With Indiana football set to make the trip to take on Iowa this weekend, we reached out to our friends at Black Heart Gold Pants to talk some ball. Here’s what they had to say:
Q: What are the vibes like
in Iowa City? What’s the general thought on this team and Ferentz at the moment?
It’s been quite the roller coaster ride in Iowa City and we’re only four weeks into the season. Entering the year, I think many Hawkeye fans were cautiously optimistic about this team. After years of ineptitude, we saw Tim Lester put forward a competent offense a year ago and entering year two he had a top portal addition at QB to play with and most fans expected that to mean an above average year for Iowa. The schedule has several big matchups, but when we polled the community pre-season, the average expectation was for Iowa to finish 9-3.
Fast forward to the week two loss at Iowa State and things looked to be in the dumpster. Mark Gronowski had struggled throwing the ball in back-t0-back games and the offense simply looked worse than we expected. If we had re-polled the community, I think most fans would have been taking the under on 8 wins.
Of course, the Hawkeyes bounced back with a gimme against UMass, but they showed signs of competence on offense and then followed that up in the Big Ten opener at Rutgers last week. So entering this week I would say the vibes are… OK. The season feels somewhat back on track with some reasons for optimism, but I think most Iowa fans are feeling pretty nervous about this particular matchup.
As for thoughts on Ferentz overall, I think the fanbase is somewhat split on what to do with him. He’s the dean of college football, the winningest Big Ten coach and a future hall of famer. But the ceiling is pretty clearly on Iowa at 10 wins and in the new era of NIL, there is an ever growing segment of the fanbase that just wants something new.
Q: The last time these teams played, Brian Ferentz was still calling Iowa’s offense. How has that side of the ball changed under Tim Lester, what’s his bread and butter?
Let’s start with the obvious: Iowa has re-introduced the forward pass and that’s been a positive. For nearly two decades, Ferentz-led Iowa teams had offenses predicated on establishing the run, taking play-action shots over the top and out-executing opponents. Then Brian tried to reinvent the wheel and we went from average to below average offense to the absolute worst in college football for multiple seasons. Much ink has been spilt fretting over what could have been in some of those seasons with just bad offense instead of the worst in a generation.
Year one of the Tim Lester experience gave us a modern twist on what Iowa had been pre-Brian. We saw the introduction of a lot of the Shanahan formations, lots of pre-snap motion and some RPO. But Lester identified early on that the QB and WR rooms were not up to par while Kaleb Johnson was clearly the best weapon on offense. So we saw everything revolve around the run in year one.
Year two has been an evolutionary process. With Johnson now in the NFL and the entire QB room turned over, we’re starting to see more of what Lester has run at his previous stops. The WR room is still not where it needs to be and as such, it’s not 100% there, but we are seeing a lot more of the playbook.
Iowa still wants to control the line of scrimmage, control the clock and that means run the ball. But the offense runs much more through the QB with Mark Gronowski leading the team in rush attempts. We’ve seen more RPO and even some slow mesh brought over with former Wake Forest OC Warren Ruggiero. And over the last two weeks, we’ve finally seen more downfield shots. Starting WR Reece Vander Zee has been out virtually all season, as has starting TE Addison Ostrenga, so the weapons have been limited, but we’re started to see Gronowski come into his old form and the offense open up into what we were hoping to see in year two with Lester.
Q: Speaking of offense, how has quarterback Mark Gronowski looked up to this point? Does he manage the game or can he be a true playmaker at QB?
As with the team and offense overall, Gronowski’s year has been a rollercoaster ride. He came out week one and looked like a guy who was in a new offense and missed all of spring ball. He was off target early and often, missing reads and wide open receivers. He followed that up in week two by looking only slightly better, but largely being off-target and not on time.
The last two weeks he has looked much better and part of that has been OC Tim Lester doing a better job of getting him on the move and throwing in rhythm. Gronowski is much more of a playmaker than Iowa has had since CJ Beathard was at the helm back in 2015-2016. His rushing ability has opened things up tremendously and Iowa has leaned on him with a revolving door at RB. He leads the team with 6 rushing TDs and has done well extending plays and picking up big first downs when things break down.
We saw Lester make an effort to take shots against a woeful UMass defense and he followed that up a week ago at Rutgers with some more tactical shots. The most notable came on a 42-yard dime to Dayton Howard that set up the game-winner. If Iowa is going to keep up with the Hoosiers, they’ll need more of that on Saturday.
Q: Let’s turn the page to defense. Phil Parker is Phil Parker, he requires no introduction. How has his side of the ball looked this season?
You never want to bet against Phil Parker, but this is where a lot of fan worry is focused at the moment. We knew coming into the season that the defense could take a step back given the turnover in the back end, particularly with an All-Big Ten LB in Nick Jackson and an All-American LB in Jay Higgins, but giving up 21 first half points to Rutgers a week ago was a new level of concern for the fanbase.
Iowa has some horses up front with Aaron Graves at DT and Max Llewellyn at DE, but they’ve not been getting meaningful, consistent pressure on opposing QBs without bringing an extra player and that has left an already thin secondary on an island. Corners TJ Hall and Deshaun Lee have played OK, but Lee is undersized and has been picked on while Hall has been inconsistent.
Parker is pretty stubborn in his insistence on sitting in the same base defense (look for a 4-2-5 against 11 personnel and a 4-3 against anything heavier) with two high safeties and some blend of zone and man underneath. Historically that has been core to the bend, don’t break philosophy that has worked so well, but without pressure up front and corners who struggle against bigger and/or faster WRs, it’s a concern this week. I would expect him to be very bland in the first half before ratcheting things up in the second half against IU with twists, stunts and blitzes to try and generate enough pressure to create a turnover.
Q: Offense and defense, which names are probably circled on whiteboards in Indiana’s facilities this week?
On defense, I mentioned the names at corner and the most notable up front. The other names to note in the back end are safeties Xavier Nwankpa and Koen Entringer. Engringer is a very reliable player in the back end while Nwankpa is more boom or bust. He’s Iowa’s highest rated recruit as a former 5-star, but is notorious for finding himself out of position.
On the other side of the ball, Gronowski is obviously the big name but aside from him there are question marks. The Hawkeyes are without their only starting WR over 6’ with Reece Vander Zee sidelined and Addison Ostrenga is done for the year. That led to the emergence of Dayton Howard last week with Iowa’s other leading receivers in Sam Phillips, Jacob Gill and Seth Anderson all being on the smaller side.
Out of the backfield, Iowa is also bouncing around at RB. Starter Kamari Moulton missed the first three weeks of the season, but came back at Rutgers to run 14 times for 68 yards and a TD. He returned to take over for freshman Xavier Williams, who had stepped in but is now injured. The Hawkeye will also be without junior Jax Patterson, who leads the team in rushing yards on the season having been the only of the top-three healthy through three weeks. Terrell Washington will likely serve as Moulton’s backup with Patterson and Williams both out.
Q: Any predictions for the game?
I’d love to be the home here and take the Hawkeyes, and there is certainly a world where the Hoosiers walk into a rock fight like Iowa has been able to do to highly rated opponents historically, but it’s been more than 10 tries since we’ve seen them emerge victorious against a ranked opponent and it’s just hard to envision the defense keeping up. I think IU gets on the Iowa defense early and plays with a lead all day. Iowa is built more to come back than they have been in the recent past, but playing from behind is just not in the DNA yet. I think the Hoosiers emerge victorious 31-20.
Q: What are some of your favorite spots in Iowa City?
This is really going to depend on your target demographic and what you’re looking to do. I am officially an old now, approaching 40 with 4 kids, so my spots may not fit for everyone. But one of our favorite spots for food and drink is Big Grove Brewery. It’s not downtown so if requires a drive, but it comes with space outdoors for the kids to run around or the adults to just hang out by a fire. Good food, great beer. Downtown, Pullman is one of our favorite places for breakfast, lunch or dinner. It’s small and likely to be packed on game day but a good spot. If you’re looking for the classic Iowa City breakfast joint, walk to the north side district for Hamburg Inn 2 (nothing fancy here but this is your standard college town diner, complete with walls full of all the politicians who have stopped in) or Bluebird Diner (again, nothing fancy but a bit more of a twist on classic breakfast options). I am decidedly not the person to ask on night spots, but would point out The Airliner was just named the #1 college town bar in America by The Athletic (I think the locals might disagree?). My recommendation would just be to get to the pedestrian mall downtown and walk to any place that looks like it might fit your fancy.
