Purdue opponent view: Iowa

Purdue takes the lid off a big four-game November that will determine how good the 2022 season will be. The month dawns with the Boilermakers (5-3 overall; 3-2 Big Ten) in the thick of the Big Ten West race. To claim the title, Purdue will need to win all four games in November. First up is Iowa, a team Jeff Brohm has beaten two times in a row and is 4-1 against as Boilermaker coach.

GoldandBlack.com spoke to Iowa expert Tom Kakert to get the skinny on the Hawkeyes (4-4; 2-3) prior to their visit to Purdue on Saturday for a noon ET kickoff.

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GoldandBlack.com: What can we expect from this Iowa offense, which has gotten a lot of scrutiny?

Kakert: I think that’s fair to say that they’ve had a lot of scrutiny. But they had their best game of the year last weekend against Northwestern (33-13 win). The Wildcats aren’t very strong this year, though. I think some Iowa fans would tell you to take it with a grain of salt at this point. But Iowa did move out of the basement in all of the college football in terms of total offense. They are now number 129 instead of 131 (248.6 ypg). I guess small progress. They put up 33 points. They had gone 30 drives without scoring an offensive touchdown. Iowa finally got on the board with an offensive touchdown in the first half against Northwestern. It has been a slog.

The struggles are a combination of Spencer Petras struggling at quarterback, a young offensive line with several new starters who are younger guys, redshirt freshmen, redshirt sophomores, that have kind of gotten pressed into service and they have struggled. And they’ve had a lot of injuries at the receiver position, a position that’s not very deep as Purdue fans know, because Purdue took two of their receivers in the offseason via the transfer portal. So, that combination has led to some real struggles for the Iowa offense.

I think they figured a few things out at least last week and got a better push up front. They protected Spencer Petras better. He looked more comfortable after getting benched in the second half at Ohio State. I think there’s progress, but also you have to factor in it was Northwestern. And Northwestern is not very good this year.

GoldandBlack.com: What can we expect from the Hawkeye defense?

Kakert: That’s the marquee side of the ball for Iowa. They are much better on the defensive side of football. Iowa ranks fifth in the country in total defense (265.6 ypg). They really held Northwestern to one score; the last touchdown was on the final play of the game against Iowa’s second-team defense.

The Ohio State game, they got beat up pretty good with 54 points. But that was more just the team wearing down more than anything else. They held Illinois to nine points, they held Iowa State to 10. They’ve done a nice job.

They’re led on defense by All-American linebacker Jack Campbell. Seth Benson at linebacker is another really good player. Riley Moss at cornerback. He was the defensive back of the year last year in the Big Ten. And I know just kind of talking to some of the guys on the team in the offseason and at media day, a lot of those guys in the defensive backfield are looking forward to competing against Charlie Jones this weekend and Tyrone Tracy. But particularly Charlie. They’re really looking forward to competing against him and challenging him a little bit out there in the secondary.

GoldandBlack.com: How do you see this game unfolding?

Kakert: Jeff Brohm has had Kirk Ferentz’s number and he’s had (Iowa defensive coordinator) Phil Parker’s number, which not many offensive teams have been able to do what Jeff Brohm has been able to do against Phil Parker’s defense. So, it’d be silly for me to bet on Iowa, just given the challenges that they’ve had offensively and knowing that Purdue and Aidan O’Connell are probably going to put some points up on the board.

And it is at Purdue, and it’s going to be a full house. So, I suspect that Purdue is probably going to win this game. I think it’ll be closer than people maybe thought initially. I look for Purdue to win by about three points. But I think this will be a real interesting and maybe sometimes chippy game just because of the way Charlie Jones left and when he left Iowa to go to Purdue.

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