kirk ferentz

Previously: Iowa Offense

We now shift gears to look at the Iowa defense, which in terms of the change in danger level, it is the equivalent of moving from a plastic spork to a chainsaw. Iowa's defense is currently ranked 1st in SP+ and this is coming off a year in which the Hawkeyes were 5th in SP+ defense. They returned most of the starters from last year's defense and have plugged in new pieces, most of whom have been successful. Through four weeks, the Hawkeyes have allowed just 23 points. The results are astounding, but what do we see under the hood? Let's take a look: 

The Film: Still rolling with the Rutgers footage. Yes, Iowa State is a better offense but there have been a couple changes in Iowa's personnel since then that made going with the most recent game a smarter decision in my mind. Plus, the Rutgers game showcased how Iowa can get you in ways that wasn't as clear with ISU, so it's a better showing of the Hawkeyes at their mightiest. 

Personnel: Click the picture for big, or here for the PDF. 

The defensive line features four down linemen who, in the game I saw, always rushed the passer. They have two starting DTs, the burly Noah Shannon and the lighter Logan Lee. Those guys play a lot, but so does Lukas Van Ness, the rare player to have his circle filled yet be in the "bench" column. Van Ness can play DT or DE, rotating in for starter-level snaps between the two positions. John Waggoner starts at one DE spot that we might describe as a SDE, with a hand in the dirt and a heavier weight, while Joe Evans is at the other DE spot, the one that sometimes rushes from a stand-up posture. Evans subs out for Van Ness, as well as Devontae Craig or Ethan Hurkett on some occasions. 

The linebacker level sees both Jack Campbell and Seth Benson return as rock-solid starters. Campbell, 1st team All-B1G and 2nd team All-America last season, is a star, while Benson ain't a bad player either. The Iowa Hawkeyes have recently transitioned the third LB role into being a hybrid space player, with Sebastian Castro playing the "CASH" while Logan Klemp plays the "LEO". The CASH is indistinguishable from a nickel corner, while the LEO is indistinguishable from a SAM linebacker. Klemp is now the LEO because of an injury to Jestin Jacobs during the Rutgers game, which is a noteworthy development as that's a significant downgrade in experience. Jay Higgins is next up at the LEO, meanwhile the backup at CASH can probably be found in the secondary paragraph. 

The secondary has returning star Riley Moss as the headliner of the positional group, an expert Cover 2 corner who knows how to hoover up interceptions. Opposite him is now first-time starter Cooper DeJean, who has been excellent this season and has already received the star designation. Those two players seldom leave the field, though the injury to Terry Roberts is a contributing factor to the shallow depth here. TJ Hall and Jamison Heinz are nominally the reserves at that position. Kaevon Merriweather returns at strong safety and is still a star in run defense, while Quinn Schulte has had few bumps thus far replacing Dane Belton at free safety, settling in comfortably in this system. Both Merriweather and Schulte leave the field so rarely that discussing the backups is not a productive use of time. 

[AFTER THE JUMP: defensive clips]

It's Iowa week, everybody! The all-or-nothing nature of this football team means we get a grim read today and then a much more impressive read on Friday. But buckle up, because this one is as rough as you are expecting. 

The Film: Iowa had two possible games for me to go with here, the CyHawk battle against Iowa State in week two and Saturday's tussle with Rutgers in Piscataway. Though I think ISU is probably closer to Michigan's caliber of team than Rutgers, I opted for the latter because Iowa State represented a comic low for this offense, whereas they showed some (small) signs of life on offense against Rutgers, and it's more fair to represent them at their best than at their nadir. Moreover, Rutgers is closer to the present and more representative of what Iowa is now. 

Personnel: Click on the image for big, or here for the PDF.

Spencer Petras returns as Iowa's QB and that is not a good thing, amid another dismal campaign, though his best game of the season so far was the most recent one. When Michigan saw Petras last year Iowa was rotating QBs, with Petras coming off the field for Alex Padilla a decent amount. Padilla has not attempted a pass this season, so at this point we can say that the Padilla experiment is off the table. 

The Hawkeyes lost RB Tyler Goodson in the offseason and have had an open competition to replace him. The result has been a tandem between Leshon Williams and Gavin Wililams, with Kaleb Johnson in the mix at #3. Both of the Williams (not related) have missed a game this season, but when both are healthy, Leshon has gotten marginally more snaps than Gavin. Both can be used as receivers in the screen game. Johnson has the highest YPC clip of the three but that is padded by a strong game against Nevada (with one long run in particular). Johnson is coming off his highest usage game, with 15 carries against Rutgers. We should also mention Monte Pottebaum, Iowa's FB, who gets a solid share of snaps because Iowa is still running out of the I-Formation an awful lot. 

Iowa loves their TEs, which should surprise no one. Sam LaPorta is the star of this team as the leading TE. I was less enthused than some about LaPorta when I did this column pre-B1G Championship Game, but after watching him torch Rutgers, I am totally sold. He is a very good receiver, a pretty solid blocker and that package makes him the only true offensive weapon on this team. Luke Lachey is the #2 TE, getting a decent amount of run as 12 personnel is common in this offense. 

The WR level remains strikingly under-used, with just 16 catches in 4 games this season going to WRs(!!!!) and that is the result of only 45 targets being thrown their way in total. Over half of those targets go to Arland Bruce IV, who is decent, while every other Iowa receiver may as well not play and let a scarecrow line up in that spot instead. Nico Ragaini, Alec Wick, and Brody Brecht are emblematic of this: those three have played 223 snaps combined this season and have *4* receptions combined. Keagan Johnson was the one WR I had hope for coming into the season and alas he is injured and will miss this week's game. The non-Bruce WRs struggle to get open and even if they did, Petras isn't throwing to them anyway. 

The OL took some hits from when we last saw Iowa, losing star C Tyler Linderbaum and their best non-Linderbaum lineman, Kyler Schott, in the offseason. Logan Jones has slid into the center role and he looked okay from what I saw of him. Last year, they had Nick DeJong playing tackle and Connor Colby playing guard, whereas this year they've swapped roles. Colby remains a strong run blocker but a poor pass blocker, while DeJong is still an issue all around.

New starter at LT Mason Richman is decent, though, and Beau Stephens had a decent effort as well as the puller on Iowa's occasional gap concepts. The Hawkeyes were starting Jack Plumb at Richman's LT spot last season, but he has now been relegated to bench duty, along with reserve IOL Tyler Elsbury and name-of-the-year candidate Gennings Dunker. As a whole, this OL has been wobbly in pass pro and so-so in run blocking, with the five primary starters getting most of the work and the reserves coming in for 6 OL plays + occasional spot duty. 

[AFTER THE JUMP: a broken unit]

Harbaugh in the wind update. The Athletic clears some things up about what's going on in Harbaugh's head:

…sources pushed back on the theory that Michigan’s handling of NIL will be a major factor in Harbaugh’s NFL decision.

“Everybody’s got this so unbelievably wrong,” one source said, pointing to Cade McNamara, Blake Corum, J.J. McCarthy, Aidan Hutchinson and other Michigan stars who landed lucrative NIL deals, along with an arrangement that allows players to profit from the sale of officially licensed jerseys.

However:

Whether it’s relaxing restrictions on the use of school trademarks or providing additional NIL infrastructure, there’s a sense that Michigan can do more to maximize its NIL potential.

Harbaugh is Harbaugh so he may indeed flit off to the NFL at a whim but it doesn't sound like it'll be because he feels like he can't compete at a high level. Michigan had the misfortune to run up against a generational Georgia team without the kind of flamethrower at QB you need to overcome that kind of opponent, but that's more an accident of timing than fate.

Settlement reached. The Dr. Anderson number:

Michigan has reached a $490 million settlement with more than 1,000 survivors of sexual abuse by former team doctor Robert Anderson. Parker Stinar, an attorney representing Anderson survivors, said the two sides reached an agreement at approximately 10 p.m. Tuesday.

I have no opinion on whether this is the correct number. So much of the sturm und drang around this was plaintiffs lawyers saying whatever to make the number go up and university officials saying nothing because they weren't allowed to. The number does not matter. What matters is how the university handled it once it was brought to light—pretty well, it seems, no John Englers—and how ruthlessly they ejected Mark Schlissel when his malfeasance came to light. I've seen a lot of questions about why they released the massively embarrassing emails, and I sincerely hope the answer was "fuck around and find out." No quarter for people high up in the university's governance who can't follow basic protocols about decency.

[After THE JUMP: PSU gets aggressive with ticket holders]