Last week, we got a question: Has a power conference program ever seen such a drastic difference in offense and defense as Iowa?

I already had this data set ready to go (yes, I’m a nerd), so let’s answer the question from a full-season Points Per Drive perspective, shall we?

The answer is YES: since 2007, there has been exactly one Power 5 team that has outdone Iowa in its attempts to win games by putting all its stat rolls into only one phase of football. (Navy has accomplished this feat once as well. Dubious credit where dubious credit is due.)

Bronze Medal: In 2018, Cal had the #125 offense and the #9 defense, for a PPD Gap of 116.

Silver Medal: In 2016, Texas Tech had the #9 offense and the #127 defense, for a PPD Gap of 118. Call this the Inverse Iowa. OC for the Red Raiders that year was Eric Morris, who is currently attempting to recreate the Inverse Iowa at North Texas this year with a mediocre offense and the worst defense in football.

The Iowa Medal: 2022 Iowa. #120 offense and #1 defense, for a PPD Gap of 119.

Gold Medal: In 2015, Boston College had the #127 offense and #5 defense, for an astounding PPD Gap of 122(!!!). Don Brown was DC and got yoinked by Michigan after the season to replace DJ Durkin, who had been so busy interviewing for head coaching jobs that he forgot to prep for the Ohio State game.

This doesn’t happen often, and in spite of all the evidence I still do not expect 2023 Iowa to end the year with that kind of SP+ or PPD gap.

Week 5 Update

One-Sentence* Summary:

Fun Fact: If the Iowa offense had not scored their single TD…the Hawkeyes still would have won this game.

Saturday’s football action has all but proven that, for any given set of games, the Football Gods grant a certain amount of offense and a certain amount of defense to the universe. If anyone was wondering where their team’s offense went, it was busy at the Ole Miss-LSU game. If anyone was wondering where their team’s defense went, it went here.

Iowa defeated Michigan State 26-16 in an ugly rock fight. And some rocks are more rock than other rocks; Iowa Football™ is “hitting a rock with a rock and assuming that your rock is more rock than their rock.” The Iowa defense continues to be the rock-est of all rocks, holding the vaunted “beg for penalty yards” MSU offense to 9 points, no touchdowns, and forcing 4 turnovers. It was a massacre. Unfortunately, the rock-ness of Iowa’s offense continues to be, well, rocky.

The obvious story of this game is that Old Frenemy Cade McNamara went down halfway through the first quarter - he’s been playing semi-hurt already, and the way his leg buckled looked ugly. But the story that’s a little less obvious is that once McNamara went down, “Offensive” “Coordinator” “Brian” Ferentz…opened it up?? Backup QB Deacon Hill came out throwing, and didn’t stop: the Iowa offense featured more passes than runs, they scored the game’s only offensive TD on a pass (to Old Frenemy Erick All in Beast Mode), and all that includes the all-run “we’re up and MSU isn’t going to score” drive to salt the game away and the final kneeldown ‘drive’.

What’s even MORE interesting is that Ferentz The Younger ignored his head coach to do so: at halftime, Ferentz The Elder made a comment about “helping the backup QB by getting the ground game going.” From the moment that comment was made, Iowa still called more passes, and actually out-passed MSU on a YPA basis by more than half a yard. The only thing keeping them from utter domination was...umm...(checks notes) a bevy of dropped balls by receivers, some terrible routes by…uh…everyone, and a running game that was no threat to the Spartans.

Oh, and if you needed any additional evidence that Mark Dantonio is the one truly coaching Sparty, the amount of (mostly uncalled) general borderline-dirty play in this game should have been enough to give us all flashbacks. But not the fun kind where you did a lot of cool drugs in the past and now you get an echo of those days every time you go to the chiropractor. The other kind.

Saving Private Brian

The awesome thing about football is that when you score more points than the other team, you win! The frustrating thing about football is that the only way to win is to score more points than the other team.

Futility Rate

Anyone remember Jim Thome? A baseball player who was so good at not putting the ball in play that he was named “Mr. Three True Outcomes”? Iowa is turning into Football Three True Outcomes (something I just made up and doesn’t exactly make a ton of sense but I’m going with it anyway): they 1) score, 2) turn the ball over, or 3) go nowhere…at an impressive clip. I adjusted this chart to acknowledge that Iowa DOES do things besides punt. But…uh…not a lot.

Also, I had to go back and give Iowa credit: I had incorrectly counted one drive as a 4-and-out, when it was actually a drive which 1) gained a first down that I missed, because it 2) netted 4 yards. Iowa Football™.

RB Receptions are Moneyball, Dammit

I officially Do Not Get It. I mean…I get it…Cade and Hill are swinging for the fences every dropback. But I don’t get it.

Running back receptions are Moneyball, dammit. Think of the Patriots from 2011 through, I don’t know…2017? You think of Gronk. You think of Aaron Hernandez (…and then you quickly stop thinking of Aaron Hernandez). Julian Edelman. Danny Amendola. Their “big TE and squirrely WR” phase. They had Brandin Cooks as a 1,000-yard receiver one of those years. Hell, Brandon LaFell had 950+ yards for them in 2014. I had forgotten that Brandon LaFell existed.

Here’s their RB/FB receiving yards, from 2011-2017:

• 2011: 363
• 2012: 657
• 2013: 679
• 2014: 566
• 2015: 1,043 (!!!)
• 2016: 716
• 2017: 957

These are, largely, free yards. Yet Iowa is on pace for 182 receiving yards from their running backs on 26 receptions for the whole year. TAKE THE FREE YARDS.

One-Phase Football

IOWA DEFENSE IS BACK BABY! But…that SP+ GAP is growing. The offense ranking dropped for the second straight week. The next largest Gap is 98, by North Texas, who continue to have the worst defense in college football and an ok-to-decent offense.

Hey, It Could Be Worse

Um. No, actually it couldn’t.

Iowa - for this week at least - edges out Northwestern (owners of a shockingly successful record of 2-3, despite being ranked #116th on offense) for the worst offense in the B1G Conference.

Indiana’s offense holds pat at #94, same as last week (but they just lost their OC and there’s no predicting how that’ll impact things). Nebraska, which just avoided a shutout by putting up a garbage time TD on Michigan’s 3rd string defense, has the #87 offense in the nation, 30 spots better than Iowa, and Michigan State is one spot better than that at #86. Wait. We’re not done. Minnesota, Illinois, and Rutgers clock in at #77, 76, and 74. respectively.

Jesus.