Coordinator Brian Ferentz isn’t coming back, but will head coach Kirk Ferentz fix Iowa’s offense?
The Drive for 325 has stalled somewhere along Interstate 80, possibly near that truck stop that’s so massive it has its own dentist’s office. Monday, Iowa coach Kirk Ferentz and company admitted that they’ll never reach the lofty goal of 25 points a game in 2023 with the announcement that Kirk’s son Brian will not return next season as Iowa’s offensive coordinator.
This will end one of the most frustrating tenures in recent college football memory. The son of the longest-tenured head coach in the FBS presided over an offense so pitiful that it wasted elite defense and elite special teams play and turned a proud program into a running joke only made funnier by a contract provision that essentially turned Iowa’s offensive futility into an easily updated meme.
As a parting gift prior to his retirement, former Iowa athletic director Gary Barta reworked Brian Ferentz’s contract to require that Iowa average 25 points a game and win at least seven games in 2023. If not, the contract would terminate in the offseason. Basically, it turned the season into a loser-leaves-town match and handed the jokes to anyone with a tote board — or a love of classic The Price Is Right games.
Through eight games, Iowa has scored 156 points. The Hawkeyes are not going to reach 325. Starting quarterback Cade McNamara is lost for the season. Top tight ends Luke Lachey and Erick All have been lost to injury for the season. The receivers continue to not get open, and backup quarterback Deacon Hill continues to not get them the ball.
If this were a one-season calamity brought on because of an avalanche of injuries, then perhaps this move would seem hasty. But the fact is Iowa’s crippled-by-injuries offense doesn’t look appreciably different from its healthy one, and that’s the problem.
Brian Ferentz is an excellent offensive line coach. He coached the Hawkeyes’ linemen for five seasons (2012-16) with great results. Daddy named Brian offensive coordinator following the retirement of Greg Davis after the 2016 season. Brian coached running backs that first season as OC and then coached the offensive line-adjacent tight ends and fullbacks from 2018-21. With Iowa’s offense floundering following the 2021 season, Kirk decided the best way to improve quarterback play was to have his son — who is great at coaching people who block — coach the people who throw.
What followed is thus far a season-plus of utter offensive futility. This one has been particularly frustrating, because Iowa’s defense is once again playing at a championship level. According to Brian Fremeau’s excellent advanced stats site, the Hawkeyes’ defense ranks No. 2 in the nation in efficiency. Iowa can expect to gain 1.31 points every time its defense takes the field. Meanwhile, it can expect to lose 1.07 points every time its offense takes the field.
So far this season, Iowa’s wide receivers have combined to catch 26 passes for 259 yards and two touchdowns. By contrast, LSU receiver Malik Nabors caught 13 passes for 239 yards and two touchdowns against Mississippi State alone.
The most frustrating part of this for Iowa fans has to be that their team doesn’t stink. Coordinator Phil Parker’s defense continues to dominate in spite of the lack of a complement on offense. LeVar Woods’ special teams units — led by punter Tory Taylor and the returns from cornerback Cooper DeJean — continue to gain hidden yards that cover for the offense’s failings.
Iowa is 6-2 and could still win the Big Ten West, but the 12-10 loss to Minnesota on. Oct. 21 showed what happens when a team leaves its success entirely up to its defense and special teams. Should officials have disallowed DeJean’s punt return for a touchdown because of a what a review deemed to be a fair catch signal prior to the return? That is debatable. (DeJean, for his part, said he was trying to keep his balance and not give the “stay away” or “poison” signal.) What isn’t debatable is that Iowa’s offense should have scored more than 10 points before that point. Any barely functional one could have.
The most pressing question now is whether Kirk Ferentz will allow the next offensive coordinator to run a more dynamic offense. For all the abuse Brian Ferentz took as Iowa’s offensive coordinator, he never threw his father under the bus for being the one who demanded that the offense stay as boring as it did.
Meanwhile, Kirk Ferentz also needs to examine how he has recruited the quarterback position. His best offenses came with Brad Banks and C.J. Beathard running them. What did those two QBs have in common? They could run their way out of trouble when necessary. Iowa continues to recruit QBs who don’t move well. Perhaps that’s because QBs who do move well don’t want to play in that offense.
We know quality receivers certainly don’t. Just consider the case of Charlie Jones, who caught 21 passes for 323 yards and three touchdowns at Iowa in 2021 and then caught 110 passes for 1,361 yards and 12 touchdowns at Purdue in 2022. Brian Ferentz’s Iowa offense only produced 19 touchdowns total in 2022. So far in 2023, it has produced only 14.
The Drive for 325 only intensified the scrutiny of an offense that looked designed to fail. But at least with this admission that Iowa’s offense has broken down, the Hawkeyes can start searching for someone to repair it.