If there was a silver lining for the Iowa Hawkeyes on offense this 12 months, it’s the floor recreation and its depth. Iowa has a robust offensive line and a secure of backs that each one seem able to be the lead again if known as upon.
Though that has been profitable, the passing assault has been equally disappointing. The Hawkeyes primarily haven’t any stability on offense proper now, as they wrestle in apparent passing conditions.
Week 3 presents Iowa with an fascinating dilemma. They need to be capable to run the ball with relative ease towards UMass and maintain that a part of the offense churning, however is it time to attempt to revive the passing recreation?
Head coach Kirk Ferentz talked concerning the balancing act of protecting the bottom recreation sturdy whereas additionally attempting to infuse some life into the passing assault.
“Yeah, our strategy, simply normally phrases, goes to be — once more, I do not know what is going on to come back up in three weeks or 4 weeks or what we will appear like at that time, however sometimes each recreation we would relatively be balanced, and that is going to be our strategy stepping into, a minimum of hopefully, until you’d relatively simply step on a land mine. We have been down that highway, too, so then you must do what you must do to win a recreation.
“However a great state of affairs, what we’re attempting to do is be balanced, and that will probably be our strategy Saturday. We wish to run and throw the ball successfully, and throwing play motion but in addition drop-backs, and the way a lot drop-back you do or do not do relies on your staff and likewise the sport, however going into the sport we have got to be ready to do all these issues, and hopefully we’ll be capable to do a few of that stuff once more and perform a little higher. Simply maintain shifting it ahead,” Ferentz mentioned about managing each assaults offensively.
Via two video games, Iowa has greater than 3 times as many dashing yards, 441, as they do passing yards, 131. What’s much more startling is that whereas Iowa averages a robust 4.8 yards per rush, they’re averaging simply 3.3 yards per passing try.
This weekend might be the possibility for Iowa to seek out some confidence within the passing recreation, and that could be the correct determination, as the bottom recreation can come again to life rather more simply.
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