Stanford quarterback Kevin Hogan presents a unique challenge to Iowa.
By Danny Payne
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LOS ANGELES — You’ve heard the stereotypes of Stanford quarterbacks — they’re all smart, they pick you apart with their brain rather than their physical tools, bore you to death with fundamentals, etc.
Kevin Hogan is no exception. In fact, he may further those stereotypes.
“He is a coach on the field. The way he prepares is very much like a coach, and it has to be and what we ask him to do to get us in the right play,” Stanford offensive coordinator Mike Bloomgren said. “I do think if we didn’t keep challenging Kev and putting more on his plate, he’d get bored with it because he’s so smart. He doesn’t want it to be easy. He wants more and more on his plate.”
This, of course, presents Iowa with a challenge unlike any it has seen this season. Iowa has yet to face a quarterback as cerebral as Hogan. The Hawks faced one bona fide quarterback in Connor Cook, a few respectable ones, and a load of bad signal-callers in 2015.
They haven’t faced a quarterback who calls plays at the line of scrimmage like Hogan, whose 68.6 percent completion rate is sixth in the country and more than 8 percentage points higher than Wisconsin’s Joel Stave, the highest of any quarterback Iowa has faced. But what the Hawks have done en route to a 12-1 record and the nation’s No. 5 ranking is play fundamentally sound, opportunistic football.
That’s what they’ll have to do to find success against Stanford’s offense in the Rose Bowl.
“We always disguise our coverages, so it’s going to be nothing different,” said free safety Jordan Lomax, who was high-school rivals with Hogan. “And as far as him going up to the line and checking it, if we notice that, we all stay back with our sideline to see what’s going on.”
Like Lomax said, the Hawkeyes aren’t going to do anything drastically different with a quarterback as cerebral as Hogan. Just like in any other game, they’ll throw tweaks and run certain packages more than others (the raider package is there, too, and the movement may make it tougher for Hogan to predict exactly what’s coming on a given play) but at the end of the day, Iowa is still going to do what Iowa does.
The Hawkeyes will play their fundamentally sound football and look for tendencies in the Stanford offense. Just because Hogan’s intelligence is off the charts, it doesn’t mean Iowa can’t find keys or outsmart him.
There are smart Hawkeye defenders — Lomax being one of them — who can throw the Cardinal off or know exactly what they’re doing.
“I know I picked out one [key], but I’m not sure if that’s an actual check,” cornerback Desmond King said. “So I’m going to look for it in the game, and if it is, then I’ll know exactly what’s going on.”
Whoever knows more of exactly what’s going on will likely be the one who leaves Pasadena on Jan. 1 with the Rose Bowl trophy, while the other will wonder how it was outsmarted.
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