The stats may not be the most gaudy or jump off the stat sheet, but the efficiency and eye test of the Iowa Hawkeyes and their passing game growth against UMass is noticeable.
After two games of sub-100 yards passing, Iowa woke up and found some life in the passing attack with downfield shots, play-action attempts, and screen passes to get everyone involved.
As Iowa gets ready for Rutgers, that showing was their best of the year and could serve as a building block for the offense. Head coach Kirk Ferentz believes this could be one of the foundational pieces of Iowa’s offense.
“Yeah, it’s a step forward, and I think three weeks into it, I think there’s been progress each week, especially what we see in practice. The challenge we had two weeks ago, it’s a really — it’s a unique defensive scheme, unique coverages. Not a lot of clean looks. They do a good job not giving you clean looks.
“I thought we took a step forward. Still things we can get better at, ball placement at times could be better, and then if you get your hands on a ball, you’d sure like to think we can come up with it, and if we’re going to move forward, we have to do a little better job with both those things.
“Had a protection buster, too, that we’re going to have to get better at that as well because negative yardage is just tough to overcome. No matter how it comes to you, it’s a bad thing,” Ferentz said about the passing game against UMass.
Quarterback Mark Gronowski was 16-24 for 179 yards and two touchdowns, which could have been a much bigger day yardage-wise, barring some drops.
What was even nicer to see was the wide receiver involvement. Seth Anderson led the way with three catches for 75 yards and a pair of scores. Seth Anderson, Jacob Gill, KJ Parker, and Dayton Howard combined for eight more receptions by receivers.
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This article originally appeared on Hawkeyes Wire: Iowa football continuing to take steps forward in the passing game
Reporting by Riley Donald, Hawkeyes Wire / Hawkeyes Wire
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
