Michigan turns focus to Iowa
Michigan achieved its most important win in more than 20 years when it beat Ohio State last Saturday. And when a team makes history, it can take a while to float back down from the clouds.
Not just the team, but those who love it. And while Jim Harbaugh gave his players 24 hours to revel in their generational accomplishment, the rest of you haven’t had film study and practice and position meetings and coaches forcing you to focus on Iowa.
Well, the Hawkeyes await Saturday night in Indianapolis.
Are you ready? Are you ready to move on to the Big Ten title game?
Because it’s just about here, and though Iowa isn’t Ohio State, it offers a handful of difficult challenges.
The teams last met in 2019. U-M won 10-3 in Ann Arbor. Before that game, the Hawkeyes had won five of the previous six meetings.
Obviously, it’s hard to take too much from those games — the rosters have turned over several times. What hasn’t changed, at least for Iowa, is the coach.
Kirk Ferentz favors the kind of power football that Jim Harbaugh does. He just doesn’t get as many high-level recruits. Still, recruiting rankings and talent don’t always matter when a team slows the tempo and shrinks the field and mucks up the line of scrimmage.
This was clear when the teams met in 2016 in Iowa City; U-M came in undefeated and stocked with future NFL players. The Wolverines had one of the best offenses in the Big Ten that season and had scored 78, 41, 32 and 59 points in their previous four games. Against the Hawkeyes, they scored 13, with only 103 yards passing and 98 rushing.
Iowa, meanwhile, scored 14 points that Saturday night in November. It was a crushing loss. But not a shocking one, despite the “talent” disparity that appears to have returned this season.
The Hawkeyes have three players projected to get drafted next spring, starting with tight end Sam Laporta, who could be a second-rounder.
The Wolverines, though, have three players that could go in the first round, led by Aidan Hutchinson and David Ojabo. The have a handful of other likely pros sprinkled throughout the roster, including several on the offensive line.
Scouts might consider the talent difference a mismatch. Coaches don’t.
Even though Harbaugh has his best offensive line, Hassan Haskins running behind it and Blake Corum as the speed back, he also knows that running against Iowa won’t be as easy as it was against Ohio State.
It should be similar to how it was against Michigan State. The Spartans don’t have the back seven the Buckeyes did, but they have very good defensive tackles and ends that play the run well. Iowa is similar, with a better secondary.
The difference is that the Hawkeyes struggle to move the ball consistently. Though they did in 2016, too, and still managed a couple of touchdowns to win. As challenged as this Iowa offense is, it still put up 23 points against Penn State, which held U-M to 21 this November. So under the right circumstances, and on any given Saturday, the Hawkeyes can find the end zone.
The Wolverines will have to be twodimensional to beat Iowa.
If there is a difference between Michigan’s offense from 2016, it’s the synchronicity of the offensive line and Hassan Haskins and, yes, Cade Mcnamara, who has shown a great sense of when to make a play downfield at just the right time. The same can be said of Hutchinson and Ojabo. The 2016 team had pros on the defensive line, but none like these two.
Don’t expect them to flinch against Iowa, no matter how much of a slog the Hawkeyes try to make it.
This team and this coach know what’s out there for them. They’ve shown they can handle the pressure and, more importantly, the moment.