Hawkeye Football: A Look Back on Iowa's 2024 Regular Season

First off, I apologize for my tardiness. I am fully aware that this column was due nearly 3 weeks ago now but, in all honesty, I needed a bit of a break (mentally and emotionally) before I felt comfortable putting this season to rest. Turns out that the world didn’t stop to wait for me and there have been some pretty big changes since Black Friday, but even so, I’m not entirely 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 in this time between the end of the regular season and the Bowl game. Also, this one gets a little rambly, so I apologize in advance and will not be offended if you check out early.

Reckoning

I’ve spent a lot of time over the last 3 weeks trying to figure out what to write about for this, second to last, installment of Cheap Seats for the year, I’ve had many discussions with my son, GlendaleHawkJr., who made many good suggestions, but none of them clicked with me.

I think, however, that I’ve narrowed down the reason for this season’s bout of the block: real, actual, disappointment. For the first time in a while I actually feel like this team underachieved, significantly. I mean sure, there were huge positives and a lot of upside to this season, but given what they accomplished the last two seasons (3 really) with almost zero offense, watching this team 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 that I really understood that until the last week or so.

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

Let me be clear, 8-4 is not a bad season, this team did not have a bad season, what they had was a very Kirk Ferentz-y season. They dropped 2 games (minimum) that they had no business losing (pick two of Iowa St., MSU, or UCLA) and, realistically, had a shot to win all but one game 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 were beating OSU) and hosting a 1st round playoff game this week and it’s not even that hard to imagine. But no, Cade throws a horrible 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 embarasses us in East Lansing and we let UCLA bully us in the Rose Bowl like it was January 1, 1986 all over again (minus all the fumbles by our star RB). There is no good reason for Iowa to have dropped those games but here we are, headed to Nashville again (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 as an Iowa fan (I know, preaching to the choir) but this was supposed to be the year where we would maybe, just maybe, pair a decent offense with our otherworldly defense and special teams and prove once and for all that Iowa isn’t “the fake ID of college football” (I’m still mad at Cowherd for that one). But yet again this team (or perhaps this coaching staff) finds a way to gameplan their way into losses and handcuff themselves with insane personnel decisions. Such is the life of an Iowa fan I suppose, disappointment with an anger chaser.

With that being said, I can’t walk away from this team, this school, even this coaching staff, and I will absolutely be watching on 12/30 to see what this team looks like without it’s superstar RB to put the team on his back. Hopefully, no matter the score, we can get some inspiration going into 2025, because I know I could use some.

Looking Backward

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

What I can say is that, for the first time maybe ever, I think I am actually starting to understand how fans of elite schools feel when their team underperforms. Listen, I’ve been disappointed by Iowa teams in the past, but I’m not sure that any of those times felt as bad as this season did. I’ve been a Cubs fan for as long as I can remember and I have always told people that it has made me a better person, learning from a very young age how to live with disappointment. Being an Iowa fan helped that as well, with so many moments of disappointment in the ~40 years of Hawkeye history I have 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 that Iowa fans should have low expectations, quite the opposite in fact. 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 turning out 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 for my dreams and what I want, they’re just kids out there doing their best (and likely fighting demons and troubles that we know nothing about or have any ability to comprehend). Unfortunately, I think we’ve jumped that particular shark, college football is not what it used to be, it’s not what I grew to love, and that’s okay, but it’s gonna take a little 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 a little hope, even if we’re all left without any option beyond prayer that it continues to evolve.

Uncertain Futures

So, what should we expect in Nashville next week? Should we expect to get run off the field by a Mizzou squad 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 squad who was 1-3 against ranked teams and lost to Vanderbilt? Hell, should we expect to even score points without Kaleb Johnson in the backfield (after all, he did account for 43% of all Iowa’s yards from scrimmage this season)?

Iowa rolls into Nashville with a QB controversy, no clear RB1 (though 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 might run just a bit hot leading to poor decision making. Jack Stratton has a live arm and what seems like the right demeanor to start for Kirk Ferentz, but he’s lacking in 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 pieces of an offensive football team are, well, uncertain atm and that leaves me unsettled.

That the defense is going into this game down only one major contributor is something of a miracle and that Iowa has 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 during the NFL draft in a couple of months) think that playing one more game in the black and gold is worth the risk to their careers shows you what this program (and this coach) means to them. Yeah, Ferentz ain’t perfect, but it’s pretty rare thing to be proud of pretty much every player that goes on to the next level, and we should probably be a little more grateful for that than we are.

Epilogue

I honestly, do not have any idea what this team is going to look like next Monday. I am fairly comfortable that Sullivan will start with Moulton at RB1 and that TJ Hall will get 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 on 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 (even if 9-4 feels slightly better than 8-5).

No matter what happens in a week, I want to thank the following people:

Kaleb Johnson - it was a thrill watching KJ2 in the Black & Gold, I can only hope that he ends up in Detroit to complete the conversion 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 might change) Tim Lester - for allowing me to believe that we can have an offense that is fun to watch Jay Higgins - for being the leader this team needed the last two years, in my head-canon you won the Butkus going away. Ethan Hurkett - it’s possible that I’ 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 that’s special to me. It’s also pretty great that he’s a damn fine football player and I can’t wait to see what havoc he and Max Llewellyn can cause next season. GlendaleHawkJr - yeah, my kid, who reads every sentence that comes across this website (and gets a kick when I mention him), who writes fanposts that no one reads, and who has become a font of football knowledge in the last two years. I’m sorry that I turned you into a football fan, but the last couple of years have been a lot of fun for me (even when I was swearing very loudly and professing 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 you all experience multiple Festivus miracles in the days to come.

As always, GO HAWKS!!!