Iowa football: Hawks land season-high 5 players on PFF All-B1G team

After a solid, yet unspectacular victory over Purdue, the Iowa football team claimed a season-high five spots on PFF’s Week 8 B1G team of the week.

Through the first half of the season, the Iowa football team was typically earning two to three spots on Pro Football Focus’s Big Ten team of the week. After a 26-20 victory over Purdue, however, the Hawks earned a season-high five spots, which is just more evidence that maybe the Hawks are closer than we think to being the elite team we expected at the beginning of the season.

Despite giving up a season-high 20 points to an injury-riddled Purdue Boilermaker team, Phil Parker’s defense claimed three spots, one at each level.

Earning Big Ten defensive team of the week honors was defensive lineman Daviyon Nixon, who continues to have a superb, possibly breakout, season, linebacker Djimon Colbert, and defensive back Geno Stone, whos play deserves more national recognition.

Nixon finished the day with two tackles including one for a loss and a QB hurry while providing stout run support as Purdue managed just 33 yards on the ground. I really felt like in addition to Nixon, defensive end Chauncey Gholston also might find himself on this list after putting constant pressure on redshirt freshman quarterback Jack Plummer throughout the day, but ultimately, Minnesota’s beat down of hapless Rutgers helped the Gophers claim both end spots.

Colbert, as he has throughout the season for the Iowa football team provided fantastic run support and was great in coverage, and do we really need to mention Geno Stone at this point? His play for speaks for itself, and I personally think he should be considered a strong candidate for earning All-American honors this season.

On the offensive side of the ball, the Iowa football team took both tackle spots with Tristan Wirfs and Alaric Jackson.

This is Wirfs third time on the Big Ten team of the week, and it is Jacksons first as he has been injured and dealing with the recovery of that the last two weeks. With the interior offensive line struggling as much as it has lately, seeing both tackles at least performing well is a light, albeit small, at the end of the tunnel for this Hawkeye’s offense that has struggled to protect Nate Stanley in the month of October.

With 1-5 Northwestern on the docket for this Saturday, we could see the Iowa football team come close to matching this season-high as long as the Hawks take care of business like they should (and haven’t in the past against the Wildcats).