Insight Bowl: How Does Marcus Coker's Suspension Affect Iowa?

The Iowa Hawkeyes suspended star running back Marcus Coker for their Insight Bowl matchup against Oklahoma because he violated the university's student-athlete code of conduct.  First off, kudos to Iowa for holding true to their own rules, despite the fact that the player involved is a star athlete and an important part of the football team. 

It takes a lot of integrity to make a decision like that, and the Hawkeyes passed that test of character with flying colors.

The real question here is, "How will this affect the Hawkeyes in the Insight Bowl?".  Will Coker's suspension significantly impact Iowa's chances to pull off the upset?

Unfortunately for the Iowa faithful, the answer to that question is a resounding "yes."

Iowa had a mediocre regular season, and much of that was due to a mediocre offense.  The Hawkeyes were 56th in the nation in passing, 77th in rushing and 52nd in scoring offense.

Although the team's overall rushing game was below average, Coker definitely was not.  He rushed for 1,384 yards and 15 touchdowns on 289 carries.  Coker was the only player on the roster to gain at least 100 yards rushing on the season. 

The only other player on the team to register any rushing touchdowns was quarterback James Vandenberg, who had three.

Simply put, Coker was the workhorse on a team that severely lacked depth at the running back position.  No other running back had any sort of positive effect on the team whatsoever.  Coker was almost, quite literally, the entire Iowa rushing offense.

Vandenberg was quite efficient at the quarterback position, but averaged only 234 passing yards and 5.1 rushing yards per game.  When paired with a strong ground game, that type of play from the quarterback position is completely fine and dependable. 

Take away pretty much the entire rushing game, however, and those type of stats just don't move the chains.

Facing a high powered Oklahoma offense, the Hawkeyes are going to need every last bit of offense they can muster in order to have a realistic shot at knocking off the Sooners.  Now all Iowa has is the Vandenberg-to-McNutt combo, which the Sooner defense will almost certainly key in on. 

The Iowa offense this season relied on a few key play-makers this season; losing Coker takes away a good-sized chunk of the total offensive production.

Iowa made the right decision in holding Coker to the rules he agreed to uphold.  However, as the BYU basketball team discovered last season when they suspended key starter Brandon Davies right before the postseason for violating the school's Honor Code, making the right decision doesn't always pay off with in-game miracles. 

The Hawkeyes are about to discover that harsh truth as their difficult task of upsetting Oklahoma in the Insight Bowl just became nearly impossible.