Last week, I wrote a piece about Iowa’s offense under Tim Lester. The Hawkeyes have been very successful under possible Hall of Fame coach Kirk Ferentz. Kirk will deservedly have a statue in Iowa City someday, along with Hayden Fry, Dan Gable, and Caitlin Clark. Kirk has built his program on defense and special teams. The offenses under Ken O’Keefe, Greg Davis, and Brian Ferentz have been underwhelming. [I have longed for the days of a Ken O’Keefe offense for years, but I digress.] After the first half against Illinois State, I think it was safe to say that Hawk Nation was slightly nervous. Even though Kirk was watching the game at home, Coach Ferentz is the head chef. Nothing is made in his kitchen without Kirk looking over the ingredients a time or two (or ten). In my opinion, after a shaky first half, Cade McNamara got hit a few times, moved around a little bit, and settled down.

It’s common knowledge that athletes returning from an injury need some live action to get comfortable. The Hawks and Cade/Lester had that to deal with, along with years of Kirk Ferentz being extremely successful while being ultra-conservative on offense. The Hawks have won a lot of games with Coach Ferentz. I love Coach Ferentz. I also think that he has coached the confidence, and dare I say swagger, out of many of our offensive players. If you look at our defensive players, they play with confidence, energy, and attitude. Our offensive players play hoping to not make a mistake. That’s not a recipe for success. After the first half, the Hawkeyes had Kaleb Johnson gliding down the field, looking like he was chilling at the beach while Illinois State defenders took bad angle after bad angle against him.

Cade McNamara threw forward passes (I had to Google this new technique in advancing the football) off his back foot to 7’9” Reece Vander Zee for six points. From what I can tell, Vander Zee is a combination of Steve Largent, Jerry Rice, and Randy Moss.

It was maybe a wrong route or a busted play, but at that point, Cade and RVZ were playing “Backyard Football” and it was freaking glorious!! In one half of football, the rest of the college football world took notice of the Hawkeyes. Can the Hawkeyes replicate this week after week? Who knows, but there was motion, movement, and what appeared to be an overall plan in place. I’ll take it.

Included below are offensive stats from last year’s Iowa team and this year’s squad one game in. I will update the data each week.

Those numbers are tantalizing. It was a game of two halves. Iowa didn’t run or pass very well in the first half. The second half saw the boys on offense having fun! It will be interesting to see how the Hawks stack up against Iowa State. Iowa State is not the Iowa State of my youth when Hayden was winning big. Matt Campbell can recruit and coach. Losing to the Cyclones doesn’t have the same stigma as it did back then. If our guys can get out of the gate a little more quickly offensively, I like our chances. Check back next week, and we will take another look at Iowa’s offensive numbers. Certainly, going 1-0 last week was more important than 492 total yards. I’m no expert, but gaining almost 500 yards helped our squad get the dub. It will be refreshing if, going into a game, we don’t have to count more or less on needing a defensive score or a special teams touchdown to win. As always, it’s great to be a Hawkeye! Go Hawks!