Iowa Vs Missouri In Insight Bowl: Six Hawkeyes Who Must Step Up To Win
A December 28 bowl in Tempe, Arizona wasn't exactly what the Hawkeyes had in mind when they prepared for the 2010 season. Yet, here they are, pitted face-to-face with Mizzouri, in a bowl game most of America won't care two-bits about.
That's what happens when you drop your last three games of the season, including losses to two unranked teams (Northwestern and Minnesota).
Believe it or not though, this could actually be a really interesting bowl game.
Let's start with the intangible that makes this game a little more interesting right off the bat. Iowa and Missouri were scheduled to play a series of games against each other between the years 2005-2008. Missouri backed out of the deal.
Both programs would like to capitalize on this one opportunity to showcase what might have been. Though it's not exactly Oprah worthy, it is the kind of thing that can add a little drama to an otherwise blah looking bowl game.
Toss out the records for a moment. Sure, Missouri enters this contest with a 10-2 record while Iowa only comes in at 7-5. On the immediate surface, Missouri is far too good to be relegated to this level of bowl game and Iowa should be in for an ugly blowout to end an already disastrous season.
However, as my good friend Erik "the Goat" Lord likes to say, "not so fast, my friend."
The stats tell a very different story.
Missouri averages 30.3 points per game (8th in the Big 12). By comparison, Iowa averages 29.1 points per game offensively.
Missouri allows 15.2 points per game, compared to 16.4 points for Iowa. The Tigers boast a +11 turnover margin while Iowa brags up a +13.
I could go on comparing rushing offenses, passing offenses and draw comparisons as well from the defenses. In the end, these two teams are fairly evenly matched. Where one has a slight advantage in one area, the other holds the high ground in another.
Stats can indeed be skewed, but they are the only hard facts we have to compare the teams and they paint a picture of two teams that should put up a fairly good contest.
How will Iowa grab the ultimate upper hand on the scoreboard? They're going to need a few people to step up if they're going to take down the Tigers.
Adrian Clayborn and the Rest of the Defensive Line
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Clayborn hasn't had the kind of season he'd hoped for. The numbers haven't quite met the hype surrounding the pre-season All-American. He didn't rack up a ton of sacks (3.5 - third on the team). He hasn't had a ton of tackles for loss (7.0 - third on the team).
In fairness, Clayborn has been met with double-teams -- as would be expected of a player of his caliber. The rest of the line hasn't exactly come to his rescue.
This unit has played well. They just haven't played great.
Missouri will likely bring three different running backs into the game that all average over five yards per carry. De'Vion Moore, Henry Josey and Kendial Lawrence all have solid averages (5.22, 5.74 and 5.70 respectively), though none of them have gaudy yardage to go along with those averages. Moore has eight touchdowns to his credit while the other two each have four.
There's not one single running back that the Hawkeyes can focus on as a key to stop. They'll have to stop multiple threats.
That starts at the line.
Klug, Ballard and/or Daniels will have to clog the middle while Clayborn and Binns stretch the outside. With a linebacker corps that has been somewhat shaky by recent Iowa standards, the Hawkeyes will have to get solid play up front to close down the Tiger rush attack.
QB Blaine Gabbert has completed 62.2% of his passes for 15 touchdowns and has tossed seven interceptions. He's about as accurate as they come.
Iowa's defensive line will have to figure out how to get pressure on Gabbert and force him into making poor decisions or he'll dink-and-dunk the short passes all the way to six points -- over and over again.
Most of all, this unit will have to play a full 60 minutes. This game could very easily be just as close as the matches against Ohio State or Wisconsin, and their failures in late-game situations have contributed heavily to Iowa's five losses.
Jeremiha Hunter and the Defensive Secondary
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I lump the defensive secondary together in this slide, but in all honestly, it applies most specifically to the linebacker corps.
As mentioned before, Missouri has a trio of quality running backs that they can employ against Iowa. The defensive line cannot be expected to stop them all every time. The linebackers will need to be right there in the thick, taking away half of the Tigers' well-balanced offense.
Perhaps more importantly though, this group is going to have to be a step better than they've been all year against the short passes.
Gabbert is a quality quarterback but his overall yardage isn't necessarily mind-boggling (2752). How do you complete so many of your passes and still be 250 yards away from breaking the 3000 yard mark?
You do it by nailing the shorter passes and just keep the ball moving down field.
Iowa employs a Tampa Two defense with a "bend, but don't break" philosophy. This philosophy generally allows the shorter passes, but takes away the big play by keeping enough people deep that there are no attractive targets.
This defense is also predicated on having quick and smart linebackers that can quickly dissect a play and get into position to limit the damage. It's on them to cover the short routes and protect short plays from turning into long ones.
The problems this year with the linebacker corps are two-fold.
First and foremost, injuries have pretty well decimated the group. You have to go awfully deep into the roster to find a linebacker that didn't miss significant playing time due to injury this season. How could anyone expect them to find consistency when the personnel are changing seemingly every other series?
Secondly, this group isn't as fast as last year's group. As hyped as this year's defense was, it was somewhat unpredictable just how much Iowa would miss Pat Angerer and A.J. Edds at linebacker. They both had that rare combination of speed, power and brains that made them ultra-effective.
There's nothing that this year's group can do about their lack of speed. That ship has sailed. However, they've got less than a month to get their heads wrapped firmly around their assignments, work out some consistency and learn what Gabbert's "tells" are.
They could be the difference between a complete defensive performance and an okay-but-not-fantastic performance.
Given Missouri's balance and the different things they can throw at Iowa, these guys need to be on their "A" game.
Marvin McNutt and the Receiver Corps
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There's no real reason to go back over the Derrell Johnson-Koulianos ordeal. By now, you've undoubtedly heard all about that. It's tragic, sad and completely senseless.
As the saying goes though, "it is what it is." His choices have been made and the consequences have started to come around.
Now, the Hawkeyes will have to pick up the pieces and move on without one of their most dangerous weapons.
To do that, they're going to need an all-star performance from quarterback-turned-receiver, Marvin McNutt.
Certainly, there are other receivers in Iowa's stables besides those two. Keenan Davis has looked good as a third or fourth option to this point, and he could well step into the starting role opposite McNutt.
Collin Sandeman might be the one that lines up opposite McNutt as well. He's been a quality contributor for Iowa and he has more experience than Davis. He's not quite as flashy though, and that's what Iowa loses in DJK.
Allen Reisner will have to step up as well. Iowa has always used their tight ends well as receivers and he adds a dimension that's tough to defend.
However, McNutt is the main man now. He leads the team in receptions and yards this season.
He's had some troubles though. All of Iowa's receivers have.
Over the entire season -- but especially the latter portion (when Iowa collapsed) -- the receiver corps has had a bad habit of dropping very catchable passes. We've watched, mortified as perfectly thrown balls have popped off their gloved fingers or bounced off their plated chests. On a number of occasions, it was sheer dumb luck that those tips weren't intercepted.
Missouri has picked off 16 passes this season. They're no stranger to the takeaway. In fact, ten different players have recorded interceptions for the Tigers, and six of those players have multiple INTs to their credit.
If Iowa's offense is going to find consistent success against the Big 12's top-rated scoring defense, these guys (especially McNutt) are going to have to get their hands on Stanzi's passes and haul in the mail.
A good passing day will help open up (or keep open) the rush attack. A poor one will relegate Iowa to a one-sided offense and that's never a good thing.
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Ricky Stanzi
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This guy has completed 64.8% of his passes. He's tossed 25 touchdowns and only given up four interceptions. One of those can't even be blamed on him.
So how exactly does he need to "step up"?
Last season, Ricky threw just 17 touchdowns to 15 interceptions. However, while those numbers don't sound very good, Stanzi was a phenomenal asset to the Hawkeyes. He was a gunslinger. He was a renegade; a maverick. And he was successful when Iowa needed him the most.
This year, Ricky has been the negative of last year. He's been wildly successful from a statistical point of view. He's eliminated the turnovers, picked up his completion percentage and been...well...blah.
Yes, you read that right. He's been blah.
Last season, when the chips were down and all the cards were on the table, Ricky stepped up like a true field general and future hall-of-famer. He was John Elway in Pittsburg colors. He was Captain America and you just knew that with him under center, Iowa was going to be fine.
This season, he's been technically proficient, but he's lost the fire. When the games were tight and Iowa needed just one more drive to grab victory from the jaws of defeat, Ricky folded. His passes missed their marks (or were dropped, which isn't his fault). His attitude "felt" less confident. He was less reckless. He was less "maverick". And he was unsuccessful.
While fans love to spout the 25:4 touchdown-to-interception ratio, those numbers haven't equated into wins the way 17:15 did last year. Isn't that the ultimate measure of success? Don't wins and losses count for more than good completion percentages and low interception stats?
That's where Ricky has failed this year and where he needs to step up in the bowl game. Give away four more interceptions if you need to, Ricky. Throw a truck-load of "Stanziballs".
Just step up and be the cool, confident, Patton-on-the-gridiron that fans absolutely fell in love with last year. And bring home the win.
Ken O'Keefe
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The criticism of Offensive Coordinator Ken O'Keefe has been loud and constant. It's also been largely deserved. While O'Keefe has been as good as any of the Iowa coaches at bringing mid-level talent up to all-conference caliber players, he hasn't been a very good tactician.
His play calling is predictable to the point of being ridiculously elementary. Anyone with a base line knowledge of football can watch game film and pick out the tendencies of his offense. A slightly higher degree of experience could take that a step farther and formulate a plan to stop it. At this level, it's not even a question as to whether Missouri will know what's coming or not. They will.
All of that aside, perhaps one of Ken's biggest faults this year is his failure to strike a balance between all-out aggression (or panic) and boringly reluctant conservatism. He can spend two consecutive drives pounding the ball with barely a hint of a pass, to come out in the final drive and go straight to the air, trying to hit the long ball nearly every time.
Against Ohio State, he had a young running back who was averaging nearly eight yards per carry against the Buckeyes' stiff run defense. Yet, with four-plus minutes to go in the game, he dished out four straight passes (all failures but one, which was too short). There was time on the clock. There was a quality running back having wild success. Why not toss a well-timed, unexpected run play somewhere in there?
It seems with O'Keefe that he's conservatism by nature, but the second it looks like time is against him, he panics and dials up an all-out aerial assault. The problem is, defenses are able to adjust quickly when they see that they're getting hit with only one facet of Iowa's offense.
With the relative balance that Iowa enjoys on offense this season, O'Keefe needs to learn how to use a variety of play calls and a few new looks from his traditional sets to keep defenses guessing as to what's coming next.
I can respect the attitude that they're just going to come straight at their opponents and dare them to stop the Hawkeyes. Except they have. At some point, you have to respect the advantage that playing a little "cat and mouse" can give you and put together a game plan that will take your opponent out of their comfort zone and get them guessing.
O'Keefe needs to really step it up or Iowa is going to continue to be oh-so-close...only to fall short yet again.
Kirk Ferentz
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Perhaps the whole Johnson-Koulianos deal was causing problems that we didn't see. How could we? We didn't know it was going on.
I would have to believe that Ferentz didn't know it was going on either or I'd expect he'd have wasted no time getting rid of DJK much sooner. I have no doubts that he was as surprised as the rest of us.
So, that can be no excuse.
Whatever prompted the late-season meltdown, one thing became clear: Iowa gave up. The players quit on him. Maybe he quit on them too.
Either way, that's a terrible situation for a team with this caliber of talent and it manifested in the final regular season record.
He lost control of this team and that's not acceptable for anyone in his position, but especially not for someone who makes as much money as he makes with so few ultimate expectations.
Ferentz has lacked emotional displays on the sidelines. Players feed off their coaches and the only thing he fed them was a "ho-hum, another day at the office" attitude that didn't jive well on a team hoping for big things.
He's going to have to figure out how to win back their trust, regain the passion and show this team (and its fans) that this is a game he really wants to win.
He's going to have to step up his game and get this team back on track. He has done a magnificent job over the years, but he hasn't done that well this year and this is his chance to get things back on track before it really spills over into next year.
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