 "Photo: Julie Koehn/The Daily Iowan")
Before Iowa football kicks off its season on September 5, the college football world is thinking one thing: it doesn’t have Shonn Greene.
Greene, who was one of the nation’s top rushers last year with a total of 1,850 yards for the Hawkeyes, decided to forgo his senior season and was taken by the Jets in the third round of the NFL draft this past April.
But Greene isn’t the only key piece the Hawkeyes will be without. Iowa has also lost its two anchors on the defensive front — Mitch King and Matt Kroul — to graduation, forcing Iowa to replace three of its most important players.
But veteran head coach Kirk Ferentz knows that it’s more than just replacing a few positions.
“We’re a different team,” Ferentz told ESPN. “So you don’t plug holes — you assess what it is you are, what your strengths are, and you shift toward those strengths. We could go the opposite route of what we were in some ways.”
One of those strengths is having a veteran under center. Junior Richard Stanzi is entering his second year as the starting quarterback and coming off an impressive sophomore year that saw him complete nearly 60 percent of his passes and throw 14 touchdowns with nine interceptions.
More impressive was when Stanzi led his team to beat then-undefeated Penn State at home. The win was Iowa’s biggest all season and ended Penn State’s hopes to play in the BCS National Championship.
What made that win all the more impressive was that it came right after a heartbreaking loss to a struggling Illinois team the week before. Overcoming that loss to turn around and beat the No. 3 team in the nation shows the kind of resilience Iowa will need to have in order to get over missing the nation’s top rusher and two studs on the defensive line.
The loss to Illinois was one of four for the Hawkeyes last season — all came by a combined 12 points. Those close losses are a testament to Iowa’s solid defense — a defense that always keeps the Hawkeyes in the game. Iowa led the Big Ten in points allowed per game only yielding 13, and in its nine wins, it only allowed 9.2 points on average.
The Hawkeyes are hopeful to have another successful season on the defensive front as the team returns all three starting linebackers from last year. The trio of Jeremiha Hunter, A.J. Edds and Pat Angerer won’t have quite as easy a job now that King and Kroul aren’t in front of them tying up blockers, but should still have a solid season if Angerer can duplicate his five interceptions and 107 tackles from last season.
Iowa ended on a four-game winning streak that was capped off with a win over South Carolina in the Outback Bowl on New Year’s Day, giving the Big Ten its only bowl win of the season. But that streak will be hard to keep up once Iowa gets into its conference schedule, which opens up with a trip to Happy Valley for a rematch with an angry Penn State team, and also includes visits to Wisconsin, Michigan State and Ohio State.
The marquee non-conference matchup for Iowa will be its Sept. 19 showdown against Arizona, which is coming off its first bowl win in 10 years. If Iowa can get that win at home and pull out a win in State College, expect it to shoot up in the rankings and put up a fight in its brutal conference schedule.
Team name: Iowa Hawkeyes
Coach: Kirk Ferentz
Conference: Big Ten
2008 record: 9-4
Players to Watch
- Richard Stanzi – Junior – QB
2008: 1,956 yards passing/ 59.1 CMP%/ 14 TD/ 134.85 RAT
Veteran quarterback that led the Hawkeyes to an upset victory over Penn State - Pat Angerer – Senior – LB
2008: 107 tackles/ 5 INT/ 1 sack
Anchor of a trio of linebackers that all started last year; another solid season could lift him up to a second or even first round draft pick in next year’s draft
Game to watch: Set. 26 at Penn State
The huge showdown in Happy Valley will be early barometer for how good the Hawkeyes might be. Penn State will be looking for revenge after Iowa ended its national title hopes late last year.
The Word on Iowa: With a veteran quarterback under center, and another stingy defense, the Hawkeyes could challenge perennial Big Ten champs Ohio State and Penn State for a chance to win its first conference title since 2004.
