Tuesdays with Torbee

Let me tell you something, my friend. Hope is a dangerous thing. Hope can drive a man insane. – Ellis “Red” Redding, Shawshank Prison

It’s been the familiar frustrating refrain for the past several seasons: if the Iowa Hawkeye football team had even an average – hell, slightly below average offense – it would be a potential playoff contender.

Even with an abysmal and embarrassing offense, the Hawkeyes have been regular Big 10 title contenders, playing in two of the past three conference championship games and missing a third by one late season loss.

After last Saturday’s second-half offensive surge, in which Iowa surpassed 250 passing yards and 240 rushing yards on its way to its most potent output in, I don’t know, FOREVER, hope is surging. Hope that Illinois State isn’t a completely awful palooka, hope that second-half Cade McNamara is the real McNamara, hope that a lanky true freshman wide receiver can give Iowa a credible threat in the boundary, hope that Kaleb Johnson has more explosive touchdown runs in him.

For most of the first half of the season opener, Iowa looked to be in frustrating repeat mode. Yet another team with an all-world defense, stellar special teams and a garbage heap offense. McNamara looked rusty and threw off his back foot too often. When balls were on target, they were dropped. The offensive line would get a baby push on a couple runs, then whiff, allowing Kamari Moulton to get stuffed in the backfield. There were a lot of Iowa punts – a fact of life we fans have grudgingly come to enjoy but also secretly loathe.

Something happened at halftime and here is hoping it is a harbinger of adjustments to come – a few tweaks here and there, some personnel adjustments and suddenly Iowa had not just a serviceable, but a competent and complementary running and passing attack. Be still my hopeful heart!

Iowa’s offense is like your great grandpa’s old, hot-rodded Model A that sat abandoned in the barn for several decades. It needed a ton of tuning, some fresh oil and fuel, the dust and grime wiped off and a healthy driver. It grinds and groans before it starts and takes even longer to get up to speed – but once it’s moving, it can eat up the miles at pace. Of course, the Ferrari (Iowa’s fine-tuned and elite defense) is going to look shinier, better and faster – because it is – but at least the car is out of the barn!

Former Hawkeye Anthony Herron, who was on the Big 10 Network call of the game, sounded like a believer. He lauded new offensive Tim Lester’s halftime adjustments, while noting his scheme is fairly complex and difficult to master, insinuating that even better may be to come.

This is that dangerous hope rising again.

That Iowa defense, even against an out-manned FCS team, is flat out nasty. Arguably, it looks even deeper and more sound than last year’s unit, which gave up a paltry 13.2 points per game. If it wasn’t stonewalling the Red Birds into a three-and-out, it was taking the ball away. And even if a team avoids turning it over, they face the prospect of punting away (often in unfavorable field position) to Kaden Wetjen who apparently detests fair catches, will always get positive yards and is a touchdown threat anytime he fields a punt.

Now imagine facing that same team only it also has a mostly functional offense!

Is this talk premature with only one measly win over a mid-level Missouri Valley Conference opponent in the ledger? Probably. But 40-0 sure felt a hell of a lot better than last season’s 24-14 opener over Utah State in which the Hawks managed a mere 284 total yards.

The in-state rival Iowa State Cyclones will prove a taller task, but I ask – how are they going to score on this Iowa defense? If Iowa can continue to move the ball and avoid turnovers, it gets pretty hard to game out a scenario where they lose at home to the Clones.

There’s that sneaky hope again!

The season is barely underway but that shouldn’t stop fans from dreaming big. With an expanded playoff, there is some wiggle room for bad days from your favorite team. Last Saturday sure wasn’t one of them, so feel free to feel good about it.

Red absolutely was right about the dangers of false hope.

But Andy got the last laugh:

“Remember Red, hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies.”

Follow me on X @torybrecht and the 12 Saturdays podcasts @12Saturdays.