People have been racking their brains all season trying to put a finger on just what makes the this season’s Iowa football team so good.
How has a team besieged by injuries and without a truly dominant offensive or defensive unit managed to not lose a game? How can a team that looks underwhelming on paper, by some standards, be perfect through 10 games?
The answer is in the drive.
The Hawkeyes’ ability to stretch the field and string together long touchdown drives on a consistent basis has been a major factor behind Iowa’s incredible run of offensive success.
“We’ve proven this year that we can finish those long drives a bunch of times this year, so I think the confidence kind of builds,” running back Jordan Canzeri said. “We have the confidence in each other that we can get it done, so there’s never much doubt.”
The numbers are staggering. Iowa has 13 separate scoring drives that have gone for at least 80-plus yards, including five that have gone for at least 90 yards.
That includes the offensively dominant day last weekend against Minnesota that saw the Hawkeyes string together four separate touchdown drives of at least 75-plus yards. All told, those drives ate up almost a full quarter of the contest.
“I think the biggest reason we’ve had so much success on those long drives is because when we get down there, no one panics,” Canzeri said. “Just knowing that, ‘Hey, we can do this; we can get this done right now.’ ”
Iowa is sixth in all of Division I in time of possession and tied for third in the country in average time of possession at a staggering 33 minutes a game.
In a certain sense, it’s almost fitting that Iowa’s offense is at its best when it’s clicking as a cohesive unit.
With so much talk this season about the next man in and an attitude of team over self, coach Kirk Ferentz’s squad excels at playing as a unit out of necessity as much as anything else.
The team has been injured so much that a reliance on one or two players to win games would have doomed Iowa’s season before it ever got off the ground.
“There are so many guys on the team who can in there and get it done that for the guys on the field it doesn’t really matter who is out there,” offensive guard Jordan Walsh said. “It just goes back to the way we prepare. We always just look at things one play at a time.”
It’s been written before, but Iowa’s greatest strength is its ability to fit the situation to the player and not try to force something if it doesn’t feel right. That means using every player on the roster and getting the right matchup against the defense.
Nov. 14 against the Gophers, that meant Iowa’s backfield duo of LeShun Daniels Jr. and Jordan Canzeri tag-teaming the Minnesota defense and keeping it off balance all game.
By developing a pair of tailbacks that can play in all situations, Ferentz has forced opposing defenders to respect the run, even if they don’t know what to expect.
For Iowa, this typically means feeding Daniels two or three times in a row before the defense has time to adjust and stop the physical, downhill runner from doing any more damage on the ground. By the time it adjusts, defense has to worry about the speedier and shiftier Canzeri.
If managed effectively, it can make the offensive attack look downright unstoppable, especially on third down, in which Iowa converts at a near league-best 47 percent. With that effectiveness, Daniels and Canzeri become worth their weight in gold.
“None of the [Iowa running backs] really mind it because we want to see each other do well to,” Daniels said. “Obviously, you want to be the one making the plays, but for us it doesn’t matter who is out there. We like seeing each other have success.”
And much in the same way that Iowa’s running backs are best when fit to a specific situation, the same could be said of Iowa’s pass catchers.
Matt VandeBerg was Iowa’s leading receiver against the Gophers with 74 yards on 6 catches, most of which came on his patented 10-yard crossing routes and the bubble screens that Iowa fans have grown so fond of this season.
VandeBerg is sixth in the Big Ten in catches with 55 despite having the second-lowest average yards per catch of anyone in the top-ten with 10.6. The junior may be a niche receiver, but he’s been used effectively in his role.
However, quarterback C.J. Beathard managed to find seven different receivers over the course of the game, including first-down strikes to tight ends George Kittle and Henry Krieger Coble, two players relatively unknown for catching passes before the season started who have developed into legitimate options for Beathard.
Though they’ve lacked a truly elite-level deep-threat receiver for parts of this year, the Hawkeyes have a group that can make opponents pay 10 or 15 yards at a time, which is exactly what they want to do.
“I don’t think any of us get on the field and think, ‘Oh, we have to make a big play, or oh we have to score fast’; it’s nothing like that,” Canzeri said. “The next play is always the most important one, and if you keep going out and doing it, good things are going to happen.”
The linchpin behind all of this, of course, is the quarterback.
If much of the success on long touchdown drives comes from team confidence, then much of the team’s confidence comes from Beathard, Iowa’s laid-back playmaker behind the center.
“He’s just a really calm, confident kind of guy,” Walsh said. “He makes it easier for all of us in the huddle to do our jobs, and especially for me as a lineman, that’s nice to have.”
Of course, it helps when that easygoing nature comes inside a package capable of making head-turning runs that literally bring drives back to life when the offense appears like it’s beginning to falter.
Combine that athleticism with the toughness of guy who is seemingly always banged up and the respect and trust Beathard has with the offense and the team as a whole is unmatched.
“I think it’s just his total control and command,” head coach Kirk Ferentz said. “Part of playing quarterback here is getting us out of bad plays, plays that aren’t going to have a good outcome, and then if you can get us into a play that’s going to be good, that’s even better. He’s done a really nice job for us.”
Every win this season has been a team effort for the Hawkeyes, and that’s reflected in the way the offense controls the play during its seemingly endless run of touchdown drives.
For weeks now, Iowa’s best player has been all 11 guys on the field. Combine that focus with a calm and capable steady hand behind center, and the question of Iowa’s success becomes a lot easier to understand.