Do you guys think Kirk Ferentz might be a Cenobite? You know, one of those BDSM demons, like Pinhead, from the Hellraiser movies, that derives pleasure from enduring extreme pain and torture? I can certainly see Kirk saying “I have such sights to show you” as he inflicts the game film of Iowa’s offense to horrified viewers and reveling in their screams. At any rate, he is tearing the souls of Hawkeye fans apart.
Of course, the actual reason for this acute brand of sports misery we find ourselves in is much more banal. Kirk is the ruler of this fiefdom, which admittedly he helped build. Ruling a kingdom, however small, for over two decades is certainly good for the pocketbook and the ego. As for honesty and self-reflection, well, judging by Kirk’s sassiness at the slightest of challenging questions from reporters, being an autocrat doesn’t do shit for either of those two personality aspects.
Actually, I think a better analogy is that Kirk is the CEO of a closely-held company. It’s kind of a boring company which sells warranties for pocket protectors, but it turns a profit. People have been noticing the offense division at this company has been running at a loss for the better part of a decade. When someone points this out, Kirk explains that the offense needs to run at a loss for the company to make money, which is weird and doesn’t make sense. When people are understandably confused by this, Kirk just says a version of, “I’ve been doing this a long time, I know what I’m talking about, and hey check out the bottom line. We’re in the green, bro.” And for the most part, with the company reeling in the dollar bills, everyone accepts this, even though it is kind of goofy and stupid. But with the offense division at something like 1% to quota and the company running at a loss, things are gonna get real nasty as the scrutiny starts coming in fast and hot.
As to this pinata-filled-with-dog-poop of a football game against Illinois, I don’t have much to say about the specifics. Normally I enjoy recreating the game action and punching-up the game flow, but I don’t know how to make this interesting any more than I can figure out how to make roadkill not smell like a dead animal. It was about as much fun to watch as a refuse swirling in a shit-filled sewer drain and as gratifying as eating a black-licorice salad covered in motor oil, but here goes:
Illinois gutted out a couple of field goal drives in the first half thanks to some forceful runs by Chase Brown and very occasional throws from Tommy DeVito and later Art Sitkowski, who replaced DeVito when he left the game with an injury. Iowa managed a field goal on their first possession, thanks to Illinois doing Iowa the solid of just not covering Sam LaPorta on Iowa’s first drive. But like handing someone a five dollar bill after they hand you a fifty, Illinois came out way ahead on the deal, because they got to play an offense helmed by Spencer Petras, run by Brian Ferentz, and overseen by Kirk Ferentz.
In perhaps the most damning sequence of this already awful season, Iowa got the ball to start a drive on the Illinois 35-yard line after a muffed punt, lost six yards and punted. The offense got the ball back at the Illinois 5-yard line after a fumble, went backwards four yards, and then kicked a field goal. Then, after a genuinely good drive got the ball to the Illinois 18-yard line, the offense went backwards 9 yards and then missed the field goal. It is wild that if you cloned me eleven times and subbed in this all-Ben Lewis team for those sequences and just ran quarterback sneaks, it would have been an improvement on the actual offense for those three sequences.
While Iowa remains lost every time they get into the red zone, it sure would have been nice to see them bumbling around cluelessly like 13-year-old me at junior high dances, because they didn’t really even whiff the red zone again in the second half. Iowa had a couple of solid drives, but Brian Ferentz was always there to select a play from the “dumbass playcalls to use at inopportune times” section of the playbook. Look, I am no football genius, but I did say that Brian’s trick plays were becoming old dogs last week. The most egregious to me was the 2nd-and-6 from Illinois 38, with Brian opting for the very un-sneaky throwback to LaPorta which lost eight yards and tanked Iowa’s last, best chance to score more points and take control of the game.
Illinois for their part managed to find the red zone twice. They were almost as inept as Iowa was in the same spot, but while one red zone trip ended in an interception, the other ended in the game-winning field goal with around three minutes left to play in the game. Iowa’s offense had a couple of drives worth of pointless nonsense left in them, culminating in a hilarious, discombobulated series of laterals that mostly kept going backwards, as apt a metaphor for Iowa’s offense as anything on the night. Thus, this pile festering filth pile of a game ended in a 9-6 loss for the Hawkeyes, Iowa’s first loss against Illinois since George W. Bush was president.
As is the case with this version of the team, whatever happens in the game with anything else gets subsumed by the offense’s awfulness. We just can’t talk about the margins when there is fundamentally a huge chunk of the base just not there. So no, I’m not interested in talking about what might be a so-so rush defense for the Hawkeyes. I don’t care about missed field goals, nor indeed would I care if Tory Taylor started punting backwards. And I sure as shit don’t care to whine about penalties. As far as I’m concerned, if refs start issuing penalties against Iowa because "all of their fans are turd burglars," it would get nary a mention from me.
Nope, same as it ever was, it is the offense which sucks up all the oxygen, like that vacuum cleaner in Spaceballs. You can enter Adam’s circus tent filled with the statistical horrors about Iowa’s offense if you want to look at the freak show up close. For my part, I find it staggering that Iowa has held five opponents to ten points or fewer and is 3-2 in those games, but the stats showing how little offense it would take for Iowa to consistently win ten games are the most maddening. Nobody is asking for Ohio State’s offense. If Iowa could maintain the production of a team like the Navy Midshipmen, they would pretty much own the Big Ten West.
I have to make it clear to the condescending Polyannas of the world, I don’t have an iota of animus towards any of these hard-working, wonderful, and extremely motivated players who bust their hump each week. None. While I don’t think Spencer Petras is good enough to be the starting quarterback here, this staff does him precisely zero favors. They have no ability to teach him to play with less thought and more instinct. They are unable or unwilling to read the defense for him. They keep calling plays where he rolls out to his left, which requires him to make throws that he is apparently incapable of, and they can’t even help him vary the snap count. And the offensive line, what with their “Was I supposed to block that dude? I think I was supposed to block that dude”-vibe when a free defender comes through the line every other play is so consistently out of position that the only explanation is bad coaching. And every non-tight end skill position, God bless you. I cannot fathom why any of you are at Iowa aside from the goodness of your hearts.
I also need to state that I don’t want Kirk fired. At least not yet. (Though each snarky response to reasonable questions makes me want him as coach just a little bit less.) I’ve written this before, but if Iowa had an A.D. that wasn’t a walking, feckless pile of gelatin, Brian Ferentz wouldn’t have been hired in the first place and certainly would have been fired by now, replaced by someone not of Kirk’s choosing. And really, in the day and age of the transfer portal, it would likely take all of one off-season to get an offense that isn’t microwaved dog shit. That’s part of what makes this situation feel so hopeless. If the offensive performances the past two years aren’t enough to make a change, there is no degree of ineptitude that would matter.
As to this season...yuck. In two weeks when next I write something, Iowa is virtually guaranteed to be 3-4 after an unpleasant loss to the Ohio State Buckeyes. With five straight nasty games left on the schedule, I can’t talk myself into Iowa winning more than three of them. (And that feels like a rosy prediction.) No doubt some of you superfans will travel to Detroit to see this offense one last time. God bless you, but that sounds like pure Hell to me.
Hawkeye Droppings
* Look, I do understand the criticism that Iowa’s run defense hasn't been all that great the last few weeks. So what. The defense manages to make every quarterback they play even less efficient than Spencer Petras, which is truly astounding.
* We have gone through the looking glass here. Every team is basically out-Iowaing Iowa. A strong running game, tough defense, and occasional deep shots are getting it down. Nothing has made the hollow façade Kirk has built his offensive reputation on more apparent than the rushing numbers this season.
* Kaleb Johnson could be so good with a real offensive line. He made one of the plays of game on a first-and-ten: he got the hand-off with an Illinois run blitzer already in his face, then bounced off the defender and burst to the outside, turning a two-yard loss into a four-yard gain. (The next play was the throwback to LaPorta for negative eight yards.) I would love to see an actually great running game.
* If Iowa is going to go 6-6 and Kirk is right that you can have great offense or great defense but not both, I’d probably choose offense, because that is a hell of a lot more fun than this shit.
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