Spencer Wagen/1600 ESPN
If you’re an Iowa football fan, you know the numbers and you’ve heard all of the jokes about the Hawkeyes’ offense the last couple of years. I certainly won’t spend this space repeating what is already common knowledge, but just one glance back at the stats from last season paints a picture that you won’t find in the Louvre.
The Hawkeyes scored 15.4 points per game, an average of 235.4 yards per game, dead last in the country in that metric, and five spots lower than the next closest Power 5 team (hello, Michigan State!). 3.94 yards per play and more interceptions thrown (11) than touchdown passes (9) further highlight how much of a disaster last season was on offense for Iowa football.
After all of that — and the end-of-season departure of Brian Ferentz from the coaching staff — Kirk Ferentz hired Tim Lester to run the offense. Lester, who is fresh off a sabbatical of sorts from college coaching, spent last year on Matt LaFleur’s staff with the Green Bay Packers. He’s an experienced head coach, coordinator and position coach in the college ranks who has been given the unenviable task of trying to lift the offense up from true rock bottom statistically.
To no one’s surprise, one of the biggest questions going into this season for Iowa football is just how much improvement can be had under Lester’s tutelage. Now, I’m not going to sit here and tell you everything is sunshine, rainbows and puppies with the offense, and all of a sudden they’re going to become a top-50 unit in the country — that’s totally unrealistic. The truth is, I think there will be improvement on offense, it’s just how MUCH improvement that I find hard to quantify at the moment.
What we know so far, still over two weeks out from the season opener, is that the players have responded well to working with Lester. (Presumed) starting quarterback Cade McNamara told the Cedar Rapids Gazette recently that Lester has been “nothing but open and honest with us” when teaching the new offensive scheme to his players, and that he and his new OC have been “able to share a lot of offensive philosophy” together.
The vibes are good at the football complex — and that’s great — but soon it’s going to be time to show how much progress has been made. “First, we are trying to set the standard of what we can do at the line of scrimmage and what plays we can get good at,” Lester said at Media Day last Friday. “The truth of the matter is, the plays I call in Game 1, we aren’t going to have run them thousands of times. How many reps can we get in a walkthrough? How fast can we change this curve? There’s a normal curve to a new offense, no matter where you go. That’s the battle we’ve been in. We can put more plays in the more efficient we become and we are working hard at it. The guys are doing a great job,” he said, according to University of Iowa Sports Information.
The season opener against Illinois State will be a good test for this offensive unit, but the real proof as to how far things have come will show itself in Week 2 against another I-S-U, when the Cyclones make the trip to Iowa City. A real, true assessment of how things are going with Tim Lester on offense probably won’t be had until late September, when Iowa gets its first of two bye weeks on the year.
The good news is, Iowa doesn’t have to make huge leaps and bounds to be better on offense. Even marginal improvement, say a 20- to 30-spot jump in the national rankings, is more than attainable. Nobody expects them to be a top 5 offense overnight, and sometimes the best thing you can ask for is to have as little expectations as possible placed on you.
Spencer Wagen is the host of “Spencer on Sports,” weekdays from 4-6 p.m. on 1600 ESPN. You can follow him on X (formerly Twitter) @SWOnTheRadio.
