Iowa football: Who made PFF’s Big Ten Team of the Week?

Pro Football Focus regularly publishes their highest graded Big Ten players from week one. This week two members of the Iowa football program made the cut.

Pro Football Focus is a website that focuses on grading each and every player for both college football and the NFL. At the end of the week they compile a list of the highest graded players at each position by conference and name their offensive and defensive teams of the week. Two members of the University of Iowa football program, TJ Hockenson and Amani Hooker made the cut.

For reference, a score of 50 is exactly middle of the pack so anything above that is above average and anything below that is below average. The higher you go up in your PFF score, the better game or performance you had according to PFF.

On offense, there is no surprise that the lone wolf from the Hawks is TJ Hockenson. We noted earlier this week how Hockenson was one of our standout performers from week one against NIU. 

In a game that featured a sluggish Iowa offense, Hockenson was one of the few guys consistently making plays in the passing game hauling in four receptions for 64 receiving yards. Furthermore, many of those catches were contested or Hockenson was hit immediately after the ball arrived, but he braced for impact and held on to the ball.

Defensively, I am surprised a few other Iowa guys were not on this list, most notably Parker Hesse who finished the day with two sacks and was constantly disrupting plays t the line of scrimmage against NIU. Regardless, I don’t control PFF, and I am happy that at least one Iowa football player made this team.

Amani Hooker was one of our honorable mention standouts from last week’s game after accumulating five tackles and a drive-killing interception late in the second quarter that stopped NIU from potentially scoring their first points of the game.

According to PFF, Amani Hooker was the seventh best player in the entire Big Ten this week which is outstanding.

As the season progresses, I expect to see a few other Iowa football players on this list. In the early weeks of the season, these rankings can be a little slanted towards teams that play weaker opponents. For example, Ohio State laid the smack down on Oregon State resulting in three of their players being on the Big Ten Week One Offense. Similarly, Illinois played the Kent State Flashes. Not exactly a tough opponent, and you can see that two of their defenders made the list this week.

Every week of the college football season, we will keep you posted with what Iowa football players make the PFF Big Ten Offense and Defense of the week. With the Hawkeyes taking on the Cyclones Saturday and with a week to clean up some issues, I think we will be seeing at least four guys on this list this time next week.