The Iowa Hawkeyes took the lead in the Big Ten West and the division is theirs to lose. The Illini put up a fight but in the end Jordan Canzeri proved to be too much to handle. Canzeri’s record setting day, his 43 carries is a new Iowa record, demolished Illinois. His 256 rushing yards was the third highest total in Iowa history and it was enough to earn him Big Ten Offensive Player of the Week honors and rightfully so. Canzeri was the most impressive player on the field but he wasn’t the only one. True freshman WR Jerminic Smith started in place of injured senior Tevaun Smith for the second straight week except this time he and QB CJ Beathard finally hooked up. Jerminic becomes the first freshman WR in the Ferentz era to go for over 100 yards and he did it mostly on the strength of two deep plays one of which was about a 50 yard pickup on 3rd down and 27. It wasn’t only Smith with a big play as Canzeri ripped off a 75 yard TD run that put the Hawkeyes back up by ten after Illinois had cut the lead to three. Iowa struggled early on in the red zone but they made the plays they needed to make offensively and wore down the Illinois defense late. Canzeri’s 11 straight carries late in the fourth quarter was just the type of long, sustained and demoralizing drive the team needed in this hard fought victory.
The victory puts Iowa at 6-0 and in control of the Big Ten West but it came with quite a cost. Senior DE Drew Ott, who has been having a fantastic year, went down with a knee injury and was seen on the sidelines with his knee wrapped and leaning on crutches. The bad news came after the game as Ott sustained a torn ACL and is done for the year. It’s a major blow to the team and it’s going to take a group effort to replace his production and a lot is going to be asked of his replacement redshirt freshman Parker Hesse. Iowa will need to involve their other redshirt freshman DE Matt Nelson in the rotation to help out Hesse and senior Nate Meier as none of them bring the size and power Ott did. Iowa’s defense has been outstanding but losing Ott is going to hurt.
Ott wasn’t the only player to sustain an injury as starting RT Ike Boettger went down with an ankle injury and didn’t return. With starting LT Boone Myers already on the sideline and Cole Croston replacing him it meant that true freshman James Daniels took over at RT. Daniels came to Iowa as a center, has practiced and played mostly at guard but was still the coaches choice to step in on the right side. I’ve mentioned before that Iowa has failed pretty miserably at recruiting offensive tackles which is why a former walk-on Myers is starting at LT, Croston, also a former walk-on, was his backup and Boettger, a converted TE, is the starting RT. Now a true freshman that played center in high school just last year is playing RT for the Hawkeyes. Daniels got off to a rough start before the coaches figured out they were better off asking him to run block instead of pass block and they went to run heavy play calling, hence the 11 straight carries for Canzeri at one point.
Injuries are starting to pile up on the offensive side of the ball for Iowa as they go into next week’s game against Northwestern. RB LeShun Daniels finally sat out as they try a different approach to healing up his injured ankle. WR Tevaun Smith has be ruled out this week as they hope to get him back after Iowa’s bye week. Myers is week-to-week and now Boettger’s ankle is banged up. TE Jake Duzey has played some snaps this season but has been a complete non-factor. If Iowa can beat Northwestern, and that looks a lot more doable after their debacle against Michigan, they get a bye the next week before facing Maryland and can hopefully get healthy. The Tevaun Smith injury may be a blessing in disguise if they can get through it without a loss as the emergence of Jerminic Smith could really make this offense scary when Tevaun and Jake Duzey get back. A passing game featuring Tevaun and Jerminic Smith on the outside would open up the middle for Matt Vandeberg and Jake Duzey and imagine if LeShun Daniels gets healthy and can add a power complement to Canzeri’s speed in the backfield. I made my case before that it was not the lack of playmakers on the Iowa offense that was the problem it was the inability of the offensive scheme to use the playmakers they had. Whether it is the change at QB (probably a little bit), a change by offensive coordinator Greg Davis (a little bit too), the influence of new run game coordinator Brian Ferentz (I suspect more than we will ever know) or the change in aggressiveness by Kirk Ferentz (we love Kirk 3.0) I am glad to see Iowa’s offense using the talent it has in the ways it should.
College Football Hott Reads (Coaching News mostly)
- It leaked out the middle of last week that Maryland was planning to fire Randy Edsall after the Terrapins game against Ohio St. Maryland stuck with the Buckeyes far longer than anyone thought and gave the #1 team in the nation a scare, then on Sunday Maryland fired Edsall. They were a decent team last year that lost quite a bit of talent and Edsall never replaced it. After five uninspiring years Edsall is out because he never took the Terps to “the next level”. He was hired after building the UConn program into a pretty good FBS program but he took Maryland nowhere. Under Armour founder Kevin Plank is a Maryland alumnus and when they joined the Big Ten it was obvious they wanted to become a football power, I’m not sure who will take this job but Maryland will shoot for the moon.
- The Big Ten coaching carousel will be interesting this off season as Tim Beckman was already dismissed at Illinois and I don’t believe they will settle for Bill Cubit and now Maryland has a vacancy. That won’t be the end of it either. Rutgers head coach Kyle Flood is on suspension for his attempted academic misdeeds and that’s just a precursor to his eventual dismissal. If Flood returns next season it will be a bigger upset than the Miracle on Ice. Purdue’s Darrell Hazel is only in year three and while that isn’t a ton of time to completely turn things around it would be nice if the Boilermakers were showing progress and right now they are the only team in the Big Ten with a worse record the Rutgers. Purdue made a mistake years ago when they replaced Joe Tiller with Danny Hope instead of Brock Spack, maybe they could right that wrong now.
- The other major coaching news this week is the forced leave of absence of USC head coach Steve Sarkisian that quickly turned into his dismissal after he reportedly showed up to work drunk on Sunday. AD Pat Haden was in a precarious position because Sark had an incident before the season with some boosters where he was apparently under the influence and he said it was due to mixing alcohol and pills (I never understood how that made it all okay). Now Haden’s hand was forced by Sarkisian’s actions and he will again be looking for a head coach. Sarkisian was strike two for Haden as he whiffed on Lane Kiffin after Pete Carroll left and now Carroll’s other offensive coordinator Sark has failed too. USC fans should hope Haden looks outside the Carroll coaching tree. There is a lot of talk about USC going after Chip Kelly as his NFL experiment seems to be failing and I’m not sure if that’s going to happen but now that Sarkisian is officially gone the search will begin in earnest.
- The Big Ten started the season as the Big Two and then everyone else and after a couple of weeks Ohio St. and Michigan St. were ranked #1 and #2 in the nation. They have both been winning in less than impressive fashion lately and MSU has dropped in the polls and things could get interesting. Urban Meyer finally figured out that playing JT Barrett more and getting the ball to Braxton Miller are good ideas but the Buckeyes still struggled for a while with Maryland. This week Michigan St. takes on a hot Michigan team playing as well as anyone and could certainly fall. The Big Ten West is as unpredictable as everyone predicted but if Iowa pulls off a win at Northwestern they will have commanding lead in division leaving Minnesota as the only real stumbling block. The Big Ten is far less of a foregone conclusion than everyone thought to start the year.
- I mentioned the four possible job openings in the Big Ten (Maryland and Illinois already fired coaches, Rutgers and Purdue possible) but I left out the other possibility, Nebraska. I know it’s crazy to think a team would fire a coach after a year but Mike Riley could pull it off. Nebraska is 2-4 and yes all 4 losses have come on their opponents last possession but look at their schedule. Riley needs to pull off a win at Minnesota and/or against Northwestern preferably both for his sake. He can’t afford a loss to either Purdue or Rutgers because they are Purdue and Rutgers. They don’t stand much of a chance against Michigan St. or Iowa as it appears right now but both those games are in Lincoln. Riley doesn’t have much room for error, if he loses to Minnesota, Northwestern, Michigan St. and Iowa and only pulls off wins against Purdue and Rutgers that’s 4-8, those Pelini 9 win seasons are going to seem like a dream.
- Iowa St. lost to Texas Tech and their prize for giving up 776 yards of offense (a new Texas Tech record, not a small feat) and 66 points is a game against TCU and then a game against Baylor. Yes that would be the #3 ranked Horned Frogs and the #2 ranked Bears. Oh and that potential win against Texas looks a lot less likely after the Longhorns knocked off Oklahoma. Paul Rhoads might want to polish up his resume.
- Late Monday night the news came out that South Carolina head coach Steve Spurrier is retiring immediately. Spurrier is a legend and the best head coach South Carolina ever had but he obviously is best known for his time at Florida. Spurrier was one of the early innovators in college football when it came to offensive schemes and love him or hate him he has always been a character. He’s also the only coach I’ve ever seen rotate two QBs literally every other play. He will also be for me the cautionary tale for every college coach that thinks he can conquer the NFL (I’m looking at you Chip Kelly). Spurrier left Florida to spend a few years being humbled as the Washington Redskins head coach (don’t worry the humility didn’t stick) and cashing some nice paychecks. His final stop at South Carolina rebuilt his reputation as he did very well at least until this year. It’s probably not a coincidence that he’s calling it quits when his team is 2-4 and 0-4 in the conference. It is time for the Ol’ Ball Coach to hang ’em up.
NFL Hott Reads
- The big rumor this week is that multiple teams will be willing to pony up some sort of compensation to pry Sean Payton away from the last two years of his contract with the Saints in the off season and that the Miami Dolphins (the only team with an actual vacancy) have already checked into it. I understand Payton has a Super Bowl ring but the Saints are 1-4 and haven’t looked good at all. You can blame Rob Ryan for another year of bad defense but the offense isn’t exactly lighting it up and I’m pretty sure Payton made the call to keep Ryan as his defensive coordinator. Payton has also had more influence over personnel decisions and looking at the roster tells me he’s not very good at it. Of course the Dolphins have a VP of Football Operations and a GM so why not get another voice in there to make more noise.
- The Bengals look good. The Falcons look good. The Patriots look good.
- Josh McCown looked good for the Browns and he actually has played pretty well the past 3 weeks but a lot of this week was on the Ravens defense. Yikes, how the mighty have fallen. Losing Terrell Suggs was a hit but the Ravens defense looks really bad and at 1-4 they are in a bad place.
- The good news for the Ravens is they aren’t the Lions. Wow is Detroit horrific. They just got destroyed by the Cardinals and they benched Matt Stafford after he threw his 3rd interception, considering that meant they went to Dan Orlovsky that should tell you how poorly they are doing. Their offensive line is rough, they have virtually no running game, Calvin Johnson looks like a shell of his former self and their defense got torched by Carson Palmer and the Cardinals. Jim Caldwell is a nice guy and he’s a Iowa alumnus so I want to cheer for him but he’s in over his head as a head coach.
- The good news for Kansas City is…the Royals are still playing. The Chiefs have no good news. They lost to the Bears and they lost Jamaal Charles to a torn ACL. I’m sure counting more on Alex Smith will fix all that ails the Chiefs.
- The Cowboys had no shot at the Patriots with Brandon Weeden lining up under center no matter how bad Greg Hardy made the Patriots offensive line look. People are wondering if the ‘Boys should go to Matt Cassel whom they traded for a couple of weeks ago after Romo went down. I don’t know what Cassel has left in the tank but he can’t be worse than Weeden. Weeden’s interception was just a throw that every NFL level QB knows better than to throw.
- I know Denver head coach Gary Kubiak disagrees with the idea but Peyton Manning looks done. He may still have moments from time to time but if his name wasn’t Peyton Manning and he didn’t have 18 years of superb history everyone would be wondering why Brock Osweiler isn’t playing. Osweiler has never played so the Broncos don’t know what they have but their defense is so good it would be a shame to waste it. The running game hasn’t gotten going except when Ronnie Hillman gets going a little so the offense needs a spark. Obviously Osweiler is not Peyton Manning but in this case that might be a good thing, he actually has some of the attributes Kubiak wants in a QB that Manning lacks. Sooner or later time runs out for every football player, Manning’s end is coming fast and it doesn’t look like it’s going to be pretty.
- Monday night had quite the game between the Michael Vick led Steelers and the Chargers. Five seconds left, down by 3 and the Steelers put Le’Veon Bell in the wildcat formation and went for the touchdown. I have to say it was a ballsy call but truthfully putting the ball in the hands of your best player when your starting QB is out is actually pretty smart. The Chargers had to know Bell was running out of the shotgun and yet they still couldn’t stop him. Tough loss for the Chargers but kudos to Chargers CB Jason Verrett for being the first guy all year to make Antonio Brown look human.
The Hott Read 