Iowa Football: Offensive problems and how to fix them
By Matt Opad
The Iowa football team looked like they could compete for a Big Ten title, but the offense has fallen short. How can Iowa fix these problems?
For as long as Kirk Ferentz has been the coach at Iowa, the Hawkeyes have based their offense on moving the ball methodically while making minimal amounts of mistakes.
Iowa typically touts a consistent running game that sets up a complementary passing game predicated on short to intermediate throws and play-action passes. Ball control and time of possession are huge components to a prototypical offense at Iowa.
Because of what normally is a great to elite defense, Iowa’s offense commonly plays the field position game, which relies heavily on decent special teams play. The field position game also assumes that the offense isn’t giving the ball to the opponent in Iowa territory.
In 2019, the offense hasn’t really followed this blueprint. In fact, the Iowa football team has missed the mark on a few of these areas.
As we are now midway through Iowa football’s regular-season schedule, let’s see if we can diagnose some of the problems we see and prescribe some solutions to help the Hawks in the second half of the season.
Get Offensive Line in order
If you have the stomach for it, watch the interception Nate Stanley threw against Penn State.
It appeared to be a defensive line one-on-one against Iowa’s left guard. A simple swim move maneuvered him around the offensive lineman and gave him a clear shot at Nate.
When a defensive line gets through the interior line that quickly, any quarterback is basically a sitting duck.
Now take a look at Tyler Goodson’s fumble.
Number 97 of Penn State gets into the backfield untouched. This appears to be a miscommunication amongst the interior of the Hawkeye offensive line.
These two plays changed the outcome of the game against Penn State.
Truthfully, the Iowa football team might only face one more team this season with the defensive talent that Penn State has. The problem with this logic is that it is predicated on the talent level being the issue with our offensive line.
In the first video clip, it is. However, with Goodson’s fumble, that isn’t the case. The handoff exchange was botched and Penn State’s defense came in unblocked, so no time was there for Tyler to recover.
The fixable part of the problem here is communication. This is likely the first time this offensive line iteration played together.
Kallenberger, normally a tackle, was playing right guard. Landen Paulsen and Cody Ince both switched off playing left guard.
Taking some practice reps together this week should help this group more than the average observer may think. The offensive line, more than perhaps any other unit on a football team, is strongly dependent on the group acting as one.
If, however, this does not improve the play of this unit, Ferentz may want to consider moving one of his star tackles (Alaric Jackson or Tristin Wirfs) to guard. Levi Paulsen did a very good job of filling in for Jackson during his injury but probably does not have the versatility of Wirfs or Jackson.
I understand that this sounds like a Hail Mary, but the Iowa football team needs its best players on the field.