Iowa Football: Reactions to Big Ten Network’s tour stop with Hawks
By Matt Opad
A lot of Iowa football fans watched the BTN’s Bus Stop Tour in Iowa City and felt the sky is falling. Let’s back up a second and digest what was said.
The Big Ten Network’s Bus Tour made a stop in Iowa City this week to watch the Iowa football team and get some insight from the leader of the ship, Kirk Ferentz.
Although it was supposed to be a fun day for Iowa football fans as the entire day was dedicated to the Hawks, many were a bit upset about what was said including this strange comment about AJ Epenesa, but I want to focus on is the reactions to the open practice.
Gerry Dinardo has a couple of clips you can view via his Twitter account, which may help build some context, but he and the rest of the BTN team provide some nice, yet expected feedback on Iowa’s open practice.
Full disclosure, I didn’t attend Iowa’s open practice. Thankfully, as a fan of a team that has a coach entering his 21st year at the helm, I have a good idea as to what to expect.
The first thing Gerry said that was interesting was that “all these West teams are starting to look alike”. This isn’t particularly surprising, just look at the Iowa football team’s 2018 season and their in-division losses.
Purdue threw the ball deep down the sideline against us for literally two years and it worked. Wisconsin and Northwestern – yes, Northwestern – are basically just better, more disciplined versions of Iowa.
In the next breath, Gerry elaborates by saying that most of the teams in the West have good defenses and good play on the line of scrimmage. Side note, I bet you can guess which “contenders” in the West don’t have a good defense this year.
Anyway, this is essentially what wins the West every year. Look at Northwestern last year, Iowa in 2015, and Wisconsin in every other year. The formula is consistent.
His next line about how the quarterback play will define Iowa’s season – something many Iowa fans, writers, and social media commenters alike are saying – is something that I think is a little exaggerated.
Why? Because Iowa, like Northwestern, Wisconsin and anyone else that wants to win the Big Ten West, is a running team. Alex Hornibrook won the Big Ten West twice, remember.
The truth is that the quarterback play is important in that Stanley can’t force passes or excessively turn the ball over. This isn’t new or surprising. In fact, when Kirk Ferentz talks about executing on plays (and every Iowa football fan is subsequently rolling their eyes), this, along with not committing silly penalties, is a large part of what he’s talking about.
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The running game and the play at the line of scrimmage (something that Dinardo mentioned as a strength) are going to be much larger components to Iowa’s success this year. If Iowa’s running game is as pedestrian as it was in 2018, then the offense is going to rely almost exclusively on Nate Stanley’s arm. But don’t be fooled fans, this is not in the Iowa football team’s plan.