Hawkeye Football: A look back at Iowa’s 2024 regular season

First of all, I apologize for my delay. I am fully aware that this column was supposed to come out almost 3 weeks ago now, but honestly, I needed a little break (mentally and emotionally) before I felt comfortable resting this season. It turns out the world didn’t stop waiting for me, and there have been some pretty big changes since Black Friday, but still, I’m not quite sure what, if anything, I have to say about them. I hate this time of year, mainly because I seem to get a massive case of Writer’s block during this time between the end of the regular season and the Bowl game. This one is getting a little rambling too, so I apologize in advance and won’t be offended if you check out early.

Bill

I’ve spent a lot of time over the last 3 weeks figuring out what to write about for this penultimate installment of cheap seats for the year, I’ve had many discussions with my son, GlendaleHawkJr., who came up with many good suggestions, but none of them clicked with me.

However, I think I’ve narrowed down the reason for this season’s struggle: real, actual, disappointment. For the first time in a while, I actually feel like this team underperformed, significantly. I definitely think there were big positives and a lot of upside to this season, but considering what they accomplished the last two seasons (3 really) with almost no offense, this team looks to show massive improvement on one side of the ball , while the ever-reliable defense and special teams took a step back, was jarring, and I don’t think I really understood it until the last week or so.

Watching the Nebraska game on Black Friday brought back a lot of not-so-good memories/feelings from the past two seasons and forced me out of the rhythm I had managed to develop in the fall (even when we lost). Watching an offense that had been dynamic (at least by Iowa’s standards) turn into the pumpkin that Deacon Hill/Spencer Petras spent their last game fumbling with was almost too much for my brain/heart to handle. Thank God for KJ2 or I might have been lost forever.

Let me be clear, 8-4 is not a bad season, this team didn’t have a bad season, what they had was a very Kirk Ferentz-y season. They dropped 2 games (minimum) that they had nothing to lose (pick two of Iowa St., MSU or UCLA) and realistically had a chance to win all but one of the games they played this season, even with Kirk’s refusal to bench Cade. . In the happiest timeline, Iowa is 11-1 (there’s no way they beat OSU) and is hosting a 1st round playoff game this week, and it’s not even that hard to imagine. But no, Cade throws a terrible INT and Kirk takes a terrible delay of game penalty and we lose to the clowns. The defense doesn’t get off the bus and MSU embarrasses us in East Lansing and we let UCLA bully us in Rose bowl like it was January 1, 1986 all over again (minus all the fumbles from our star RB). There’s no good reason Iowa has dropped these games, but here we are, headed back to Nashville (at least the fans can get direct flights there from CID).

So yeah, I feel let down and I’m tired of feeling that way when it comes to this team. The last few years have been trying to be an Iowa fan (I know, preaching to the choir), but this was supposed to be the year that maybe, just maybe, we would pair a decent offense with our otherworldly defense and special teams and prove a time and after all, Iowa isn’t “the fake ID of college football” (I’m still mad at Cowherd for that). But once again this team (or maybe this coaching staff) finds a way to game plan their way into losses and handcuff themselves with crazy personnel decisions. Such is the life of an Iowa fan I guess, disappointment with a grudge fighter.

That being said, I can’t walk away from this team, this school, even this coaching staff, and I will absolutely tune in on 12/30 to see what this team looks like without superstar RB putting the team on his back. Hopefully, regardless of the score, we can get some inspiration into 2025, because I know I could use some.

Looking back

I’ve been sitting on this post for almost a month now. Not literally, I didn’t write this a month ago just to let it sit in the editor, it’s just taken me almost that long to decide what I wanted the penultimate version of this column for 2024 to say, and I not quite sure I know myself as I write this.

What I can say is that for the first time maybe ever, I think I’m actually starting to understand how fans of elite schools feel when their teams underperform. Look, I’ve been disappointed with Iowa teams in the past, but I’m not sure any of those times felt as bad as this season. I have been one Children hell, for as long as I can remember, and I’ve always told people that learning from a very young age how to live with disappointment has made me a better person. Being an Iowa fan also helped, with so many moments of disappointment in the ~40 years of Hawkeye history I’ve lived through, this season hurt more than any of them and it’s 100% because I forgot to have low expectations.

Now, I’m not saying Iowa fans should have low expectations, quite the opposite actually. Our university (whether you’re an alumnus or just a fan) has spent the last 26 years (if not the last 50) expounding the virtues of loyalty, stability and showing good football players and hopefully better men. I think this year I forgot, possibly for the first time, that these players aren’t the couriers of my dreams and what I want, they’re just kids out there doing their best (and probably fighting demons and problems, which we know nothing about) about or have any ability to understand). Unfortunately, I think we’ve jumped that particular shark, college football isn’t what it used to be, it’s not what I grew to love, and that’s okay, but it’s going to take some getting used to.

If nothing else, Tim Lester’s success this season proves one thing that Kirk Ferentz can change, and that should give us all some hope, even if we’re all left with no option but to pray that it continues to develop themselves.

Uncertain futures

So what should we expect in Nashville next week? Should we expect to be run off the field by a Mizzou team that clawed its way back into the top 25 by winning 3 of 4 after being routed by Bama? Will we be forced to endure another shutout at the hands of a middle-of-the-road SEC team that was 1-3 against ranked teams and lost to Vanderbilt? Hell, are we supposed to score points without Kaleb Johnson in the backfield (after all, he accounted for 43% of all of Iowa’s yards from scrimmage this season)?

Iowa rolls into Nashville with a QB controversy, no clear RB1 (even if it’s Moulton, let’s not kid ourselves), and no obvious answer as to how it will generate positive yardage. Brendan Sullivan has shown that he can lead this team, but that his emotions may be a little hot, which leads to poor decision making. Jack Stratton has a live arm and what appears to be the right demeanor to start for Kirk Ferentz, but he lacks experience and a bowl game is a big deal for these kids (even if it has no real impact on the season) . The two most important parts of an offensive football team are, well, uncertain atm, and that leaves me uneasy.

That the defense goes into this game only one major contributor is something of a miracle, and that Iowa only had 2 players opt out of this game is, I think, a testament to the net positive that is the Ferentz way. That players like Jay Higgins, Nick Jackson, Yahyah Black and Seb Castro (who will likely hear their names called below NFL draft in a few months) believe that playing one more game in black and gold is worth the risk to their careers shows you what this program (and this coach) means to them. Yes, Ferentz isn’t perfect, but it’s pretty rare to be proud of pretty much any player who moves on to the next level, and we should probably be a little more thankful for that than we are.

Epilogue

I honestly have no idea what this team is going to look like next Monday. I’m pretty comfortable with Sullivan starting with Moulton at RB1 and TJ Hall getting the start over John Nestor at CB, but I don’t know if they’ll be able to score or stop Mizzou from scoring. Without KJ, this is a completely different team, so I’ve decided to (try to) see this game for what it is, a victory lap in a season where we won more games than we lost and shared the B1G West crown. Nothing that happens in Nashville can change what happened between September and December (although 9-4 feels a little better than 8-5).

Regardless of what happens in a week, I would like to thank the following people:

1. Kaleb Johnson – it was a thrill to see KJ2 in the Black & Gold, I can only hope he ends up in Detroit to complete the transformation of that team into the “Liowans” (I don’t really have an NFL team, but if he ends up on the same team as Campbell and Laporta, that could change)
2. Tim Lester – for allowing me to believe that we can have an offense that is fun to watch
3. Jay Higgins – for being the leader this team needed the last two years, you won in my main cannon Butkus’ departure.
4. Ethan Hurkett – I may have mentioned before that my youngest son was a student of Ethan’s mom about a decade ago, that personal connection to this team is special to him and it’s special to me. It’s also pretty good that he’s a damn good footballer and I can’t wait to see what havoc he and Max Llewellyn can wreak next season.
5. GlendaleHawkJr – yes, my kid, who reads every sentence that comes on this website (and gets a kick out of me mentioning him), who writes fan posts that no one reads, and who has become a font of football knowledge for the past two years . I’m sorry I turned you into a football fan, but the past few years have been a lot of fun for me (even when I cursed very loudly and professed my anger at any number of Iowa players).

I’ll be back with By The Numbers next week and there will be at least one more cheap seats before next football season (with a contribution from a special guest), but for now, have a Merry Christmas/Happy Chanukkah/Festive Kwanzaa and may may all experience several Festivus miracles in the coming days.

As always, GO HAWKS!!!