What Iowa head coach Kirk Ferentz said about Michigan before the Big Ten championship game

No. 2 Michigan Wolverines football (11-1) is an 11-point favorite against No. 13 Iowa (10-2) Saturday night in the Big Ten championship game. The Maize and Blue are coming off an impressive victory over Ohio State and are unblemished outside of a loss at No. 11 Michigan State Oct. 30. The Hawkeyes have gutted out several wins, including last Friday at Nebraska, and lost two straight in October (versus Purdue and at Wisconsin).

With a win, the Wolverines, who have the third-best odds to win the national title on DraftKings Sportsbook, would head to the College Football Playoff semifinals. Iowa head coach Kirk Ferentz knows he and his squad have their hands full this weekend, and that Michigan poses a lot of problems.

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“I’m still trying to get my head around that a little bit,” Ferentz said of what it’ll take for the Hawkeyes to pull off the upset. “We’ve played in some games, I’m thinking, just off the top of my head, the last, what, two times ago, when we played these guys in ’16, I think we were 34-point underdogs, 26, something like that.

“I think back to the Penn State in ’08 where they were second or third in the country, whatever they might have been. The thing about [the game against] LSU, which I know it was a miracle play, at the end, the miracle was that after 59 minutes that we were even in the ball game, if you really looked at their personnel. You go back, look at who is on that roster.

“I look at those three games, and I told the team the fun part about these games is you really have to be at your best each and every play. And those axioms or clichés about you never know if six plays or eight plays are going to define a game, they’re true. In games like this, they’re certainly true.

“These guys are just so good in every position. They just put a lot of pressure on you. And I don’t mean like blitzing pressure or tempo pressure, you just know what they’re capable of. You really just have to try to make them earn everything. It’s easier said than done.

“And then we’re going to have to come up with something. Somewhere along the way, create a break or whatever. And somehow, some way find a way to get it done.”

Ferentz added that “we have a lot of work to do between now and Saturday night.”

The biggest challenge for the Hawkeyes is how they’re going to move the football on an elite Michigan defense that ranks eighth in the country with 17.2 points allowed per game.

Iowa is 106th in the country in rushing yards per game (121.1) and 110th in passing offense (177.9 yards per outing), while Michigan slots inside the nation’s top 25 in both passing and rushing defense. The Hawkeyes are intent on establishing the run, with 37 attempts per contest, but it’s going to be tough sledding Saturday.

“We’ll have to bang away at it, see what we can do,” Ferentz said. “Starts with blocking. Try to block them and pick runs that are smart. And we’re still working on that part of it. These guys, they’re really big inside. They look like a pro defense. They’ve got big, strong players inside.

“They roll a lot of guys through, depending on your personnel. The outside guy, 97 [junior defensive end Aidan Hutchinson] is not coming off the field. But on the other side they’ll put a big physical guy in there if you’re in a run group, if you will.

“So they match up strategically. They’re smart that way. So they pose a lot of problems for you, they really do. We’re going to have to — and I don’t think we’ll be running for 300 yards. That’s not realistic. But we have to try to find a way to run efficiently.”

A Heisman Trophy contender, Hutchinson holds Michigan’s single-season sack record with 13, getting home three times and generating 15 pressures against Ohio State last week. Redshirt freshman outside linebacker David Ojabo has 11 sacks of his own, making it that much tougher for an Iowa front that yields 2.6 sacks per game.

“I don’t know what you do to neutralize him,” Ferentz said of Hutchinson. “He’s an outstanding player. And [we] better know where he lines up. And it’s fairly predictable, but the only problem is the guy on the other side [Ojabo] is, I don’t want to say equally dangerous, but it’s pretty close. It’s a 1-2.

“I was thinking this morning, I don’t know how often we’ve faced a team that has two guys outside like that, that can be as disruptive as they are.”

Iowa is known for playing spoiler, though, and it’s already shown it can take down a top-10 Michigan team (2016), one of the reasons why Michigan isn’t taking the Hawkeyes lightly. Ferentz knows it’ll take an outstanding effort, but he’s also confident his team has it in them.

“We’ll have to play our best football of the year to have a chance to be in it,” he said.