Meet the Bowl Opponent: Iowa Hawkeyes

Dec 9, 2024 | Uncategorized

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Iowa v Maryland
Photo by G Fiume/Getty Images

Eli Drinkwitz and Missouri football will take on the Iowa Hawkeyes in the Music City Bowl. Let’s get a little rundown on the team.

The Missouri Tigers will head to Nashville to take on the Iowa Hawkeyes in the 2024 Music City Bowl. Eli Drinkwitz has a chance to earn back-to-back ten win seasons for only the third time in school history. The team will face an Iowa squad that found a little life on offense this season, although they still fulfilled their usual stereotype.

We will have plenty more in-depth content for you as the game approaches — including news about opt-outs and transfers, analytics and matchups, our Q&A series, etc. But with the announcement still fresh, let’s take an early look at who the Hawkeyes are and how they have gotten here.

You could argue that Iowa has the strongest program identity in college football over the past two decades. Kirk Ferentz has been at the helm since before many of us started following the sport. His teams are built on running the ball, field position, excellent special teams, and of course, a gnarly defense. It is a developmental program, not usually dabbling in the world of blue-chip prep prospects. Yet they still put guys in the NFL, especially on defense and the lines of scrimmage.

The team rebounded this year from the depths of their nepotism-driven offensive nadir. Kirk’s son Brian was offensive coordinator for far too long. In his last two seasons calling plays, the Hawkeyes finished 118th in 2022 in offensive SP+ and 129th last year. That’s horrifying — that is Akron bad, UMass bad, Louisiana-Monroe bad. Both years the defense finished in the top three.

This year, they replaced their large adult failson with a dime-a-dozen retread — former Western Michigan head coach Tim Lester — and skyrocketed up the standings: to 68th. Their offensive peers include teams like Oklahoma, Rutgers, MIssissippi State, and Duke, but to Iowa fans, it probably feels like they hired the resurrected Mike Leach.

The Hawkeyes will be quarterbacked by Brendan Sullivan, a junior transfer from Northwestern. He played the majority of the team’s final three games after starter Cade McNamara was injured, completing 24 of 35 passes on the season for 344 yards. For his career, he has 11 Big Time Throws to 14 Turnover Worthy Plays. It was the ground game that keyed the offensive “surge;” running back Kaleb Johnson is one of the best in the country, and accumulated 1,537 yards and 21 scores, but has already opted out of the postseason to prepare for the NFL Draft.

Phil Parker’s defense is, of course, excellent. They keep everything in front of them to an extreme rate, one of the top teams in the country in preventing explosive plays. It’s more of a ball control defense than an attacking one: ranking in only the 45th percentile for Havoc, and 10th percentile for run play Stuff %. In the past three seasons they have ranked first, third, and now seventh in team defensive SP+. #1 cornerback Jermari Harris has opted out; All-America linebacker Jay Higgins plans to play in the game.

The Hawkeyes got here by virtue of an 8-4 season in the Big Ten. In some ways, when one side of the ball is that atrocious, that feels like a successful campaign. On the other, Iowa has sported a championship defense for years now, and wasted a moribund offense.

They were given a very manageable conference schedule and wasted it. They snagged blowout wins over the soft underbelly of the conference, with a cumulative score of 122 to 40 over Washington, Northwestern, and Wisconsin. But the Hawkeyes dropped easily winnable road games at Michigan State and UCLA, two teams both with first-year head coaches that are not in bowl games. They also choked away a 13-0 halftime lead to in-state rival Iowa State at home. The 35-7 loss to Ohio State is understandable; the other three losses are bad results. With an offense this poor, 8-4 has to feel good, but a defense this excellent, it feels like they left some meat on the bone.

The program continues to trundle along in this manner, and Mizzou will have no surprises about what kind of game to prepare for. The names on the back of the jersey might change, but the identity on the front is as predictable as a sunrise.

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