By Jordan Hansen
It was a little surprising when Iowa rolled out a shuffled offensive line on Oct. 8 against Minnesota.
Ike Boettger slid from tackle to guard, while Boone Myers — who was playing guard — moved to the left tackle spot. Cole Croston moved from left to right tackle.
And it worked. Iowa quarterback C.J. Beathard was sacked just once and no Gopher was credited with a quarterback hit.
“I think the biggest change was Ike going to guard. He hasn’t done that much,” Iowa head coach Kirk Ferentz said. “It was just trying to get guys I think where they might be a little more comfortable and maybe had a little better cohesion. The whole group had better cohesion.”
Boettger said he hadn’t played guard since his redshirt freshman season until last week. It was quite a shift and perhaps a bit of a gamble on Ferentz’s part, but something had to be done after Beathard was sacked six times against Northwestern.
One of the main catalysts of this change was the mediocre-to-poor play from Croston. Incredibly, after the shift, Croston posted the best Pro Football Focus grade of any Big Ten tackle last week.
Let’s iterate that one more time. Cole Croston was the best tackle in the Big Ten last week, via Pro Football Focus’ metrics. That is nothing short of incredible.
“We had a little bit of our confidence back that we hadn’t had in the three weeks before,” Boettger said. “I think any of the guys out there can play any position, besides center, which is a little different. That’s the way that we’re taught.”
Beathard comes home, sort of
All the way back in 2014, C.J. Beathard was just a sophomore, trying to fight with Jake Rudock for playing time at quarterback.
He finally got his chance when Rudock was injured and couldn’t play versus Purdue. Iowa won the game 24-14, but that was not what stuck out about the game to Beathard.
“All I remember is that my first drive was a pick-6,” Beathard said. “Other than that, it was nice to get the first start of my career and get a win.”
Beathard finished the game 17-of-37, with 245 yards, the aforementioned interception and a touchdown. He also had 8 rushes for 29 yards, which turned into a sign of things to come.
Purdue is a slightly better team now than it was that season and currently sit at 3-2. The Boilermakers have given Iowa a pretty good fight every time they’ve played and aren’t being overlooked.
“I think they’ve improved with every year. I felt that coming out of our last game last year,” Ferentz said. “They basically out-statisticed us other than the score in every category: Yardage, possession time, all that. We had a tough game with them last year. We’re expecting the same thing again this year.”
A sad trip down memory lane
Ron Stewart, who was Iowa’s director of football security until 2014 and had worked for the team in some capacity since 1982, passed away on Sunday morning.
Ferentz had known Stewart for a long time and shared several short anecdotes about his friend. There was the time Stewart had his hat stolen when the students rushed the field and another time where Ferentz felt like he was “in a movie” during his first appearance as head coach, because all of the sudden he had security around him.
There was a time where he graciously showed around a walk-on athlete, and a number of former players shared their memories on players.
“His passion for what he did and his feeling for the program just all those things. That’s why he did it,” Ferentz said. “He loved being part of this. And I think everybody that’s been involved with him over the years feels it’s a mutual thing.”
Follow @JordyHansen for Iowa football news, updates, and analysis.
