College Football

Iowa Football: New Coaching Offers Fresh Look On Offense

Updated Mar. 4, 2020 9:56 p.m. ET

Fansided, Jeremy Karll/FanSided via Dear Old Gold

Iowa’s offensive coaching staff will look different in 2017, and that’s a good sign

Change and Iowa football do not usually go together. Although in 2017, Iowa has a chance to have a completely new look on offense.

Last week, offensive coordinator Greg Davis retired with offensive line coach Brian Ferentz, head coach Kirk Ferentz‘s son, taking over. Then, Iowa announced that the contracts of running backs coach Chris White and receivers coach Bobby Kennedy would not be renewed.

On a team that has run the same run-heavy, don’t take shots downfield unless it’s 100 percent necessary offense under Kirk Ferentz since 1999, they have a chance for a change of pace in 2017.

No, Iowa won’t adopt a west coast offense where they spread four receivers wide and take shots downfield in a game the first team to score 50 points wins. Frankly, after all the drops Iowa saw in 2016, they’re likely not feeling too confident about their receiving core outside of Matt VandeBerg and the potential tight end Noah Fant has.

That said, Brian Ferentz is a new, young mind that can spice up the offense. By not bringing back White, who coached the first duo of Iowa backs to rush for 1,000 yards in the same season, and Kennedy it signals that a change of culture is coming on offense for Iowa.

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Kirk Ferentz has been reluctant in the past to waver from what has worked for him for 18 years. Sure, Iowa has never been a high-powered, elite offense, but this style of play has led Ferentz to a 135-92 record over 18 seasons with appearances in the Rose Bowl and two Orange Bowls.

Times are changing, though, and Iowa had not been under Greg Davis. Iowa’s offense of handing it off to Akrum Wadley and LeShun Daniels Jr and hoping they make defenders miss, or that their Joe Moore Award winning offensive line blocks well enough to create a hole in a defense that stacked the box, has become predictable and ineffective this season.

Davis’ reluctance to throw downfield led to teams sniffing out Iowa’s short screens or runs up the middle before they happened. In fact, in pass attempts, Iowa ranked a mere 112th in the nation and tied for 115th in pass attempts per game in 2016. Despite having an NFL-caliber senior quarterback, the Hawkeyes only attempted 310 passes this season and 23.8 per game.

Wadley, Daniels and their experienced offensive line played well but evidently points came in spurts.

Iowa scored 40-plus points in each of their first two games but only scored more than 30 in two of their next five games. The Hawkeyes then only scored 37 points in their next three games before ending the regular season with 68 points in their final two games. Of course, Iowa only managed a field goal against Florida in the Outback Bowl, too.

Florida knew what Iowa was going to do before they did it. They would stack the box and play the screens, daring Iowa to take a shot downfield. Although, when Iowa tried to look downfield, Florida’s pass rush bullied their way past Iowa’s offensive line and had many huge hits on C.J. Beathard. As a result, Riley McCarron‘s lone reception in the third quarter was their only reception by a receiver of the game.

It’s telling of Greg Davis’ tenure at Iowa. He was the offensive coordinator of Texas’ national championship team with Vince Young but could never figure out how to run an offense without elite athletes at Iowa.

Sure, Iowa doesn’t recruit elite receivers or have an air raid offense, but Davis went away from the pass game too often. It’s partly on Kirk Ferentz not wanting to switch his game plan, but after Iowa’s scoring offense ranked a mere 95th in the nation this year, and failing to ever reach top 50 under Davis, he should know it’s time for a change.

Iowa won’t pass 40 times a game, but they need balance on offense. In 2017, teams will dare Iowa to give it to someone other than Wadley. They’ll stack the box and sniff out screens to try to force Iowa’s hand.

Luckily for Brian Ferentz, even with a sophomore quarterback, Iowa returns a fifth-year senior in VandeBerg, Iowa’s best deep threat this year in Jerminic Smith and two high-potential players in Jay Scheel and Noah Fant.

No, it’s not the Mike Williams and Artavis Scott duo Clemson showcased in the national championship, but it’s still a good core to help usher in a new quarterback.

Also, changing the coaching staff shows that Kirk Ferentz might be more lenient in the next couple of years and let Brian Ferentz try to fix Iowa’s offense. We’ll see if Iowa has more diverse play-calling and takes a couple of shots downfield each game, not solely relying on runs and screens.

It has been Kirk Ferentz’s way for 18 seasons now, but there’s a reason he’s gone from a highly sought after coach to one of the more overpaid ones in the nation. Or why Iowa hasn’t won a bowl game since 2010.

Iowa will never put up 40 points per game under Kirk Ferentz or pass the ball more than they run. That’s okay, though. They don’t need to.

Their offense does need to put up enough points to help a defense that has been a top 20 scoring defense in two of the past 12 seasons. Iowa’s defense kept them in almost every game in 2016, and Iowa could have won a couple of more games if their offense was more consistent.

Iowa had their ups-and-downs under Greg Davis’ offensive scheme, but it became evident that their low-scoring offense wouldn’t be fixed under him. If Kirk Ferentz allows Brian Ferentz to experiment and try to fix the offense, the Hawkeyes could be a surprise team in the Big Ten in 2017.