Iowa spring football storylines: Kirk Ferentz keeps faith in his system, coaches

Somewhere in Kirk Ferentz's office is a pen holder with a piece of paper taped to the side. It was given to him years ago by Andy Piro, an assistant athletic director at Iowa, and shows the Big Ten standings from 1999, the first year Ferentz was in charge of the Hawkeyes. Iowa finished 1-10 that season and 0-8 in the conference.

"I see that thing every day," Ferentz said during a news conference in early February. "I'm not going to say it motivates me, but it reminds me where we started this whole thing. We were at the bottom looking up at everybody. It's a good reminder just in this day and age [when] everything is about microwaved instant gratification, all that kind of stuff, and the bottom line is back in '99 we started building. We are a little further down the road than we were then, but that's the way we operate. That's the way we have operated, and it's been that way in this program."

"I'm really proud of what our guys have accomplished — not just this year, but over the years. I do believe our best football is in front of us, and that's what we're working towards."

The story about his pen holder was one of many historical comparisons Ferentz drew to explain why he believes the current coaching staff is more than capable of fixing last season's abysmal offense. And in doing so, Ferentz made clear just how much he relies on what Iowa has done the last two decades as evidence of what Iowa can do next season and beyond.

So with Iowa's defense still doing what it always does under stellar coordinator Phil Parker — the Hawkeyes have finished among the top 20 in total defense every year since 2018 — here are some storylines to watch when a much-maligned offense takes the field for spring practice:

Keeping the same identity

Ferentz knew he was walking into a swarm when he met with the media on National Signing Day. It was his first significant news conference since the end of the 2022 season, which meant it was his first significant chance to be questioned about how he planned to fix the offense, a unit that ranked 130th out of 131 teams in yards per game. 

So Ferentz came prepared with a stat:

"When we score 24 points, coincidentally, do you want to venture a guess at our record the last seven, eight years?" Ferentz asked the reporters in attendance. "Yeah, it's 55-3, which I think everybody would take that — but nobody likes the 24 [points]. That's where the rub really is, in my opinion. I'm more focused on the winning. Until somebody tells me that's not important, that's where we're looking. That's kind of where I operate as a head coach."

The numbers check out. Ferentz's team really does have a 55-3 record when scoring at least 24 points in a game over the last eight seasons. He offered no specifications about how those points were scored — the Hawkeyes returned four interceptions for touchdowns in 2022, for example — but the statistic is nonetheless impressive.

The idea of pointing to his program's success over the past two decades became Ferentz's primary rebuttal to a series of questions that explored why his son, Brian Ferentz, will continue as offensive coordinator — albeit with a revised contract that was announced five days after the news conference — and how the Hawkeyes plan to improve on that side of the ball. He acknowledged how pathetic the offensive output was in 2022 but attributed most of those shortcomings to things like injuries, inexperience and a lack of talent at certain positions. There were no public criticisms of his assistant coaches because Ferentz believes the current personnel can, and will, right the ship.

"I think we have the right coaches in place," Ferentz said. "History would prove that. I think we've seen success with this coaching staff and plan on moving forward. I think we're primed to have a good year."

His unwavering belief that the same coaches and philosophies he's used to rebuild the Hawkeyes will continue to portend success is a dangerous assumption in the ever-changing landscape of college football. Only seven teams averaged more than 35 points per game when Ferentz took over in 1999, during an era when defenses were still king, but that number climbed to 14 in 2021 and 19 in 2022 as high-powered offenses continue to reshape the sport.

But Ferentz bristled when asked about making a radical change to something like the spread offense or the Air Raid system that is growing in popularity. He doesn't think the schools who rely on those schemes have demonstrated enough consistent winning for him to be swayed.

"Part of my responsibility is to make judgments on things," Ferentz said. "And I've never claimed to make 100-percent correct judgments and what have you, but I think we've done enough things well to at least keep going forward."

McNamara is the new QB1

The most noteworthy change for Iowa's offense in 2023 will be the man under center, Cade McNamara, who transferred to Iowa City from Michigan. And while McNamara's participation in spring practice will be limited as he recovers from knee surgery, Brian Ferentz can begin tailoring Iowa's offense to accentuate his new quarterback's strengths.

In 2021, McNamara relished his role as Jim Harbaugh's field general while guiding the Wolverines to their first Big Ten title in 17 years and the first College Football Playoff appearance in school history during his only season as the starter. He excelled at making the proper read or checks at the line of scrimmage and leveraged that command of the offense to imbue his teammates with confidence. He never complained about how little Michigan threw the ball in a run-heavy system and was more than willing to stand in the pocket and take a hit whenever his number was called, though he almost always delivered the ball quickly. The comparisons Harbaugh drew between himself and McNamara were almost always linked to toughness and grit.

"The offense he played in two years ago [at Michigan] looked the same to me [again] this year," Ferentz said. "Hopefully there's some parallels between the way we like to play and what I saw those guys do."

In contrast, the areas where McNamara struggled were almost always more physical than mental. He lacked the downfield arm strength of current Michigan quarterback J.J. McCarthy and completed just 39.6% of his passes that traveled at least 20 yards downfield. The short and intermediate throws that became McNamara's calling card were catchable but veered just enough off-target to limit the catch-and-run ability of his intended receivers. One former Division I head coach who had studied McNamara said he was surprised Harbaugh hadn't fixed an obvious flaw in the quarterback's mechanics.

It's also fair to wonder how McNamara will perform without the benefit of an offensive line that won the Joe Moore Award as the best in college football. Iowa's offensive line was tied with Indiana for the second-most sacks allowed (38) among Big Ten teams last season.

Warts aside, McNamara should offer a significant upgrade from what Spencer Petras gave the Hawkeyes in 2022. Ferentz dismissed some of Petras' poor performance as the byproduct of dreary offensive line play and a lack of receiving threats on the perimeter. But those kinds of mitigating factors only go so far when the quarterback continues to make head-scratching decisions and fails to take care of the football. That Petras finished with fewer touchdown passes (five) than interceptions and fumbles combined (eight), speaks to a general level of ineffectiveness.

Here's a more detailed comparison of McNamara's statistics from 2021 and Petras' output in 2022:

Overall statistics

McNamara: 210-of-327 (64.2%) for 2,576 yards, 15 TDs, 6 INTs and an NFL passer rating of 95.2.

Petras: 157-of-281 (55.9%) for 1,725 yards, 5 TDs, 5 INTs and an NFL passer rating of 75.4.

Play-action passing

McNamara: 41-of-68 (60.3%) for 565 yards, 5 TDs and 1 INT.

Petras: 33-of-62 (53.2%) for 466 yards, 4 TDs and 3 INTs.

Passing depth

McNamara: 206 of his 327 attempts (67.8%) traveled nine yards or fewer; his average depth of target was 8.7 yards; his average time to throw was 2.5 seconds.

Petras: 170 of his 281 attempts (65.1%) traveled nine yards or fewer; his average depth of target was 8.7 yards; his average time to throw was 2.7 seconds.

Passing under pressure

McNamara: 51-of-96 (53.1%) for 689 yards, 5 TDs and 1 INT.

Petras: 30-of-78 (38.5%) for 283 yards, 0 TDs and 1 INT.

Passing against the blitz

McNamara: 66-of-102 (64.7%) for 1,080 yards, 10 TDs and 0 INTs.

Petras: 60-of-106 (56.6%) for 744 yards, 5 TDs and 2 INTs.

Finding options in the passing game

Among the reasons Ferentz listed for last year's offensive iceberg was an undermanned receiving corps that looked far different in the buildup to the season opener than it did during spring practice when the Hawkeyes were fairly pleased with the players at their disposal.

In late May, Charlie Jones transferred to Purdue and went on to catch 110 passes for 1,361 yards and 12 touchdowns. Four more players — Keagan Johnson, Brody Brecht, Nico Ragaini and Diante Vines — were hamstrung by injuries that severely limited, or eliminated, their potential contributions. The only remaining option from the top six on Iowa's spring depth chart was sophomore Arland Bruce IV, who had 19 receptions for 187 yards and one touchdown in 2022 before transferring to Oklahoma State in early December. (Johnson also entered the transfer portal and committed to Kansas State.)

Vines, Ragaini and Brecht are returning to Iowa City for another season, but finding additional options for McNamara was, and still is, an important priority for Ferentz's staff ahead of the opener against Utah State. So far, the Hawkeyes have added an accomplished FCS-level wideout in Seth Anderson from Charleston Southern (42 receptions, 612 yards, 7 TDs last season) and former Ohio State walk-on Austin Kutscher, who did not record a catch for the Buckeyes.

Director of recruiting Tyler Barnes described both players during a news conference on National Signing Day.

On Anderson: "When I'm going through the portal and digging through guys before I went to the coaching staff, I'm a big production guy," Barnes said. " ... And Seth had a really good year down there. As we dug more into background and what he was about, he was a high school wrestler. I think [defensive back] Chic Ejiasi was the last skill guy to come here that was a high school wrestler.

"He's a guy that he thought he could play at a higher level. He has a little bit of a chip on his shoulder. He has something to prove. The production, again, this past year was something that we liked, and getting him out here, he's been here now two weeks, seems like everything is good so far."

On Kutscher: "He was a, really, really productive player his junior and senior year in high school," Barnes said in reference to the 93 receptions for 1,349 yards and 15 touchdowns Kutscher had as a senior at Massillon High School, a perennial power in Ohio. "I had talked to a couple guys on the Ohio State staff, and they have nothing but great things to say about him. I think he just wanted a change of scenery, and maybe in his mind a chance to compete, and we'll see if he can do it here. Obviously that Ohio State room is a little loaded, so I can see why he'd want a change of scenery."

But the biggest addition was former Michigan tight end Erick All, who joined McNamara in transferring to Iowa. All received a preliminary third-round draft grade from NFL scouts who visited Ann Arbor in the spring of 2022 but missed most of the season with a significant back injury that required surgery. He caught 38 passes for 437 yards and two touchdowns in 2021 with McNamara as the starting quarterback.

An Iowa offense that completed 45.3% of its passes to tight ends last season is expected to deploy All alongside rising star Luke Lachey (28 catches, 398 yards, 4 TDs) to form one of the strongest duos in the Big Ten.

Michael Cohen covers college football and basketball for FOX Sports with an emphasis on the Big Ten. Follow him on Twitter @Michael_Cohen13.

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