Say what you will about the nastiness of “2 Girls, 1 Cup,” for my money it is nowhere near as appalling as “12 yards, 1 half.” Look, I don’t want this article to be one of many decrying Iowa’s putrescent offense. I really don’t. It is the metaphoric equivalent of me standing over a decaying horse carcass with a mallet and hacking away. You’ve been watching this offense all year too, right? (All decade too!) Seeing them against a middling defense is tedious and frustrating, but seeing them take on an elite defense is like watching Carole Baskins cover a toddler in sardine oil and chuck them into a tiger cage. A blow-by-blow accounting of the horrific tragedy wouldn’t be any fun to write, nor I imagine, to read. But when the offense is so godawful, what else is there to talk about?
Some of you may be saying, “Wait a minute, Buck-O. Iowa’s supposedly elite defense gave up 27 points. Why not slice off a portion of the blame for them, eh buddy?” If this hypothetical person sounds like they are making sense, I implore you to get real. Wisconsin had three meaningful drives against this defense for 17 points. The other ten came on three turnovers inside of Iowa’s red zone, and one of those was a half-yard drive that no defense in college football could have stopped. A defense only giving up 17 points in 2021 college football is downright excellent, even against a bad offense. (And Wisconsin’s offense is straight-up mediocre.)
If that isn’t enough for you, look at the numbers. Wisconsin had 270 yards of total offense. Their very good running game ran the ball for 48 rushes for 166 yards, good for 3.5 yards a pop, which against Wisconsin’s very good rushing attack is actually a strong showing. Graham Mertz was a wholly unspectacular 11/22 for 104 yards. By any metric, Iowa’s defense was, at a minimum, very good against Wisconsin, which is all the more impressive when you realize Iowa’s defense did this with essentially zero pass rush.
On some level though, I get it. When you are used to Iowa’s defense holding opponents to 10 points and getting 4 turnovers a game, merely being above-average while generating no turnovers feels like a letdown. But let’s not grade them on an insane curve. Expecting the defense to maintain the torrid pace of turnovers was always a piss-poor plan. The stat nerds are right. It isn’t sustainable. It's like repeatedly asking them to swim across an Olympic-sized pool in parachute pants. Sooner or later they are going to pass out from exhaustion.
Meanwhile, Iowa’s “complimentary” offense is given floaties and a life-jacket and asked to walk to the edge of the kiddie-pool and they always end-up falling flat on their face, nearly drowning in three inches of water. You really didn’t need to look any farther than Iowa’s first drive to see this play out. Charlie Jones set the offense up nicely to start the game after nonchalantly knifing his way to Iowa’s 45-yard-line on the opening kickoff. Iowa’s offense went backwards on the very next play and punted two plays later.
Iowa’s only scoring drive shows the kind of set-up this offense needs to get to the level of a snowball’s chance in hell of succeeding. The offense started at Wisconsin’s 40 thanks to the defense forcing two three-and-outs and getting two nice punt returns from Charlie Jones. That 40-yard-drive in the third quarter got a big assist by a sorta dodgy pass interference penalty, and tripled Iowa’s yardage production for the entire game to that point. But I repeat, that drive was only possible because of that outstanding play by the defense and special teams. (Emphasis on the word outstanding. If either unit had merely been pretty good, that touchdown drive doesn’t happen.)
But we all know the absolute nadir of this game for the offense occurred on Iowa’s next possession. I’m sure you recall. Wisconsin had another three-and-out. Iowa got the ball and moved it unconvincingly to the Wisconsin 41 for a 3rd-and-2. A touchdown on this drive completely changes the complexion of this game. It is four down territory. Iowa goes for a fullback dive into the teeth of the best rushing defense in all of college football. The spot generously gives Iowa a yard. Fourth-and-one from the Badger 40. Iowa takes a gander at Wisconsin’s defense and calls a timeout.
What happened during that timeout remains one of the great mysteries of the universe. I would give up my 2007 Toyota Camry for a verbatim transcript of everything that Kirk and Brian discussed during it. After seeing all those elite defenders lined up in the box, what abysmal misapplication of logic led to the conclusion that running the fullback dive again gave Iowa the best chance to gain a yard? I am imagining some epic, Abbott and Costello “Who’s on First”-hilarity. That or Brian saying “Same play?” and Kirk replying “You’re darn tootin’!” Obviously the play call was a failure and Iowa’s last, best hope of making the game interesting died then and there, as Wisconsin scored a touchdown on the next drive.
That damning sequence is the perfect representation of everything wrong with Kirk’s offense in two eye-gougingly-awful play calls. What Kirk wants for this offense is to be predictable and unstoppable. For the defense to know what is coming but to be powerless to do anything about it. To be the kind of team that can run a fullback-dive into a stacked box come away with a yard at a minimum.
The problem is that Iowa hasn’t been that team for, oh, say a decade. They’ve had a few games against inept defenses here-and-there. Fine. But against the fundamentally sound and well-coached defenses in the Big Ten as a whole? Not fine at all. Athletic linebackers have been feasting on Iowa’s zone-running game, slanting into the backfield seemingly instantaneously with the snap, unbothered by the possibility that they will be punished for overzealously pursuing at the point of attack.
And when Iowa’s run game doesn’t work, nothing else in their offense works, because they have nothing else to lean on. There is no one in a position of authority on this staff that knows how to construct a functional passing offense or to consistently attack and/or trick defenses. And most importantly, there is no one in Kirk’s autocracy to debase him of his delusions about what his offensive system is capable of. All this means that we are stuck with an offense that is both predictable and bad, with no prospect of changing either
It is true that this year’s offensive line is really, really bad. (Save Linderbaum.) They get bull, speed, Premium and Geoffrey Rushed over and over. The dearth of talent on the line is Kirk and Brian’s fault. (No. This isn’t because Chris Doyle is not on the staff. Even if you could prove Iowa’s strength-and-conditioning has gotten worse. (You can’t though.) Doyle didn’t teach blocking technique, how to diagnose blitzes, create the scheme or call the plays. Besides, we Iowa also had a few bad offensive lines under Doyle.) But even worse, far too often defenders aren’t blocked at all as lineman are confused about who they should block. That is Kirk and Brian’s fault.
It is true that with Petras at quarterback, quarterback runs are off the table as is moving the pocket. (I’m sure Petras' numbers throwing outside the pocket are abysmal.) Petras being the quarterback is Kirk and Brian’s fault. But even worse, Petras’ footwork in the pocket is abysmal. Far too often Petras has no confidence in what he sees, panics and backpedals into the pressure of the defensive ends who have been forced to take the widest and deepest path into the backfield. This is Kirk and Brian’s fault.
It is true that the skill position players aren’t filled with insane burners. (Save Goodson.) This is Kirk and Brian’s fault. Even worse, these skill position players are stuck running one of the least imposing and most obvious route trees in all of college football, consisting of seemingly four options: Shallow Cross; Out; Seam; Slant; giving them no chance to succeed. This is Kirk and Brian’s fault.
Watching Wisconsin run a functional version of the offense Kirk thinks he has is time-and-again disappointing. This year was no different. Graham Mertz is just the latest version in a long line of nondescript and subpar Wisconsin quarterbacks. He is no better than Petras, and might even be worse, but he has the benefit of playing with an excellent running game that consistently takes all the pressure off and sets up easy completions, even against elite defenses.
Like most of you, I don’t really have hope that Iowa can run the table. The schedule is soft enough that Iowa can slop their way to 2-2 and maybe 3-1 if they get lucky, even with one of the worst offenses in college football, but 4-0 from here on out seems too fanciful to dream up. Still, if Iowa does pull that off off, we just need a Purdue and Wisconsin loss to clear the way for a trip to the Big Ten Championship Game. Here’s to us all being shocked.
Random Thoughts
*The pass rush has vanished since the Colorado State game. The defensive line is still controlling the line of scrimmage on running plays, but they aren’t even sniffing the quarterback on passing plays. It’s disappointing but it makes me more impressed by the coverage on the back end, as it has been consistently excellent minus David Bell.
*It didn’t matter, but the special teams are still great. I don’t know what happened to cause Max Cooper on the one punt return, but yeah, he is no Charlie Jones.
*Like a lot of you, I doubt that Brian has free rein on this offense. (I’m sure if he told his dad that he wanted to scrap the zone-running game, he would be told to fuck right off.) But, boy, is his position hard to justify if he is just rubber-stamping or picking from plays pre-selected by his dad. That stat that Iowa is 128th in yard-per-play (which was before this dreck-filled performance) is incredibly damning. The offense would need to improve to even rise to the level of “bad.” This 2021 offense is approaching “worst of the Ferentz-era” territory, but it isn’t just this season. In the five years Brian has been in charge, he has never finished better than 87th in yards-per-game. I'm not really cherry-picking. Show me a single offensive metric for Iowa under Brian that shows he is doing a good job. If you think Brian is doing a good job, what would a *bad* job look like?
*Sometimes I am amazed that Kirk gets a single wide receiver or running back to play for him. Keagan Johnson is the most physical wide receiver Iowa has had in a long time. Please tell me he and every other skill-position player won’t bolt for the transfer portal at the end of the season.
*Dune is great and I am stoked they are greenlighting Part 2.
