IOWA CITY, Iowa — Longtime Iowa football coach Kirk Ferentz is waging a losing and potentially devastating public relations battle with long-term consequences for his program, and it’s undetermined if he even knows it.
As always with Iowa, it’s about the offense. The numbers remain among the nation’s worst, and his son, Brian, continues to coordinate and call plays for the unit. It ranks 129th, after finishing 130th last year and 121st in 2021. Winning matters the most in college football, and Iowa is 3-1 after a 31-0 loss at Penn State last weekend. But a close second to winning is offensive style with an entertainment value. If either category had a measurement, Iowa would register on the “does not qualify” list.
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Among Hawkeyes fans, if Brian Ferentz was the only candidate for the upcoming Iowa caucus, nobody would show up. But everyone would shovel out of a snowbank to vote out the current offense. Yet it doesn’t seem to matter for the head coach, a likely Hall of Famer who has 201 wins to his resume. There’s no change on the horizon, to scheme or to play caller.
“That’s not part of the plan,” Kirk Ferentz said. “Every week — we’ve done it for 24-plus years — after every game, you go back and look at what you did, what could you do better, whether it’s play calling, what are our thoughts going into the game, those types of things, how the opponent matches.
“We’re going to try to do better. There’s really no simple answers or easy remedies. It’s a matter of execution, playing better and trying to do what our players are capable of doing a little bit better.”
There were factors in Iowa’s offense spiral beginning in 2021, after some decent numbers preceding it. Recruiting whiffs and injuries along the offensive line coupled with receiver injuries and erratic quarterback play led to catastrophic statistics. Still, with elite defense and special teams units, the Hawkeyes won 18 games combined in 2021 and 2022.
Iowa fandom shifted between anger and apathy until transfer portal season brought presents during the offseason. In popped a new quarterback, a pair of receivers, a tight end and a couple of offensive linemen. Once again, fans bought up every season ticket. Once again, the offense is treating everyone to the same results.
“This sucks to be in a position where I gotta answer these questions, but you can’t focus on the outside noise,” receiver Nico Ragaini said. “You just got to continue to get better, and that’s all I’m focused on. I’m going to be 100 percent positive every single day because I truly believe in this offense, and I really think we could turn it around.”
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Ragaini is in his sixth year, so he can speak to Iowa’s passing game better than most. In 2019, he led the team with 46 catches. Iowa wide receivers that season caught 169 passes, tied for the most in program history. Last year, that number collapsed to 76, the fewest for the receivers since 1982.
But even last year’s output looks lofty compared to this year’s production. So far, Iowa’s receivers have 14 receptions on 35 targets in four games. In a 12-game season, that would be 42 catches and 105 targets. Consider in 2022, former Iowa receiver Charlie Jones transferred to Purdue and caught 110 passes. He hauled in 21 at Iowa in 2021.
Per TruMedia, Iowa wide receivers have been targeted an average of 7.8 times per game this season, 131st among FBS teams. The national average is 21.0, with only Navy (6.3) and Air Force (1.8) receivers averaging fewer targets. Iowa receivers have accounted for 33.3 percent of Iowa’s targets this season, the lowest share among FBS teams, and the national average is 67.3 percent.
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When asked whether there’s something he can do to get the receivers more involved, quarterback Cade McNamara said: “I’m just a quarterback. I’m not calling the plays or doing any of that. That’s not my decision. I’m just gonna run the play as sent, and I’m gonna throw it to the open guy.”
As for Ragaini and his fellow receivers trying to find a way to get more involved: “That’s not a question for me. That’s a question for the coaches. I’m just gonna continue to do what I have to do to make the team the best it could possibly be.”
Their indirect rhetoric leads directly to game-planning, which is the area shaped by Brian Ferentz and Kirk Ferentz. The passing game is geared around the tight ends, who total 40 targets, with now-injured Luke Lachey and Michigan transfer Erick All with 16 apiece. The Hawkeyes have run 76.4 percent of their plays with at least two tight ends on the field. Even in 2018 when Iowa had first-round tight ends in T.J. Hockenson and Noah Fant, the Hawkeyes ran only 61.8 percent of their plays with at least two tight ends.
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In four games, the Hawkeyes employed three wide receivers just 57 times. This is after bringing in portal newcomers Kaleb Brown (Ohio State) and Seth Anderson (Charleston Southern), along with coaxing Ragaini to return and convincing Diante Vines to stay. In the Hawkeyes’ first three games, the receivers had four catches. Last week, they had two.
“I think part of that is the ball does go where it goes,” Kirk Ferentz said. “We’ve had two pretty good tight ends. Obviously, down one there. That changes.
“As a staff, that’s something we’re doing weekly is trying to figure out what’s the best way we can do to help improve production offensively, and getting receivers involved probably makes some sense here as we move forward.”
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So why haven’t the receivers become a part of the offensive plan?
“It’s not that they’re not part of it,” Ferentz said. “The ball hasn’t gone there for whatever reason. They’re certainly critical. Everybody is. All 11 people are critical out there. We’ll have to find a better way maybe to spread the ball a little bit, and again, Luke being out, that’s part of the deal.”
Here is where the danger lies for Ferentz. Iowa’s reputation at receiver is the flip from its tight end prowess, which has four current NFL starters, and all are in the top 11 in positional yardage. From 2013 to 2022, Iowa recruited 24 freshman receivers. Thirteen transferred from Iowa, two switched to defense, one medically retired and another opted for baseball only. Three remain on the roster — one has yet to play — and only four exhausted their eligibility while at Iowa.
Only four of those receivers put up at least 90 catches. Jones, who came to Iowa as a walk-on, went from an underutilized rotational receiver to the nation’s reception leader at Purdue. How is that for an indictment of recruitment, retention and development for that position?
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The scariest part for Kirk Ferentz and Iowa is the game continues to evolve offensively toward a receiver-based passing attack. In 2010, the last time Iowa ranked above No. 60 nationally in total offense, the Hawkeyes (57th) averaged 382.9 yards per game. This year, that would rank 78th.
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Sitting first, second and third in total offense nationally after four weeks are Washington, Oregon and USC. UCLA ranks No. 28, and Maryland, Penn State and Ohio State are between 31 and 34. All seven of those teams will compete against Iowa in a division-less Big Ten next season. So will Wisconsin (46th in total offense), which revamped its offensive philosophy with a coaching change, as will Michigan (61st), the two-time defending Big Ten champion.
Unless this offense gets its receivers involved, it will struggle to find any who want to play for Iowa through the portal or recruitment. It’s just as likely valuable receivers will bolt, like Jones, to find a better path to the NFL, where only one Iowa wideout has caught a pass since 2007.
With some of the nation’s most prolific offenses on Iowa’s annual schedule starting in 2024, teams can’t just win with field position, defense and mistake-free football. If the Ferentzes don’t know that now, they will big time starting next year.
(Top photo: Matthew Holst / Getty Images)
