Ask Kirk Ferentz about his starting weak-side linebacker, and he’ll be perfectly blunt.
“If this was the NFL, he’d probably never gotten that chance,” Ferentz said. “He would have probably been cut three years ago.”
As a veteran coach with both college and NFL experience, he knows most players can only make a living playing solely special teams for only so long before a more well-rounded player takes his roster spot.
Luckily for Fisher, as well as the Hawkeye defense, Iowa isn’t a professional franchise, it’s a Division-I program — one that’s currently reaping the rewards of a linebacker starting his first and last season in an Iowa uniform.
As Ferentz said, directly, it’s taken Fisher a long time to crack Iowa’s starting lineup. Primarily a special-team and scout-team player during his time in Iowa City, the native of Omaha didn’t play with the first unit until his final camp as a Hawkeye.
Since the end of last season, the Hawkeye linebacking trio this season looked to be some combination of sophomores Ben Niemann, Josey Jewell, and Bo Bower. Fisher, along with fellow senior Travis Perry, figured to be in the rotation to an extent and continue to play prominent roles on special teams.
Through the summer and into fall camp, the linebacking situation began to sort itself out, Fisher landed a job because of his consistency, Ferentz said. Through five games this season, the starting trio hasn’t changed. Niemann plays strong side, or “Leo” as it’s called in Iowa’s system, with Jewell in the middle, and Fisher — who finally figured everything out — at the “Will.”
Fisher, a 6-2, 236-pounder, doesn’t totally fit the typical “fifth-year, hard-working senior finally getting his shot” mold we see so often in college sports. He’s a three-time Academic All-Big Ten honoree, but his brainpower hasn’t always translated into success on the field.
Fisher will graduate this year with a degree in civil engineering. As one might imagine, a future engineer (Fisher has been accepted into a master’s program in structural engineering at Iowa, and he has plans to pursue a graduate degree once football is finished) thinks about things in a step-by-step, methodical process. After all, that is how engineers work through problems, he says.
However, this isn’t always the best way to go about things on the football field, especially on the defensive side of the ball. Yes, defenders have to know where their teammates are at all times — but more so at linebacker than on the line or in the backfield; reading a play and reacting to it in a split second is paramount.
“I would say you just have to react,” defensive end Drew Ott said. “You just have to get rid of the steps and react.”
Fisher didn’t truly learn to respond until late last season. It took a Perry broken leg in the closing moments of Iowa’s 51-14 loss at Minnesota for a revelation to happen. Following that contest, the Millard North graduate took reps as the second-team Mike linebacker, giving him at least some exposure to all three linebacker spots in defensive coordinator Phil Parker’s system.
This, Fisher said, was key. Understanding the intricacies of playing linebacker has led to better, faster play.
“Once you get a look at all three, it really meshes overall. You really get a good look at the defense as a whole,” he said. “Once you see things as a whole and how they fit together, you can play a lot faster.”
Playing fast is one of a few keys to Iowa’s leading tackler’s success this season. Once Fisher understood a step-by-step approach may work in engineering but doesn’t always work in football, he was able to play downhill at a higher speed.
Take play diagnosis as an example. The quicker a linebacker can read a play and act, the faster he can make a play to the ball. While tackles aren’t always the best indicator of defensive performance, the metric is useful when thinking about it this way.
Last year, strong safety John Lowdermilk led the Hawkeyes in tackles, followed by linebacker Quinton Alston. This year, Fisher and Jewell are first and second on the leaderboard with 28 and 22 stops, respectively.
Because those two are reading the play quicker, they’re getting to the runner before he gets to the second level or gets outside, where a defensive back is forced to make a play farther downfield. Of course, if you watched a game of Iowa football last year, you know ball carriers getting to the perimeter caused huge problems for the Hawks.
“When you start worrying about assignments too early, you start slowing down,” linebacker coach Jim Reid said at the Hawkeyes’ media day in August. “Just go fast; when we meet, we’ll get you where you’re supposed to be.”
Through five games, Reid’s philosophy is paying off for Fisher and his teammates. The defense is the only one in the nation that has yet to allow a rushing touchdown and is ranked second behind Michigan in the Big Ten giving up only 84.4 yards per game on the ground.
While Fisher and his teammates have been good against the run, don’t think everything has been perfect. There’s still room to progress, most notably in pass coverage. A fourth and 15 late in the fourth quarter against Pittsburgh comes to mind immediately.
The senior had coverage on Panther receiver J.P. Holtz, who ran a post from the slot. Fisher was overly aggressive trying to knock Holtz off his route and lost inside leverage. Before he knew it, quarterback Nate Peterman hit his target for 19 yards to bring his team into the Iowa red zone. The Panthers scored two plays later.
Although he did make an obvious mistake, Fisher’s realization he screwed up — “I didn’t want to go to the sideline,” he told reporters the following Tuesday — is another sign the light bulb has finally turned on.
Maybe that’s not something new, and he has known how to cover a receiver in that situation all along. Whatever the case, the difference now, after almost four and a half years, is Fisher has the opportunity to make plays — or mistakes — on the defensive side of the ball.
Not just on special teams.