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]

Base set: Iowa was playing with the CASH more often than the LEO against Rutgers so functionally it looked like a 4-2-5 most of the time: 

Four down linemen, two traditional linebackers, three corners, and two high safeties. The Iowa blueprint, 4-2-5 form. 

When they swapped out the CASH for the LEO, it looked mostly like a traditional 4-3: 

Those are the two base sets and also the only sets they really showed in this game. Iowa!  

Man or zone coverage: Hello, this is Iowa. They are doing the same thing they did last December and the same thing they did five years ago, and on and on. This is a Cover 2 team, placing them into the zone category. They are masters of Cover 2, running what we called in this space "Graduate Level Cover 2" before the B1G Championship Game, running with that as the base and then tossing in Man 2 from time to time, as well as a few other coverages they can use from within that shell. But two safeties high and corners waiting to pop up in the zone to siphon interceptions is the hallmark of the Iowa system. 

Pressure: Iowa's response to being in command of the game for much of it and Rutgers running a spread offense was to basically never blitz. They rushed more than four guys on just 13.9% of plays, the lowest number I can remember tracking. They also rushed fewer than four players on zero snaps in this game, meaning that it was a four man rush all the time. The latter is a feature of the Iowa defense, as they also rushed <4 on zero snaps in the 2021 Wisconsin game I charted last fall. I assume they will blitz more against Michigan than Rutgers, but they came in as a pretty un-blitzy team last year against Wisconsin too, albeit at a much higher number (32%). 

Dangerman: I came into this piece expecting it to be MLB Jack Campbell, as I didn't want to do Riley Moss again, but Campbell came in for a pretty middling game in my charting. Instead I walked away from the Rutgers game singing the praises of the corner opposite Moss, Cooper DeJean. The first-time starter looked like a natural and when you outplay your teammate, who happens to be the reigning B1G DB of the Year, you get to be the Dangerman. 

Let's start by getting the highlight reel play out of the way: 

This is not that applicable to games in the abstract because DeJean doesn't play with the ball in his hands much as a corner, but what a sweet run back that was. Also a pretty good over-the-shoulder catch, helped by him being on the hip of the receiver. That was a theme I found with DeJean, consistently great coverage. Here the ball is overthrown by Evan Simon but it helps that DeJean has pressed his receiver right off the field: 

The next clip showcases another instance of rock solid coverage. DeJean runs the receiver close to off the field and has the additional help from Quinn Schulte over the top: 

That had to be a perfect ball to beat him. Rutgers did that one time, an instance where I'm not sure how much better DeJean could've done realistically to prevent it: 

With Terry Roberts out, DeJean moved from spending some time at the CASH position to being a full-time outside corner and he rocked in that role, the best Iowa DB on the field. When you combine that with the usually great Moss, this will be an intriguing test for the Michigan receivers. 

 

Overview 

The results so far this season for the Iowa defense are indeed staggering, but we should first keep in mind schedule. They have played FCS South Dakota, Nevada (116th ranked SP+ offense), Rutgers (103rd ranked SP+ offense), and Iowa St. (49th ranked SP+ offense). When they face Michigan (6th ranked SP+ offense) tomorrow, it will be a completely different beast than anything they have seen before this season. Based on their showings against lesser offenses, like this game against Rutgers, what can we say about the Iowa defense? Are there any weak spots?  

After watching the Rutgers game, I think the biggest weakness in the Iowa defense is the lack of organic pass rush. Iowa has collected 12 sacks as a team, which, in four games, ain't too shabby at all. However, the sacks they got in this game were mostly attributable to coverage, and as a team not inclined to blitz much, they weren't getting home all that much. Rutgers' offensive line provided them with opportunities and some were taken, but I did not see a defensive line that should wreak much havoc against a good OL like Michigan's. Example: 

That's Lukas Van Ness (#91) getting home, but that is not exactly a David Ojabo rush. If you give the Iowa DL enough time, and the coverage in the secondary often does, they can be dangerous. But there are no AJ Epenesas on this defensive line right now. Without that kind of player and because rushing four every play gets stale, Iowa peppers in a healthy dose of stunts. The DeJean pick six clip shown in the Dangerman section features a stunt with Van Ness and Joe Evans, allowing Van Ness to get free and thump Simon as he was throwing it. That type of event is the most frequent clip you see when Iowa does something good rushing the passer. 

Van Ness was the best defensive lineman for Iowa in this game, ironic as he's the one who is technically not starting. DT Noah Shannon was the best interior defender on the Hawkeyes and he and Van Ness might be Iowa's best bet to get some pass rush: 

As a whole, the defensive line did alright in run defense, but I was surprised that they were not more dominant against the Scarlet Knights. We didn't get to see a ton of Rutgers running the ball, to be clear, because they were trailing throughout and by the second half, they had to exclusively throw it. But in those limited rushing opportunities, Rutgers had some success. In particular, instances where Rutgers let Iowa defenders rush into the backfield before tricking them by attacking the vacated lane, had success. Like this: 

Getting tricky and running outside the tackles is something I'd recommend more than between them, because even if you get wins against the DTs, the LBs are typically right there. Both Jack Campbell and Seth Benson are well drilled on where to be, but they are not Devin Bush athletic when you make them move in space. Rutgers didn't test those guys in the run game outside the tackles enough for my taste, but they did expose softness in coverage: 

LB #31

Campbell is a split second late to realize it and he doesn't have the athleticism to make that up. Similar story on this next clip against a wheel route: 

Van Ness gets yanked down for an obvious holding, so it wouldn't have counted even if it had been caught, but that's another play targeting Campbell, the star LB, in coverage and finding success on it. That said, Campbell did get some revenge in this component of the game, with a massive hit that goes down as a PBU: 

It wasn't the best game for either LB, without a ton of plays that I registered in my charting beyond the Campbell coverage situations. However, I did note that Benson was the most frequent blitzer in those rare instances where Iowa sent more than four rushers. He didn't look bad at it in my estimation: 

LB #44 lined up in the middle of the box

To Rutgers' credit, they came up with the RPS win to counter a Benson blitz later on, targeting the exact place he came from with an out route for an easy first down: 

LB #44 lined up over the slot receiver to the bottom

Those sorts of plays, like the runs I mentioned earlier, worked best for Rutgers: goading Iowa to do something out of the ordinary and then attacking the space left open by that extraordinary event. 

Coverage was very stout as a whole, until the Hawkeyes started to play more conservative late in the game. I already showcased Cooper DeJean, but how about Riley Moss? There were more slip ups than typical for Moss, but he still had some great plays. This ball is underthrown, but Moss plays it well too: 

Don't worry, he can support the run too: 

And I'll drop in a clip of two of Moss' four interceptions from last season just for good measure: 

As a whole, this secondary knows how to cover. There are ways to attack it, the typical ways you go after Cov2 (short stuff, seam routes, four verts, high/low concepts), but in terms of the component of coverage that is not merely schematic, Iowa is top notch. They had some slip ups against Rutgers, especially late, but that's not something you can expect regularly. Both safeties perform their duties admirably and Kaevon Merriweather had the other defensive TD for Iowa in this one: 

That's a nice hit from Sebastian Castro, the CASH, to jar the ball free (also peep Jack Campbell in trouble in coverage again on one of Rutgers' little mountain goat dudes). I don't have a ton of notes on Castro, other than he's a step down from DeJean/Moss, which is to be expected. He's not bad, but as the slot guy, there may be room for Michigan to attack him on slants with Ronnie Bell because his coverage just isn't quite as sharp as the usual standard. This may be a TD if Simon throws an accurate ball: 

Back to the safeties, Merriweather's support in run defense remains stout and I had few notes on him in coverage. Quinn Schulte did not look like a new starter, making cool and calm tackles like this on the short stuff to help Iowa get off the field: 

Sometimes Schulte was a little late to pick up a guy passed off to him, but again this is splitting hairs. No obvious weaknesses in this secondary. 

 

What does this mean for Michigan? 

This section is not radically different from what I wrote here ahead of Indianapolis. Against Iowa you just don't want to make mistakes. We've discussed the high frequency of interceptions that Iowa defenses produce in the past and it bears repeating that it is not random. It's by design. This will be a pivotal test for JJ McCarthy as a result. We saw him rather look tentative against Maryland's 8-man coverages and now he will be faced with a team that has less guys in coverage but are masters of tricking college QBs into the wrong throw and having a player pop up to make an INT. Interceptions and turnovers in general are doubly important in this game considering that Iowa cannot win football games without generating them given the state of their offense. 

Michigan's receivers may not get much separation from the Iowa DBs given the caliber of players back there and it may be on the offensive coaching staff to scheme them open. They did that in the B1G Championship Game with the Donovan Edwards trick play throw to Roman Wilson and it was pivotal. That and the Blake Corum run were the big plays in what was otherwise an impressive performance from the Iowa defense until score effects weighed on them and the levee broke late. That's the blueprint again.

Do some funky stuff to move the ball and get a lead. Then don't make mistakes, play the field position battle, let the defense do the work. If you get the opportunity to break this defense's back late, do it. Run outside the tackles, test the edges, target the LBs in coverage, give the LBs and safeties things to think about and hesitate. Trick plays, pull out all the stops. Get the early lead and then put it in cruise control. And most of all, don't throw a pick six.