My Thoughts On Iowa Football Entering The 2023 Season | Iowa Football 2023

Iowa football was in tatters to begin the 2022 season Spencer Petrus was one of the worst quarterbacks I have seen with my Naked Eyes having a QB efficiency ranking that was 114th to conclude the year struggling against South Dakota State University in a game where Iowa won seven to three not because of one loan offensive touchdown but because of a field goal and two safeties unbelievable and Iowa touched down the meme will forever be that Iowa will have an easier time scoring seven points with a field goal and two safeties than with running a competent offense thanks to nepotism and He Who Shall Not Be Named running the offense as a result of said nepotism I digress offense in 2022 and consequentially Iowa football period Amen in 2022 was an Abomination to watch Iowa I think is the only team in college football history correct me if I'm wrong but I at least think the only team in college football in the 21st century to block two punts in one game and still lose while having home field advantage and against a team that finished the season with a record that was worse than 500 that being Iowa State Matt Campbell in one of his with one of his worst Iowa State teams ever they went four and eight one and eight a lot of close losses but still worst record in his 10-year at Iowa State I think or at least second worst somewhere there he beat Kirk ference in kinnick stadium for his first time ever Iowa started out three and one having unimpressive wins over Rutgers and Nevada they barely beat South Dakota State at home which again they won the National Championship in the FCS but seeing that Iowa was near the preseason top 25 in multiple rankings that made it even worse at least at the time in retrospect we understand that an FCS team that's the number one in their league will competently play against most even power five schools but Iowa how close they played them unacceptable and then losing at home against the in-state rival is of course a nail in the coffin to start out the year especially when Michigan and Ohio State are on the schedule Iowa got their heads smashed into a brick wall by Michigan's Run game game control and the fact that Spencer Petrus against the Wolverines was sacked four times he got sacked a ton in the next game against Illinois got sacked five times there in Illinois with their backup kicker beat Iowa in a battle of field goals with Iowa losing six to nine and then after a bye week where you think that maybe the offense can get some more preparation Iowa comes out against Ohio State and they even get a defensive touchdown and they they made life harder for CJ Stroud than I thought they were going to and yet Iowa turns it over six times on the offensive side of the ball Spencer Petrus was 6-14 for 49 yards and Iowa only had 158 yards of offense it was Insanity I did not even know what I was watching if I'm being real with you Sam laporta Sam laporta had more receiving yards than Petrus had passing yards it's Insanity that's crazy um even with little to no offensive talent because of the way that Iowa recruits and even with average development that is an Abomination and unacceptable after that game in which Iowa lost 10 to 54. we're Ohio State they were angry wanted to score as many points as possible who cares they broke Iowa's defense after a three and four start Iowa quietly finished eight and five and that's important to note because you get momentum um the team all in all looked better in the month of November they beat Minnesota they beat Wisconsin they smashed Purdue on the road who ended up winning the Big Ten West they thankfully if you're an Iowa fan crushed Northwestern and even though they had a disappointing loss to Nebraska to conclude the season at least the regular season Nebraska nearly choked that game away too but they held on for the win Iowa they had Cooper de Jean and Spencer Petrus hurt and while even if those two were healthy I still think Nebraska would have held on to win they had much better play offensively ramire Johnson Casey Thompson Marcus Washington and Trey Palmer all those skill players had lights out performances starting off three and four when it looks like your team is not going to win a bowl game and your team plays badly against Nevada and South Dakota State and Rutgers and then beating teams like Purdue Wisconsin Minnesota and Kentucky who had winning records that is an encouraging finish to the year and Petrus even though he was still awful got better as the year progressed but he's gone for someone with a 6'5 frame a little over 230 pounds it was a shame that he could never pan out but he didn't because of horrendous coaching Iowa in 2023 isn't going to rely as much on coaching on the offensive side of the ball at least because they are bringing in some notable transfers some guys that we know of whether you're an Ohio State fan or a Michigan fan whether your team beat Iowa to a pulp or not you will know some of these players and I say that kind of in a funny snarky way because it's true Caleb Brown was on Ohio State who beat Iowa by 44 points last year and he'll probably become their best wide receiver highly recruited out of high school got one year of development under Brian Hartline and I think he'll immediately become wide receiver one there also in terms of Michigan Michigan lost Eric all and Kate Mcnamara to the transfer portal both coming off of injuries and McNamara was benched before he even got injured and Kate Mcnamara will be by Far and Away Iowa's best quarterback that they have seen in years he might even be better than Nate Stanley at minimum he'll be better than Spencer Petrus or Alex Padilla and Eric all pairing him with Luke Lachey that's a lethal tight end room so I was being smart in my opinion there being very intelligent by using the portal they have a top 50 transfer portal class they're bringing in quarterbacks Deacon Hill and Kate Mcnamara from Wisconsin and Michigan respectively they're bringing in DeJean Parker from Saginaw State in the offensive line Eric all a tight end from Michigan they also after losing Justin Jacobs a linebacker to Oregon they brought in Nick Jackson a linebacker from Virginia who has the same ranking that Jacobs had when he departed Seth Anderson is a wide receiver coming from one of the lower levels of college football he should contribute to Iowa though very underrated player Rusty theft is another player in offensive guard from Miami of Ohio who's transferring in and of course you have Caleb Brown incoming transfer from the Ohio State University so Iowa I think has hope in 2023 their offense should be miles better and miles better from awful is just I would say below average or average but imagine pairing a below average offense or an average offense with the defense that they had and yes I've seen some comments and I've read some comments that say that Iowa's defense well statistically he's number one is and is statistically Elite in the biggest of games they fold and there is a fair point to this and I think there are multiple reasons for this I think one reason is that Iowa doesn't have a lot of four and five stars now they're great at development but developing from three stars and to get them to play at the level of four and five stars constantly is very difficult it's something that even the best defensive coordinator in the country Phil Parker has a hard time doing and consequentially Iowa their defense and you saw this whether it was against Purdue in 2021 when Riley moss and I forget the name of the safety who played but they were injured or last year against Nebraska when DeJean was injured they consequentially have less depth than the Alabama's and the Georges of the world even if their starters play at that same NFL level because it's so hard to take those three stars two stars maybe an occasional four star and get diamonds out of all of those rocks it's just easier to start out with diamonds if you know what I mean like Georgia Alabama Ohio State and even by comparison Penn State Michigan Texas and a lot of these other programs recruit miles ahead of what Iowa does so recruiting is one of it but an even bigger reason than recruiting number two is when you have that poor of an offense and your defense is on the field that much it'll eventually get worn down either mentally physically or a combination of the both I'd argue the way that Iowa's offense played in 2022 their defense probably got spiritually broken I mean that was a abomination of an offense and they had good players too Caleb Johnson's a really good running back there are some offensive linemen for that Iowa team who are good players too but the offense was disorganized and nothing ever came together so Iowa I think in 2023 with incoming transfers and many other things that could go their way an easier schedule being one of them could help the defense when you have that poor of an offense and when you recruit the way you do you can't blame them for in games against Michigan and Ohio State eventually breaking down you can't do it you need to have a better offense and Iowa football this is not good news they rank 98th in the country in returning production 72nd on offense 102nd on defense defensively I would almost ignore that returning production value because Iowa under Phil Parker you look at the reputation that Iowa has on defense and it is just it's crazy they've led the nation in interception since 2017 that's a cumulative number they have the number two scoring defense in 2022 the 13th best scoring defense in 2021 the sixth best in 2020 the fifth best in 2019 11th in 2018 17th and 2017 16th not 16th but 13th in 16th 20th and 15 when they got 12 wins I mean they've had top 20 defenses for nearly a decade in a row and with the way they recruit that is nearly impossible to do that is an outlier they prove every year that they can develop defensive talent that they can reload defensively lose Riley Moss lose a good cornerback lose whatever oh we'll just plug and play with some person that we may have never even heard of unless we're a dedicated Iowa fan or unless we you know study all the way down to the third or fourth depth chart it's crazy especially at secondary I mean you look at secondary and and Deshawn Lee TJ Hall um Davion Hilson and some of these guys who are second and third stringers at corner might be legitimate starters at many other power five programs Xavier nuancpa he was a highly recruited player who chose Iowa over the likes of Alabama and many others five star according to 24 7 Sports he will be at strong safety this year and I look at this secondary and I think that even in losing some key players they will be great and you look at linebacker Jay Higgins Nick Jackson Sebastian Castro with the cash position and then on the defensive line Joe Evans Logan Lee Deontay Craig Noah Shannon these guys are all Juniors or seniors this team just reeks of depth experience Iowa as well has a lot of rotational players Lucas Van Ness is an example of a player who I don't think started a career game I don't think or at least he started a few games but as a rotational player he looked elite elite enough to be drafted in the first round so this team defensively is going to be good the question of course is offensively what about that 72nd Place in returning production on offense how much will that matter with incoming transfers does that mean even with incoming transfers the lack of returning experience could cause some issues especially knowing that with no changes being made and He Who Shall Not Be Named still being the offensive coordinator is is it gonna matter I mean they have the 48th transfer portal class they have four they have four three stars and three four stars coming in by transfer portal rankings Seth Anderson's on unranked so they have eight total incoming guys most of whom are on the offensive side of the ball I think only Nick Nick Jackson's the only defensive player who's coming in Caleb Brown and Seth Anderson are wide receivers Deacon Hill and Kaden McNamara are quarterbacks Eric all's a tight end and DeJean Parker and Rusty feather offensive lineman so will that even matter that's a legitimate question and it's important returning production is important when you have good coaching I would say either good coaching or good recruiting or a combination of the both you don't have to take it into account as much and defensively where Iowa has proven they can get eight or more wins every year with just playing defense and with the improvements they're bringing in on the offensive side of the ball I think that this returning production number while not great certainly and I would say that low of returning production indicates that if you're an Iowa fan and this dream if it existed was already dead but there's no playoff win winning the Big Ten championship game is likely impossible unless something fluky happens in the East or something fluky happens in the Big Ten championship game even reaching the Big Ten championship game will be very challenging with Nebraska and Wisconsin upgrading their coaches Minnesota I think their offense is going to be forced to modernize this year with Ibrahim leaving and the depth they have at wide receiver tight end tackle and they have a mobile quarterback so there's a lot of questions for Iowa Iowa is an old school program marked Antonio for example he modeled his Michigan State Spartans off of Kirk ference's Iowa program and he's gone he retired and to a certain degree the world of college football forced him out because his tenure did not end in a glorious way and for Kirk ference it very well could be the same thing for a brief moment after 2021 with how Georgia basically won the national title with dominating defense and a good to Great offense but far from a lead offense in 2021 that really capitalized off the great defense I thought that maybe maybe there could be a return to the era where you did not have to have a great offense to win a National Championship or at least to contend constantly for conference championships and New Year six bowls and boy I was wrong because George's defense statistically took actually a sizable step back from their 2021 unit and their offense took a huge leap forward and that's why they were able to repeat if they tried to use the same style of football they played in 2021 with their 2022 team they wouldn't have beaten Ohio State they just wouldn't have they had they had to adapt Kirby Smart Nick Saban even Nick Saban returning to his older identity of playing better defense and pounding the football he still is going to want to have great quarterback play Great Wide Receiver play great tight end play and most importantly Elite offensive line play which is something that Iowa has been removed from for the past few seasons luckily when it comes to Iowa they have one of the big tens easier schedules their toughest game is on the road at Penn State there is no Michigan no Ohio State this year none of that Ohio State and Michigan Ohio State plays Wisconsin on the road and Purdue on the road and they play Minnesota Michigan plays Minnesota and Nebraska on the road and they host Purdue neither plays Iowa plays Michigan State at home Penn State on the road and they also play Rutgers home so they host Rutgers in Michigan State play at Penn State those are the East Division crossover opponents and the reason I emphasize that especially is if you look at Illinois for example last year who is one of the better teams in the west they lost all their crossover games all of them they lost to Indiana Michigan State and Michigan so the East really is in many things some would say all things but in many things far above the West their cross-divisional slate is easy and they host Illinois they host Minnesota they host Purdue they host Rutgers they play at Iowa State but I think that Iowa with their history and with their I think Superior incoming portal classes a really good chance of winning that game and they play on the road at Northwestern who again should be a dud this year at Nebraska and at Wisconsin will be games to pay attention to and of course the road game at Penn State home games against Minnesota Michigan State and Illinois could also prove to be Troublesome depending on how the season goes but we won't know that until Iowa plays one game two games three Games Etc looking at 2023 and what I think of this team I think the Hawkeyes should have a powerful Run game behind Caleb Johnson and the offensive line returns their Center Logan Jones after losing Tyler linderbaum after 2021 so they have a center with experience and they also return tackle Mason Richmond and I think this offensive line should improve which of course is going to help Caleb Johnson who cemented himself as Iowa's best running back after his peer whose name I briefly forget ended up transferring away he transferred away I think to Northern Illinois that yeah that being Gavin Williams Caleb Johnson ended up with 779 rushing yards six rushing touchdowns and he averaged 5.2 yards per carry behind an offensive line that was one of Iowa's worst and he had 151 carries this is after he began the year with three carries against South Dakota State four against Iowa State and seven against Nevada so against some of Iowa's easier opponents he barely got any touches and that of course probably is what prevented him from getting at least over 900 yards if not over a thousand yards very good running back I think that just looking at it from a game by game perspective he kind of did what Braylon Allen did in 2021 where he didn't get in game action early and not everyone knew about him or paid attention to him early on but as the year progressed he looked good he averaged 9.1 yards per carry against Purdue a team that in 2022 at times was very good against the Run he averaged 7.2 against Northwestern 5.4 against Minnesota 6.8 against Nebraska struggled against Kentucky Wisconsin Ohio State Michigan and Illinois but all those teams had phenomenal defenses as compared to Iowa's poorest offense I think with the better quarterback better offensive line and with another pre-season year of work Caleb Johnson should pass that 1 000 yard Mark and Iowa will finally have a good run game which is something they lacked severely in 2022. Kate Mcnamara should be the best quarterback since Nate Stanley for the Iowa Hawkeyes Cade LED Michigan to success he is the reason a big part of the reason why Michigan is where they are today this is coming from a Michigan fan this is coming from a Michigan fan who even sadly doubted this guy entering 2021 and wanted Alan Bowman to start and even wanted maybe just to throw JJ McCarthy in there with the higher upside to start but McNamara just being steady not turning the ball over and having high football IQ proved everyone wrong and he led Michigan to a 12-2 record in 2021 beat Ohio State he he can throw look he's an underrated guy because he didn't start in 2022 and the times that he did he looked frustrated he looked off and he wasn't the best quarterback in the world in 2021 people have kind of forgotten about him I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of people asked this year who who's that kid McNamara kid that wouldn't shock me at all and it wouldn't shock me at all if they were asking that after he led Iowa to a major win maybe they upset Penn State on the road maybe they I don't know like blow out Iowa State or blow out Michigan State I mean Iowa blowing out anyone would send shock waves throughout the nation because they've proven to a certain degree they are incapable of doing that without tons of turnovers and tons of defensive touchdowns maybe they go on the road at Wisconsin and just shut them down and Kade as he's done before against whether it's Ohio State whether it was Michigan State where he was the the reason that Michigan was in that game because they couldn't run the football or against Penn State he makes a long throw or he makes a simple throw to a wide open Erica who goes and just wins the game for the team so he's very underrated and the Big Ten this year is stacked at quarterback it's it's on it's unreal I mean Wisconsin is a good quarterback Maryland and tally attack of Aloha they I mean he should be the best that he's ever been Michigan's JJ McCarthy Michigan finally has a near Elite to potentially Elite quarterback Ohio state will just reload Michigan State and Noah Kim you gotta assume that if Peyton Thorne left if he didn't feel like the job was locked that Noah Kim has something going on there Penn State has Drew Aller their highest ranked quarterback in history Ethan kaliak Manus at Minnesota he is someone who's going to be above average Jeff Sims is going to be great Kade McNamara I mean Cade could be in the bottom half easily of big ten quarterbacks and still be a good power five quarterback the Big Ten in in the SEC too more importantly the Pac-12 and I think the Big Ten might be more so at the top of this list but especially the Pac-12 they're loaded at quarterback it's unreal so in a sea where Cade will be easily drowned out by the noise don't care about that just win games and McNamara will win U games he will win close games he will win blowouts he will not win a college football playoff game but he could even this might be bold but with the easy schedule maybe he could even get the Hawkeyes there or at least in a position to where if they miraculously win the Big Ten championship game if he gets them there then maybe with just one loss on the record they could slip in Phil Parker returns Cooper de Jean a cornerback and the secondary should just reload the elite they've actually recruited well there as I've mentioned earlier they have a five star at secondary and savior dewampa they have Sebastian Castro Jamari Harris Quinn Schulte I have a lot of good guys and juanpa and DeJean they still have years of Eligibility the other three are seniors of course Iowa runs a four two five four three defense so you got that physical front that in theory should be able to stop the run that's something Iowa struggled against last year especially in the Michigan game but granted that's Michigan that was the Joe Moore award offensive line so according to the regular season the best offensive line of the year so to a certain degree it's like what do you expect this defense is automatically going to reload and defensive lineman Deontay Craig and Joe Evans had a combined 13 and a half sacks and 19 tackles for loss in 2022 and they return so it's not just the secondary it's also the defensive line too and linebacker Nick Jackson he was good at Virginia on a team that was plagued by tragedy a tragedy late in the season that was just really unfortunate really sad and a team that before then just wasn't playing solid football so all in all I like the look of Iowa football entering 2023. this is one of the sturdier rosters in the Big Ten I can't necessarily say the same about coaching but Kirk ference and Phil Parker the two out of the three if you're counting the head coach and coordinators the biggest head men of the staff they're great so I think in 11 maybe 12 win season is possible that would be the ceiling of the program though would be a 11 12 wins I think 9 or 10 is more likely I think this team is going to improve record-wise at minimum off of last year due to an easier schedule but I think the team too will be better and Superior to last year's unit thank you guys for watching if you like this video please hit the like button hit the Subscribe button and comment your thoughts down below and make sure to hit the notification Bell so you can get notified when I post more Iowa football Big Ten football and college football content see you guys later bye