clock menu more-arrow no yes mobile

Filed under:

Re-Evaluating Expectations for the Iowa Hawkeyes After Two Weeks

Iowa is 1-1 with the worst offense in the country. Literally.

Syndication: HawkCentral
Things are not going well in Iowa City.
Joseph Cress/Iowa City Press-Citizen / USA TODAY NETWORK

Welcome to SB Nation Reacts, a survey of fans across the NCAA. Throughout the year we ask questions of the most plugged-in Iowa Hawkeyes fans and fans across the country. Sign up here to participate.


Things are not great in Iowa City. As in, the Hawkeyes boast the worst offense in college football, not great. You don’t get to dead last in meaningful categories like total offense, scoring offense, explosive plays, first downs and others without have a LOT of issues. And that’s perhaps the best way to describe the Hawkeye offense - a LOT of issues.

For starters, the starter at quarterback. Spencer Petras has the worst QB Rating of any division one quarterback at 3.4. That’s astronomically bad. Over his last six games, Petras has thrown one touchdown to nine interceptions. His play is a cause for Iowa’s offensive woes.

Despite that, Kirk Ferentz has named him the starter this week against Nevada. We’d like to know whether Hawkeye fans agree with that decision and whether they think Ferentz will stick with it on Saturday.

But Petras is not alone in his woes. The entire offense has been a mess. The Hawkeyes are 127th nationally in both passing and rushing offense. No other team is even close to being that bad in BOTH categories. Sure, the Hawkeyes are missing a slew of their top WRs right now due to injury (oh yeah, and transfer!) and yes, Iowa is breaking in a bunch of new faces on the offensive line, but this is no bueno.

So, we are also asking for your thoughts on offensive coordinator Brian Ferentz. How much blame does he deserve? Should he get the Scott Frost treatment right now? Will he be in Iowa City a year from now?

And as a result of the newfound issues on offense, we want to know what Hawkeye fans think the realistic win total is for Iowa now that we are two games into the season. As a reminder, the fanbase projected Iowa to finish just between 8-4 and 9-3 only a few short weeks ago. How has your projection for this season changed?

Thanks in advance for your participation in the survey. Feel free to express your views in the comments. We’ll circle back ahead of game day to summarize the results.