Iowa Hawkeyes 2024 College Football Preview
Posted July 12, 2024
2023 Recap
Record – 10-4
ATS – 6-7-1
It was one of the craziest things you’ll ever see. A team scores 15 PPG (2nd worst FBS, #132!) and ends up not only winning 10 games, but making the conference title game. Things didn’t look great for Iowa after their dramatic two-point loss at Minnesota but the Hawkeyes rattled off four wins to finish the regular season at 10-2 and become Big Ten West champs. They were smoked by Michigan 26-CACK in the Big Ten Championship Game and then 35-CACK by Tennessee in the Citrus Bowl to finish the year at 10-4. As sure as the TURNING OF THE EARTH, Iowa booked another winning record.
Iowa Hawkeyes 2024 Outlook
OFFENSE
“The horror! The horror!”
<Kurtz, The Heart of Darkness>
It was unspeakable. Iowa averaged an impossible 235 YPG (dead last FBS) and their 119 YPG passing (#130) was only worse than what the service academies could cobble together. There’s hope for the upcoming season given that new OC Tim Lester has a healthy Cade McNamara back at QB but he’ll need to stay in one piece if the Hawkeyes plan on making waves in the Big Ten this year. New backup QB Brendan Sullivan is 480X better than what Deacon Hill provided LY but they need McNamara to be the man. The RB room returns the top-three options (Williams, Johnson, Patterson) who combined to rush for 1,490 yards LY and that means Iowa will be able to continue to pound with the run game. The OL returns a bunch of upperclassmen and over 150 career starts in the group so we like what’s going on up front. The THROW GAME weaponry still leaves a lot to be desired. It’ll help to have TE Luke Lachey back and ready to go but the WR room might be the weakest in the conference. Be mindful that Iowa’s leading receiver (TE Erick All) only booked 299 receiving yards LY, and he’s off to the NFL.
DEFENSE
Calling the 2023 Iowa stop unit a ‘brick wall’ would be an insult to brick walls, especially when you consider they got zero assistance from the offense. Iowa allowed a mere 15 PPG (#4 FBS), ranked #17 in the country vs the run, and was #4 in terms of pass efficiency defense (11-10 TD to INT). Iowa still has one of the best defenses in the nation thanks to a ridiculously talented LB corps led by tackling AFICIONADO Jay Higgins (171) whom the illustrious Phil Steele rates as the best LB group in all of college football. The Hawkeyes are always stout up front but the DL looks a bit weaker on paper after losing a pair of key contributors. Losing star CB Cooper DeJean in the second round of the NFL Draft certainly stings but they’ve still got three talented starters on the back end.
SPECIAL TEAMS
Iowa is well-known for having elite special teams but they’ve got a yuuuge hole to fill given the departure of all-Universe punter Tory Taylor who’ll be booming it in the NFL (!) this fall. Drew Stevens is a fine PK (18/26 FG LY) but they’ll need to find a replacement for ace PR Cooper DeJean (11.5, TD).
Schedule Analysis
Overall – Iowa starts the season with three home games and two of them are free squares, and the other is a tough battle with their hated rivals from Iowa St. The Big Ten docket is sweet as they only play one of the four conference BIG ‘UNS (at Ohio St) and the back-half of the schedule is BUTTERY SOFT.
Potential ATS Trouble Spot – Nothing heinous is noted.
Season Win Total
Market consensus July 12
Over 8 -120
Under 8 +100
MEGALOCKS says:
Lean: Over
We’re not in love with the roster but it’s hard to see this team losing five games. If we play this BAD BOY it’ll almost certainly be at ‘over 7.5’ with extra juice and there are a small handful of those out there as we approach press time.
NOTE – “Lean” implies this is how we’d invest in this market if forced to make a choice. We’ll notify subscribers in our Season Win Total blog post of any season win totals that have made our investment card.
MEGAmazing Tidbits
Iowa HC Kirk Ferentz is not only a living legend, but he’s also a great friend of DEGENERATE NATION as he’s compiled a 55% ATS record over his 25-year career with Iowa (169-136-7).
The Hawkeyes are 19-6-1 ATS as road favorites over the L10Y. They’ll be in that point spread role several times in 2024.
31 players in the long and storied history of Iowa football have been awarded consensus All-American honors. Two of those players were on the 2023 roster (CB Cooper DeJean, P Tory Taylor).
MEGALOCKS Forecast:
Iowa was undoubtedly one of the teams hurt the most by the elimination of divisions in the Big Ten, but let’s not throw dirt on them just yet. The defense has to be down a slight notch but we expect quite a bit more from the offense this season. The schedule makes you wonder who Iowa had to pay UNDER THE TABLE as they only have one ‘unwinnable’ game to contend with in 2024 (at Ohio St). We’ll call for nine wins and consider them a Big Ten SURPRISE PACKAGE provided they can get to the the final two weeks of the regular season with just one conference loss.
Good luck, Hawkeyes!