Insight Bowl: Will Norm Parker's Impending Retirement Affect Iowa Play-Calling?

The Iowa Hawkeyes are heavy underdogs in their Insight Bowl matchup against Oklahoma.  In fact, the Insight Bowl has the greatest betting line differential of any of this season's bowl games. 

The Hawkeyes play a slow, grind-it-out style of football that lacks pizzazz on either side of the ball.  The Sooners, on the other hand, play an aggressive, fast-paced style of football that gives them the potential to turn any game into a blowout in just a matter of minutes.

As has been documented, the key to a Hawkeye victory in this game will be their defense.  The key to beating the Sooners is to pressure their stellar quarterback, Landry Jones.  If you give Jones enough time to throw comfortably, he is virtually unstoppable.

The discomforting part for Iowa fans about this key to victory is that Iowa defensive coordinator Norm Parker is notorious for the lack of pressure in his schemes.  Especially this season, Parker's defensive play-calling has been quite conservative and has been marked by a noticeable absence of pressure on opposing quarterbacks.

However, there may be reason for the Hawkeye faithful to hope that the defensive schemes won't be so conservative in the Insight Bowl.

As reported earlier this week, Parker will be retiring following the Insight Bowl.  Parker is a defensive legend and helped turn the Hawkeye defense into a formidable group during his tenure at Iowa, so it is with some sadness that the Iowa faithful bid him farewell.

One possible positive of Parker's impending retirement is that it means Coach Parker enters the Insight Bowl with nothing to lose.

If he tries out radical or aggressive schemes and they don't work, nobody will care because the Hawkeyes were supposed to lose anyway, and Parker won't have to worry about any backlash against him or fear for his job security. 

Norm Parker is an intelligent coach, so he most likely realizes that the Insight Bowl is his best opportunity to go all-out with his defensive play-calling and implement any radical tricks that he has left—ones that he never got to try out during his coaching career. 

Hawkeye fans can only wait and hope that Norm Parker's impending retirement prompts him to radically alter his defensive tendencies for the Insight Bowl.

Otherwise, it may be an Oklahoma blowout.