The unofficial opening of the Big Ten College Football season began Wednesday morning with seven of the 14 conference’s head coaches taking the podium in Indianapolis. That included Kirk Ferentz, who addressed the media with his expectations for the 2023 season. His football team added nine transfer players in the January window and took four more over the summer months. It was a new approach to roster rebuilding as far as what we’re used to seeing with this Iowa program. The Hawkeyes enter the season as one of the favorites in the Big Ten West. These are the biggest takeaways from Iowa at Big Ten Media Days.
Biggest Change for This Year
Iowa returns 59% of its production from last season, good for second-most in the Big Ten West. As far as the offense is concerned, Ferentz is confident in the depth of the group up front. The Hawkeyes will have one of their deepest offensive lines in several years, with two transfer players coming in and 114 career returning starts. Iowa has the ability to rotate in eight or nine guys up front. Ferentz said that was one of their biggest changes on that side of the ball compared to last season. The group up front dealt with injuries and shuffling around that contributed to their performance last season. Heading into 2023, Ferentz and the coaching staff have high expectations for the improvement that will take place on the offensive line.
Ferentz was also asked about what he learned from last year’s offense and how he has approached change this season. The main message he delivered was that there were several reasons for the poor performance of the offense all season. He mentioned the inexperience up front and depth issues early in the year at wide receiver. Iowa also faced six of the nation’s top 12 defenses in 2022, making their struggles all the more visible.
Ferentz said he looks for ways to make changes ahead of every season because every season is a new team. This year, the approach was no different. However, the personnel change is significant with the new additions from the transfer portal. Ferentz said that his staff feels they made the right steps to address the improvements needed. Those major areas are offensive line, where they brought in two transfers, quarterback, where they landed a former Conference champion in Cade McNamara, and wide receiver, where there are two veterans returning and two skillful transfers entering the program.
Special Teams Will Be Special
It’s very rare that a special teams unit returns all of their skill position players. For 2023, Iowa gets back their punter, kicker, long snapper, punt returner, and kick returners. The Hawkeyes return Tory Taylor who led the nation in punts and punt yards. Taylor also pinned 18 of his punts inside the 20-yard line and was consistently one of Iowa’s best field position weapons in 2022. Luke Elkin will be the long snapper again this season.
In the kicking game, Iowa returns Drew Stevens who was 16 of 18 on the season, and was two-for-two outside of 50 yards. Stevens forced 31 touchbacks on kickoffs last season and the kicking team allowed 22 kick return yards per game.
Cooper DeJean was in attendance at Big Ten Media Days for Iowa and he will be back returning punts in 2023. He was an elusive returner, averaging 16.5 yards per punt return on 10 returns. DeJean’s longest of the year was 41 yards against Wisconsin, nearly taking it into the end zone.
Kirk Ferentz, Iowa Big Ten Media Day Takeaways
Like every year, Ferentz is approaching the season as a clean slate. It will be a very different looking roster at the offensive skill positions that looks to be much improved. Defensively, Ferentz stated that his team is “wired” to put emphasis on defense, and the results show year in and year out. Ferentz recognizes the changing of the game in regard to the transfer portal and how it will always be a big part of the terrain moving forward. It’s easy to see that Ferentz and staff took advantage of the changing landscape of the game adding 13 new players to the roster this offseason through the transfer portal. The unofficial kickoff to the 2023 season has taken place and fall camp starts next week in Iowa City.
Photo courtesy: Robert Goddin-USA TODAY Sports
