Resources: My charting, Iowa game notes, Iowa roster, CFBstats

Yep, it's Iowa.

The film: Yep, it's El Assico. Yes, Iowa has played two of Michigan's opponents—Rutgers and MTSU—since their 38-14 opening romp over Not THAT Miami. The only one of those with a pulse was ISU, a rain-soaked event in Ames that ended in a perfectly El Assico 18-17. For the un-EDSBS initiated, this rivalry is referred to "El-Assico" because it takes place early in the season before either team has really had a chance to remember how to football correctly. This particular episode will probably be the example we use in the future to show what that means. There was a rain delay. People were falling down. Linemen and linebackers, possessed by evil spirits, ran right past eminently hittable opponents to attack ghosts, or teammates.

Personnel: My diagram:

PDF version, full-size version (or click on the image)

Two NFL-bound OTs are the highlight here of course. Tristan Wirfs is a donkey-hatin' Taylor Lewan minus two inches, and easily the best run blocker I've ever charted. Left tackle Alaric Jackson, the Detroiter who was all set to sign with Michigan until Drevno didn't send an LOI, has been out most of the season with a knee injury. He dressed but did not play last week versus MTSU, and is listed second on the depth chart at LT this week behind Wirfs. I'm guessing they'll try to get him out there, but he won't be 100%. He has a star for past performance, which had him PFF's top offensive tackle in the conference and one of the best pass protectors in the nation.

In the event Jackson can't go, Iowa has been playing around with two responses, both fine. One is to put one of the twin vikings, sixth OL Levi Paulsen (+3.5/-0, –1 pass pro), at right tackle and move Wirfs to left. The other is to leave Wirfs where he is and play a redshirt sophomore named Mark Kallenberger (+3/-1, –0.5 pass pro) at left tackle. I think they believe Paulsen's a better run blocker, but I thought Kallenberger was the better answer; he's less refined but a load as a run blocker, athletic enough for pass pro (Paulsen is more of a guard), and allows Wirfs to stay at right tackle, where he's more comfortable smashing puny humans' faces into dirt.

[after THE JUMP: EL ASSSSSIIIICCCCOOOOOO]

The interior is usually a strength of Iowa's but this group seems like a stopover until the next one's ready. C Tyler Linderbaum (+3/-4.5, –5!!!) was a major disappointment after all the hype he gets out of Iowa City. Stanley got constant pressure from Linderbaum missing blitz pickups, and a big part of the team's miserable 5/10 day in protection pickups was also probably on the redshirt freshman's line calls. Walk-on RG Cole Banwart (+1/-3, –0), filling in for injured Kyler Schott, isn't athletic enough to be of any use downfield (his negatives were mostly on screens), but he knows where to be. The other viking twin, LG Landen Paulsen (+4/-8, –2) had a reach block, a good scoop, and saved a play he almost ruined by diving back and getting the legs of a LB who ran by him, but the other side of his aggressiveness on zones is he cyan'd himself by leaving early and blocking nobody all the time. Any 8th century monks among our readership will also be happy to know that yes, even old Brother Unferth in his habit can probably outrun this Dane.

The gray on TE Nate Wieting (+4.5/-0 in the run game, 1 negative pass pro event in my charting) is because he was last year's starting fullback, drafted into tight end because they lost two guys early to the draft (gooooo Lions!). He'd be a good second banana/H-back but is a major comedown from the Iowa standard at that position, with a backup in Shaun Beyer (+0/-3, –2 in 10 snaps) who's probably responsible for Iowa going away from their two-TE formula. Fullback Brady Ross (+3/-3, –2) was mostly used as a decoy (don't follow the fullback!) or backside insert.

The running back rotation this year is more defined than in the past. The feature back is Mekhi Sargent (+7.5/-2, –1), a Toussaint-ish guy who can dodge a safety and is game to fight for extra yards, but also gets stopped immediately on contact and shoved into his QB's lap at times because of physics. He no longer has to share starts with RB Ivory Kelly-Martin (+5/0, –1), who's a good blocker and thus the 3rd down back. They work in bowling ball Toren Young (didn't chart) and a few plays for scatback true freshman Tyler Goodson, whose vision is suspect, but his speed and cuts are dangerous.

The two starting receivers remind me of our old African refugees. The Jehu Chesson is WR Ihmir Smith-Marsette, a lanky speedster who gets one or two jet sweep carries a game, has a few long kick returns over his career, and is averaging 12.7 yards per target with a 75% catch rate—ISU used an extra safety to bracket him all day. The Darboh is WR Brandon Smith, who gets the occasional smoke screen and hurdles the occasional fool, leading the team in targets but producing just 6.1 YPT because he's the nominal target on a lot of bad throws. Slot receiver Nico Ragaini is a sort of Grant Perry—a good route runner with iffy hands; his 58% catch rate for a slot receiver is only partly due to Stanley locking onto him on 3rd downs. Their shared backup is redshirt freshman Tyrone Tracy, who lost to Ragaini in the slot sweepstakes last fall.

According to the game notes Oliver Martin had two snaps in this game. He's #5 on the roster, and #5 on the depth chart, waiting his turn for an injury or perhaps a starting job to open up in a couple of years when Smith-Marsette and Smith have graduated. Good things come to those who wait.

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Spread, Pro-Style, or Hybrid? Pro-Style.

Formation						Personnel		Playcall
Down Type	Gun	Pistol	Ace	I-Form		Avg WRs		Pass	PA	RPO	Run
Standard	22	-	4	22		2.25		17	8	-	23
Passing	17	-	1	5		2.78		14	2	-	6
Total	55%	-	7%	38%		2.42		44%	14%	-	41%

They do a lot more passing than I remember. First downs were passes 44% of the time. Play-action came out before the run play it played off. And they aren't afraid to go to the gun half the time. There were even a couple of zone reads in there.

Basketball on Grass or MANBALL? Iowa historically has been a stretch zone team but this year they're a lot more inside zone with a lead fullback, probably because of the tight end replacement issues.

Hurry it up or grind it out? Grind. Against MTSU Iowa actually got to the line and ran some tempo, so that's in the toolbag now. But far more often they'll be snapping the ball with 1 second on the playclock. They huddle.

Quarterback Dilithium Level (Scale: 1 [Navarre] to 10 [Denard]): I'm giving Nate Stanley a 4, not for speed. On speed alone he's a 1 or 2:

But Iowa doesn't mind using him on some called runs because he's a truck. Several times he escaped pressure because a guy hit him and fell down. Quarterback sneaks in this game averaged three yards. Arm tackles won't do; you have to get in this guy's legs and then hope to not get hit by the shoulder.

We might as well do the…

HenneChart:

Iowa vs Iowa St	Good				Neutral			Bad					Ovr
Quarterback	DO	CA	SCR		PR	MA		BA	TA	IN	BR		DSR	PFF
Nate Stanley	5+	10(3)	2		2	1		1	4	10xxx	1		52%	68.9

Pro Football Focus spent much of August explaining "it's the inaccuracy" to livid Iowa fans after PFF ranked Stanley 51st among FBS QBs, one spot behind WMU's Jon Wassink. As of a week ago he was still in the 60s (adequate), fifth on a list of Big Ten quarterbacks that, if it wasn't obvious already, proves the universe has something against you personally.

I've taken to calling Stanley "Big Nate" for how much he reminds me of Ben Roethlisberger. They're both big, frustratingly inaccurate, and dress alike, from the black hats down to the distinctive ankle cornerbacks.

Also like Roethlisberger, exactly four times a game Nate Stanley will do a thing that justifies using his name in a sentence with "NFL":

I mean…

Right?

Frames Janklin Factor: This won't be relevant because Kirk Ferentz turns into Sun Tzu when playing Michigan. I emphasize this fact because it's easy to fall into the trap of believing Ferentz has never heard of a clock. Let's join Iowa past midfield and midway into their 2 minute drill:

I get not wanting to leave time on the clock for your opponent, and three timeouts are worth 10 seconds each. Still not sure you want to huddle and run yourself down to just 20 seconds, which is time for three or maybe four plays. Iowa got in three more before time ran out. He also punted on 4th and 1 from his 36 (they are unstoppable on sneaks remember), kicked a FG on 4th and 1 from the 7, and at 4th and 3 from midfield he took a delay of game. The 4th and 9 from the 50 that went for a touchback in the 2nd Q was defensible since it was pretty rainy at that point.

Then there was the end of the game. Needing just a first down to seal a 1-point win, Ferentz called his base run play twice, and ISU sold out to stop it for a minimal gain twice. On 3rd and long they did a play-action rollout that got nowhere near the 1st down and got their TE run out of bounds, meaning ISU got to start their final drive with 1:30 instead of 0:40 on the clock. It's really too bad we never get to play this Ferentz.

(Then an ISU player ran over his own guy on the punt return. EL ASSSSICCCCOOOO!!!)

Dangerman:

Tristan Wirfs is a bad bad man. He was projected to go in the top ten by just about everybody last offseason, and since then if opinions were edited it's only been to drop any "if he keeps developing" caveats. PFF had him at an 87.2 pass pro grade (top 6 nationally) before this game, which merely added another 33 perfect snaps—most of them at left tackle—to the average.

But that's the side show. What they all love about Wirfs is he's the best run blocking prospect…ever. This checks out. Here's my charting of Iowa's running game, with plays Wirfs got graded on in green:

That doesn't do it for you? Do you want me to clip like…all of that? Here's a dead donkey:

That's most plays. Wirfs is so strong you wonder if his Ma and Pa are getting nervous the feds will start asking questions about that whole "he's the child of my cousin in North Dakota" story. Like I'm trying to figure out what happened on some of these plays and the best I can tell is Wirfs shoved his center and 1,000 pounds of people get shot out of a cannon.

OVERVIEW:

Brian Ferentz would be OC even if he hadn't gone to Iowa

Either ISU's interior line is really good, or Michigan's lucky that our worst DT situation in a minute is catching the Ferentzians at an even rarer interior OL ebb. If they were having trouble in just this game I'd say it was the weather, but the subtle shift in offensive approach from what they've been since—yeesh…is it 2000?—to this more downhill, shotgun passing thing seems to be a personnel issue. They do rave about the redshirt freshman center, so the most likely explanation is this will sort itself out once that guy is no longer a 280 lb redshirt freshman.

This would have been a good opponent to play before Wisconsin because Iowa does a lot of the same misdirection stuff with inside zone that UW was doing with their "Power GT" play, where they pulled the backside linemen and replaced the OT with a fullback. The rules against Wisconsin are the rules against Iowa: 1) Win the race to set the edge, 2) Hold your ground against doubles, and 3) Fat guys don't lie/don't follow the fullback.

Offensive coordinator Brian Ferentz makes life easy on people writing video analysis articles because when a play works he'll go back to it within a handful of snaps so we can see how to defeat it. Here ISU's LB #42 steps outside with the fullback and gets stuck behind Iowa's #71:

And here's the next play:

Later Iowa tried running out the backside of this with their newest toy, freshman scatback Tyler Goodman. ISU gives him a little space, and he dodges a few guys for a big gain:

Nice trick right? Well play it again Ferentz:

And that's that. Greg Davis may be long retired, but the Iowa offense under Kirk's son/GERG's favorite center is still more machine-like than lethal. They have a philosophy and they stick to it, even if that philosophy means waggling into an unblocked Khaleke Hudson. If an idea comes along they'll try it. MTSU saw three plays from tempo. Not THAT Miami got an RPO. Rutgers saw a pass play that wasn't (just) flags or mesh:

The concern of course is the tackles. I love a great Uche idea as much as the next comrade, but against a great American hero like Tristan Wirfs it's probably best to scrap the gimmicks and have Paye and Hutchinson just get low. Interior pass rush is going to be at a premium. Activating the linebackers could pay off, but remember that's their favorite spot to throw. Best case scenario, Dwumfour is full go and devastating on blitzes. Worst case is our relative weakness is weaker than theirs, and our linebackers are still reacting to a not-great fullback when the fat guys are letting you know exactly where they're going.

READ YOUR GUARDS.