they are a critical part of consistently moving the football, and any team that ignores them is playing with fire.

The NFL knows this. I ran the numbers so that you didn’t have to, and before yesterday’s games are accounted for, the average NFL team had gotten 318 receiving yards from the RB/FB position. So far. [Last year, over the course of the season, the average was around 575.] Here’s the list of NFL backs with more receiving yards (before Week 11) than Iowa has as a team after Week 12:

• Christian McCaffrey, SF, 339 yds
• Rachaad White, TB, 326 yds
• Alvin Kamara, NO, 305 yds
• Travis Etienne Jr., JAX, 275 yds
• Antonio Gibson, WSH, 269 yds
• Samaje Perine, DEN, 266 yds
• Brian Robinson Jr., WSH, 256 yds
• Josh Jacobs, LV, 253 yds
• Austin Ekeler, LAC, 248 yds
• Breece Hall, NYJ, 246 yds
• Rhamondre Stevenson, NE, 229 yds
• James Cook, BUF, 222 yds
• Jaylen Warren, PIT, 218 yds
• Bijan Robinson, ATL, 208 yds
• Jahmyr Gibbs, DET, 200 yds
• Tony Pollard, DAL, 190 yds
• Joe Mixon, CIN, 188 yds
• Kenneth Walker III, SEA, 175 yds
• Aaron Jones, GB, 166 yds
• D'Andre Swift, PHI, 166 yds
• Tyjae Spears, TEN, 166 yds
• Alexander Mattison, MIN, 164 yds
• Derrick Henry, TEN, 161 yds
• Isiah Pacheco, KC, 160 yds
• Raheem Mostert, MIA, 151 yds
• Jerick McKinnon, KC, 147 yds
• Jerome Ford, CLE, 141 yds
• Jonathan Taylor, IND, 137 yds
• Zack Moss, IND, 123 yds

It doesn’t take a McCaffrey or a Kamara to excel here. If you’re a running back and have next-level aspirations, demand that your team throw you the ball. Dammit.

One-Phase Football

After a brief foray above the 120th ranked SP+ offense (118th last week), Iowa decided that winning games with offense just isn’t for them. But their defensive ranking ALSO dropped a point, probably directly attributable to Cooper’s absence, which means that they’re in the red. A #3 defense would be awesome for any other team in the country. For Iowa, it’s collar-tugging nervousness.

Remember, we’re rooting for an historically-mismatched team. When Iowa’s offense improves or their defense worsens, we get that much farther away from SP+ history.

Oh, and USC, with the #3 offense and #113 defense, is charging HARD for an Inverse Iowa. Maybe we should put it on the board? Iowa’s SP+ gap didn’t even exceed 110 places until Week 5 this year.

Hey, It Could Be Worse

Cooper’s out, so it’s worse. This is a first-round talent who got injured at the worst possible time, right as Iowa has to 1) clinch the West, 2) survive the Championship game, and 3) win a bowl game. In Michigan terms, this is like losing Khaleke Hudson and Josh Metellus and (the special teams duties of) DPJ off the 2017 team. Or Jamar Adams + Steve Breaston from the 2006 team.

Future Iowa has a Top 2 defense on their horizon, whether that’s Michigan’s #2 or OSU’s #1, and then a bowl game against a team that theoretically knows how to play defense too. Actually…maybe we can get an Iowa-USC bowl? Iowa currently has a better SP+ ranking overall than USC. Last time these two teams met, Iowa beat the pants off USC 49-24. That was in 2019. With Ferentz the Younger as the OC. Patriots. Game. Just sayin’.