Jonah Parker from Black Heart Gold Pants joins us for a little Q&A
It’s time for the second half of the season. MSU is 3-3 so we know we need to at least duplicate that to become bowl eligible. The good news is that Ohio State and Oregon are behind us. But we start back after the well-needed bye week with a home tilt against Iowa, who are 4-2 and present challenges of their own. To get to know this opponent a little better, I sat down with Jonah Parker from Black Heart Gold Pants and asked him some questions. Let’s see what he had to say:
TOC: In 2023, Iowa had a famously stingy defense but also a famously nonexistent offense (much like MSU). Coach Kirk Ferentz fired his son/offensive coordinator and replaced him with Tim Lester. Now, halfway through 2024, the Hawkeyes are scoring nearly double what they were a year ago. Tell us about this new offense.
JP: Perhaps the craziest part is how NOT different this “new” offense is from a year ago. Particularly if you’re an outsider who didn’t watch every snap of Iowa football a year ago (those of us who did are lucky to still have our vision after that atrocity) and are only going to catch highlights or a single game this year, things are going to look largely the same.
It’s a run-based offense built around the outside zone and there’s not a lot going on in the passing game at this point. But the biggest difference has been the success in the running game. Lester has dressed up the zone running scheme with a lot of pre-snap motion and a more diverse set of formations. The Hawkeyes are running out of shotgun at a significantly higher rate than a year ago. The result has been better blocking angles and a more off-balance defense.
In most games this season, the Hawkeyes have had little need to pass the ball a significant amount. When they have, they’ve had success on shorter routes and have used a more diverse route tree with more over the middle the work than we saw from Brian Ferentz. But the traditional play-action, down the field passing game that older Hawkeye fans will recall from the heights of the early to mid-2000s has really been lacking. Iowa just is not taking shots down the field with any regularity and when they do, they’re not having success.
TOC: Despite lacking an offense last year, Iowa still had a respectable season, winning their division and playing in the Big Ten Championship Game. What were your expectations coming into this season? What were your best- and worst-case scenarios?
JP: The expectations game is really what season are all about. When we polled our community preseason, most of the fanbase came out around 9-3 or 10-2 for Iowa this year. When you consider the schedule, it’s not unreasonable but well ahead of the 7.5 wins Vegas had pegged for Iowa and a more successful year than your average ho-hum 8-4 Kirk Ferentz season.
The roller coaster ride for Iowa fans has been a combination of the tales of two halves we saw in the first three games and the fact almost nobody expected the Hawkeyes to lose to Iowa State. Sure, we’re biased, but the general consensus was that the Cyclones were poised to be average (and in fairness, there’s been nothing this season to indicate otherwise, the #9 ranking be damned) and losing that game early seemed to really set the fanbase in a tailspin. The domination in the run game against Minnesota brought everyone back from the dead and then for some reason, when Iowa did what we all expected and got blasted in Columbus the sky was again falling (truthfully the issue was probably that Iowa was somehow still in that game at the half and then was obliterated for 1.5 quarters).
All this to say, the best-case scenario pre-season was an 11-1 gallivant into the playoffs. That dream died against the Cyclones, but 10-2 and a lot of shoulda, woulda, coulda remains on the table.
The worst-case preseason was probably somewhere around 7-5. That too remains on the table.
TOC: Cade McNamara is back as your quarterback after suffering a season-ending injury in game five last year. Spartan fans are very familiar with him from his time at um. How is he looking this year? Is he better than the version of himself that MSU last saw?
JP: Cade has caught plenty of heat in Iowa City this year. Statistically, he’s been relatively fine. Iowa isn’t asking him to throw much at all and they’re asking him to throw downfield even less. But part of that is certainly that he seems much less capable of throwing downfield.
McNamara has never had a cannon for an arm, but coming off the quad and then knee injuries from a year ago, we’ve seen him much less willing to really step into his throws and fire off of his plant leg. He’s throwing off his back foot more and in general just seems off balance. It has led to some accuracy issues and despite breaking a few runs here and there, any hopes of having mobility as an added element went out the window about 5 weeks ago.
At the end of the day, Cade is still a serviceable QB and a significant upgrade from his former backup, Deacon Hill, who started most of last season. Lester isn’t asking him to do a ton and when he doesn’t turn the ball over, Iowa is undefeated on the season.
TOC: Iowa’s defense is stout again this year, allowing just 14.8 points per game to their opponents. What makes the Iowa D so good year in and year out? This year, what is the best level of your defense? Who is the one player MSU coaches need to be conscious of when creating our game plan?
JP: I really should just draft a stock answer to this question because I think I’ve gotten some form of it every week I’ve done one of these for almost 8 years now. The long and the short of it is that there is nothing special about the defensive scheme Phil Parker runs, but the way he coaches it just seems to consistently produce.
Iowa is going to forever sit in their base 4-3 against heavy personnel and slide to a 4-2-5 against 10 or 11 personnel. They’re going to predominantly play cover 2 and they’re going to try to create pressure with the 4 down linemen. But what makes things click is the entire unit being in the right spot the vast majority of the time and capitalizing when opponents make mistakes.
Early in the season we saw how things can go wrong with new personnel in the secondary as both Troy and Iowa State ripped off multiple big plays. And of course, Iowa is never going to have the horses to shut down the $20-25M at work for Ohio State, but outside of that this group has been what we’ve come to expect of an Iowa defense under Parker.
That’s helped greatly by the Hawkeyes’ best position group: the linebackers. All-American Jay Higgins and All-Big Ten Nick Jackson are the best duo in the country, and I don’t think that’s a controversial statement. They’re almost never in the wrong spot and they’re both excellent in coverage and at stopping the run. Combine them with defensive tackles Yahya Black and Aaron Graves eating up blockers and you have a recipe for stopping the run consistently.
The back end has been a little more suspect this year, though and I would expect MSU to attack whoever they get at corner opposite Jermari Harris. TJ Hall got the nod early in the season and was torched, so was replaced by Deshaun Lee, who we saw get punished by bigger WRs from Washington. Both are OK corners but not on the level of Harris or last year star Cooper DeJean, who they look to replace.
The name to really watch on defense, though, is Sebastian Castro. The COVID senior plays Parker’s “cash” position, which is a hybrid LB/DB role in place of a true niche corner. Castro is an absolute menace who can cover anyone in the slot or knock a 6’4”, 300 pound OL flat on his back in the open field (see the return on Harris’ interception a week ago).
TOC: Fill in the blank: Iowa will win the game if they ___________.
JP: At this point in the season, it’s become obvious that Iowa is going to win every game where they effectively run the ball. Kaleb Johnson is a top-2 back in the nation who is big and powerful, but tends to glide through the hole and then outrun defensive backs. If Tim Lester is cooking on Saturday night, Johnson will be north of 150 yards with multiple scores. If not, McNamara will be asked to throw more than he should and that opens things up for turnovers.
TOC: Bonus Question: Predict the final score.
JP: I think Johnson continues to get it done and Phil Parker does what he does best. I think Sparty is a very good opponent and they’ll certainly make every effort to stop the run and put up points, but Aidan Chiles’ propensity to turn the ball over and Iowa’s knack for creating turnovers makes me believe the Hawkeyes come out ahead in that department and give the offense a couple short fields. If the Hawkeyes get the lead, Johnson will be a formidable closer.
Iowa 27, MSU 17
TOC thanks Jonah for his help in this article. Let’s hope his prediction is way off.