I have had to stop watching the video of Brett Greenwood leading the Hawkeye Swarm onto the field before the Pitt game because I’m going to end up dehydrated. Last week against the Cyclones the Hawkeyes had the memories of Tyler Sash and Roy Marble to lift them but this week it was the absolutely inspirational image of Brett Greenwood leading them onto the field with the help of former teammate and true friend Pat Angerer. The saying “Once a Hawkeye, always a Hawkeye” is sometimes just words but not to Angerer and not for Greenwood. I hope the Hawkeyes win gives Greenwood as much inspiration for his recovery as his recovery gave them for their win.
Desmond King and Marshall Koehn are getting the lion’s share of the credit for the Iowa win, King for his two interceptions that played a huge part in the 1st half success of the Iowa defense and some fantastic return game work and Koehn for his incredible 57 yard field goal to win the game. Both players are deserving of all the praise they are getting but they didn’t do it alone.
CJ Beathard played his best game as a Hawkeye and I’m not talking about statistics. His leadership, his decisiveness and his will put Iowa in a position to win this game. The offense isn’t better because this year’s version of Beathard is better than last year’s version of Jake Rudock it’s because Beathard is better than either Rudock or himself last year. His play is light years ahead of where he was last year with his decision-making and his execution and his playmaking has been stellar. Beathard is seeing the field better, identifying where to go with the football and making his decisions quickly and correctly. Once he knows where he is going with the ball it’s out in a hurry and he’s putting his playmakers in a position to do something with the football (although there were a few times against Pitt where I thought he was going to get his receivers killed). The play calling is much improved and Beathard’s ability to pick up yardage with his legs has been a huge asset. It isn’t that Beathard is some phenomenal athlete but when he decides to run he doesn’t hesitate and his long strides pick up yards quickly. Beathard isn’t exactly Chuck Long at this point but he’s starting to play a little like Ricky Stanzi.
King got quite a bit of credit for his two interceptions but there was an unsung hero of the defense that didn’t put up a lot of stats but had a huge effect on the game. DT Jaleel Johnson was a monster on the interior of the defensive line and Iowa held Pitt to 55 yards rushing and that was in large part to Johnson spending a lot of time in their backfield. He also put plenty of pressure on the QB even if he didn’t actually get to him and he might have gotten to him if the Pitt offensive line hadn’t held him so much. There were several times he broke through and the lineman held Johnson by the shoulder pads and it wasn’t called. Of course those no calls pale in comparison to the helmet-to-helmet hit on Beathard that wasn’t called and the blatant pass interference on Tevaun Smith that was inexplicably missed. It would be a massive understatement to say I was not impressed with the ACC officials that called the game (and here I though Big Ten refs were bad). There were many missed calls in that game and kudos to the Hawkeyes for not letting it affect them.
Marshall Koehn, what a difference a year makes. Koehn started last season in horrible fashion in the first game of the year and was actually replaced by a true freshman that ended up being worse. The Hawkeyes went back to Koehn and stuck with him and he actually became quite good on his field goals by the end of last year. The strength of his leg has never been in doubt and he’s become an incredible kickoff guy and finally found his consistency on field goals. I never doubted for a second that he could hit the 57 yarder and thank you to Pat Narduzzi for giving him a practice swing to line it up. It was sort of like giving a scratch golfer a practice tee shot on a par 3, just let him hit it straight and see what the wind is doing and how his footing is, yeah that’s a good idea. Even the coaches and CJ Beathard new they only need to get to about the 40 to give Koehn a chance and Beathard made it happen with his legs. Of course once Koehn kicked it it was obvious it was going in and that kick would have been good from 65, that’s a nice weapon to have.
All off season long and through the early part of the Hawkeye schedule I’ve been talking about wanting to see tangible proof that Kirk Ferentz has made changes to turn this program around from the stagnant, going nowhere position he had led it too over the past several years. There were signs in the first game of the year but that was an inferior opponent that played poorly. Last week the Hawkeyes got the ISU monkey off their backs but it took all game and they were playing for a fallen Hawkeye so it was tough to assess. The Pitt game was a dogfight against a pretty evenly matched opponent and while I saw flashes of change it wasn’t until there was 52 seconds left that real proof came through. Pitt had just marched down the field and Iowa’s defense had not only bent it had broken and the Panthers scored to tie the game. They couldn’t stop the clock enough to get the ball back so they were playing for overtime and I fully expected Ferentz to kneel on the ball and play for overtime too because 16 years worth of history told me that’s what he would do. This time was different. For the first time in a long time Iowa had a kick returner that could make a play and Desmond King did just that. Iowa didn’t just sit on the ball they actually made a few plays and picked up yardage and then when it looked like their efforts would fall short and they would head to overtime anyway they actually managed the clock correctly. Then with 8 seconds to play and needing about 8-10 yards to give Marshall Koehn an actually shot at a field goal Beathard dropped back and when nothing was open quick he took off, ran towards the sideline, picked up enough yards and dropped to the ground and immediately turned to the ref to call timeout. The Hawkeyes had 2 seconds left and they gave their kicker a chance. Ferentz and Beathard both had to have confidence in Koehn going into that last play before the kick because they didn’t have time to pick up 15 yards but they knew they only needed to get to about the 40 yard line to get Koehn within range. A playmaking kick returner, good play calling, confidence in the QB, confidence in the kicker, good clock management and playing to win instead of playing not to lose all rolled into one final drive and Hawkeyes pulled off a great win under that lights. I’ve always been among the most optimistic Hawkeye supports and this year I swore I needed to see change before I’d believe in and while I’m still not totally convinced Kirk Ferentz took a huge step in the right direction this weekend.
Hopefully the Hawkeyes can use the game against North Texas as a tuneup before they travel to Wisconsin. I would love to see Iowa dominate this weekend and be able to play the reserves. Getting CJ Beathard some rest after he was banged up against Pitt would be good and getting Tyler Wiegers some actual game snaps would be helpful. LeShun Daniels could use some rest on his ankle and Jordan Canzeri would benefit from not getting hit so much. RBs Derrick Mitchell Jr. and Akrum Wadley need some playing time as do young WRs Jerminic Smith and Adrian Falconer. Iowa needs to get up big against their worst opponent this season and get the backups some reps.
NFL Hott Reads
- In Week 2 of the NFL season injuries continued to pile up and this week it was the QB position that took it the hardest. Tony Romo broke his clavicle and is out 8 weeks, Drew Brees has a shoulder injury that could keep him out a couple of weeks, Jay Cutler is out for a few weeks with a bad hamstring and while it’s not for sure Matt Stafford got beat up pretty good this week and could be held out. Throw in the less than inspiring play of the Ryan Mallett for the Texans and it was a rough week on starting QBs.
- Ndamukong Suh reportedly ignored the defensive calls of the Dolphins defensive coordinator Kevin Coyle which is obviously troubling if true. The last major defensive tackle free agent I remember acting out was a guy named Albert Haynesworth, that didn’t end well.
- The offensive genius of Chip Kelly has apparently gone missing and his personnel choices may be coming back to haunt him. The trade for Sam Bradford looked great in the preseason but once the games started to count it’s looked awful. Kelly’s release of both starting guards from last season (Todd Herremans and Evan Mathis) isn’t looking so hot either as Demarco Murray has struggled to find running room. If you’re going to spend major money on a RB you should probably make sure you have someone to block for him. Also the signing of Byron Maxwell looks like wasted money through the first two games. They are paying a lot more money to him than they did to the guys he replaced and they aren’t getting any better production.
- They will be putting up missing person signs, issuing an amber alert and putting his likeness on milk cartons if Jimmy Graham doesn’t surface soon in Seattle. If you’re going to trade your starting center and a first round draft pick for a guy you should probably try to use him at some point. Seattle is 0-2 and their offense can’t get going because the offensive line isn’t blocking for Marshawn Lynch and they haven’t figured out how to use the best weapon in the passing game Jimmy Graham. Oh and Tyler Lockett is already the best WR on the team.
- The Buffalo Bills talked a good game going into their game against New England but they still couldn’t back it up. It’s not their fault that Tom Brady is on a mission and he has Rob Gronkowski and Julian Edelman getting open every play. By the way I thought going into the season that the pickup of Travaris Cadet would be good because his skill set filled the Shane Vereen role but that was because I didn’t know Dion Lewis was healthy and ready to break out. It helps a guy like Lewis to have Tom Brady throwing pinpoint passes to him all day.
- Johnny Manziel started for the Browns this week and not only was it not a total disaster but they actually won the game. He seems to really like throwing long TD passes to Travis Benjamin and while it will take a lot more to convince anyone that he’s the future at QB for the Browns it was nice to see the position not be a complete disaster for the franchise even if it was only for the day.
- People thought Peyton Manning’s career was over after opening week and for most of Thursday night it looked like they might be right, that was until Gary Kubiak let Manning loose at the end of the game because they needed a comeback. Manning running the hurry up offense like he has run for years and he looked like vintage Manning to knock off the Chiefs.
- The Raiders rebounded from an ugly start in week 1 against the Bengals to knock off the Ravens and Derek Carr and Amari Cooper showed just how impressive they can be together. Carr looked terrific and Cooper proved he can be a top WR in the NFL. The Raiders are going to be up and down this year because young teams are seldom consistent but the future looks better with Carr and Cooper on offense than it has since Rich Gannon was under center.
- I mentioned Ryan Mallett didn’t look good for the Texans so that’s two QBs in two weeks that haven’t looked good and something tells me they aren’t calling up Zac Dysert from the practice squad. With Tom Savage on IR the Texans are stuck with either Mallett or Brian Hoyer and Bill O’Brien has to be hoping Arian Foster gets back soon. He also has to be watching tape of Connor Cook, Jared Goff and Christian Hackenberg in anticipation of next year’s draft.
- In case you missed it Marcus Mariota is mortal. He wasn’t as stellar in week 2 as he was in week 1 and he actually looked how you would expect a rookie QB to look. The Browns defense was far better than the Bucs defense was opening week and Mariota’s Titans lost to Johnny Manziel’s Browns, so goes life in the NFL.
- Jay Gruden finally figured it out this week that his team’s best shot at winning games is to rely on their power running game featuring Alfred Morris and rookie Matt Jones because it takes the pressure off of Kirk Cousins and off of their defense. Morris and Jones ran all over a very good St. Louis defense and that’s why they won. With the Cowboys missing Romo and Dez Bryant, the Eagles looking suspect and the Giants being a complete mess the NFC East is wide open.
- Reason #1127 why I don’t bet on football. The Jets beat the Colts on Monday Night Football and now the Jets are 2-0 and the Colts are 0-2, what were the odds of that happening before the season started?
- The Hawkeyes won, the Patriots won and I won in Fantasy Football, all is right with the world.
The Hott Read 