Offense Better Than Defense in 2026?

Oct 12, 2025
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Is it crazy to think the offense will be a better unit than the Defense?

Loaded at RB and TE. O Line will be good. WR should be improved from last year.

Defense is a huge question mark. Will likely be the worst D line we've had in a decade. Zero DT's. Linebacker should be solid with Buffington. At least we have Phil.
 
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85Bears

All-American
Aug 31, 2019
5,205
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Is it crazy to think the offense will be a better unit than the Defense?

Loaded at RB and TE. O Line will be good. WR should be improved from last year.

Defense is a huge question mark. Will likely be the worst D line we've had in a decade. Zero DT's. Linebacker should be solid with Buffington. At least we have Phil.
No, wouldn’t surprise me. Offense and defense could both struggle also if the new qb takes a while to adjust.

when you have this much experience it’s going to be tough for this team to grind out close games.
 
Oct 12, 2025
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Do we even have 3-4 viable DT's? very worried about stopping the run this year.

Offense will need to win us some games similar to Vanderbilt and Rutgers games last year
 

eyesofhawk

All-Conference
Apr 17, 2011
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Team game that also involves special teams.

Makes absolutely no difference what path results in a W.

But the reality is, those W's will be harder to acheive without good defense and special teams. Whereas, the offense doesn’t necessarily have to be good, given strength in the other two phases.

Negativity in the community reached an all-time high in '23. Which at time, happened to be the last season of KF's winningest stretch at Iowa.

Had Iowa had the exact same record in each of those handful of seasons, but was winning games 44-41, rather than 13-10, there isn't a chance in hell that community negativity would have reached such a toxic level.

Don't kid yourself, folks
 

HawksRule73

All-Conference
Jun 26, 2025
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I think both have the potential to be really good. But I also think both have the potential to struggle mightily.

An offense is only as good as the QB leading it and we have no QB with extensive game experience. Doesn't mean the offense still can't be good. Drew Tate had basically zero game experience when he was named the starter in 2004 and all he did was go out and win a BTT with no run game. But It does mean the floor has the potential to be pretty low.

With Phil's defense, the DL is the catalyst to the whole thing. If guys can't handle 2 gaps, our LBs get swarmed under and we're in trouble. I think back to 2005 and even though we had 2 stud linebackers in Hodge and Greenway, the DL was brand new and we struggled quite a bit on D that year. This year, we don't have a Hodge or Greenway AND we've got a DL that, at least right now, is under sized and inexperienced.

The crappy thing about this is that our toughest conference games are all at the beginning of the season, so there's not a lot of lead time to get things up and running.

The key is to find a way to steal one of those first 3 games, hope the QB and DL gets up to speed and we sweep the B1G West part of the schedule on the back end.

By the end of the season, I do think the offense will be a better overall unit than the D because of the weakness at DL.
 

Tdstick

Senior
Dec 29, 2007
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WOW - I looked up some highlight video of transfers coming in. We have some DUDES. Not just Hawkins and Brown but the rest as well. I don’t think we will miss a beat this year. If we can take some heat off the run game by completing some shots down the field - WATCH OUT. I am even more excited now!!! Obviously a big jump in competition but the speed and tenacity is there. Let’s Go Hawks!!
 
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Kceasthawk@77

All-American
Feb 2, 2005
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Is it crazy to think the offense will be a better unit than the Defense?

Loaded at RB and TE. O Line will be good. WR should be improved from last year.

Defense is a huge question mark. Will likely be the worst D line we've had in a decade. Zero DT's. Linebacker should be solid with Buffington. At least we have Phil.
Lol.. so we haven't played a game and its likely to be the worst DL in a decade. Zero DT's? We've had lots of years where we didn't have 320lb DT's and did just fine. We have a few guys, that will probably rotate. Maybe see what they have after 3 or 4 games. As for the offense that's an even bigger question until we see what Heck/Brown/Sullivan have.....

We have some guys on the DL and even the transfers have played several years of college ball. Hawthorne at 299# played pretty well last season. Stephenson at 290", Hubert at 291# was a walk on but played meaningful snaps last year. MBJ 299# in his 4th yr, Olagbaju at 314" transfered in and had played 3 years of college ball, looks like a beast. Fitzgibbons at 290# in his 2nd year and tearing up the records in the weight room. Either Kennedy or young Eppy have the size to slide inside on pass rush specials. Not sure its as dire as people think, and Bells a pretty good DL coach under Phil.
 
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Oct 12, 2025
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Where did you get the wild idea that the Iowa football team has “zero DTs”?
I mean which one of our current DT's are you confident in? I'm sure not. I hope I'm wrong, but very worried about this group in 2026.

I think our DE's could be okay with Iose and Merriwether.
 
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TrojanHawkeye

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Feb 11, 2009
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DukeSlater

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Jul 2, 2023
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Is it crazy to think the offense will be a better unit than the Defense?

Loaded at RB and TE. O Line will be good. WR should be improved from last year.

Defense is a huge question mark. Will likely be the worst D line we've had in a decade. Zero DT's. Linebacker should be solid with Buffington. At least we have Phil.
If it is, it would be about time. The defense has been carrying KF's teams since he arrived. And winning 42-30 counts the same as winning 10-7. Just in case some people are confused about how that works.
 

DukeSlater

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Jul 2, 2023
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He was plenty qualified
LOL. You lost your credibility the moment you wasted your first pixel. But that assertion is like saying the Earth is flat.

BF had no experience calling plays. He was an O-line coach. Suddenly, after a "nationwide search," KF decides the best guy to run the Iowa offense, lo and behold, was standing next to him, his very own son. So BF took the Iowa offense to depths not seen since the embarrassing years of the 1970s. He literally was running the worst offense in the nation. And then KF doubled down and named BF the QB coach. Hell, that was so ludicrous that even BF himself couldn't pretend he was qualified. He said more than once, "I don't really know anything about coaching quarterbacks." That was a rare moment of honesty.

And to top it off, BF would STILL be the OC and QB coach today if it had been left to KF. The AD had to step in and fire BF's backside because his dad refused to do it. Those are the facts. You can't spin them. They are mocking you and your idiocy from every direction.
 
Oct 30, 2023
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Only 3 starters back on D, lot of new faces. D line is way, way less experienced than normal. Defense has been so consistent that we take it for granted, but it’s possible the <20 PPG streak ends this year. If the starting QB ends up being good I think the offense has a lot of potential. I could see it being better than the defense if the defense falters.

My prediction is that the defense will still be better though. But the offense will finally crack the 30 PPG mark for the first time since 2018.
 

93hawkeye

Senior
Sep 19, 2004
353
577
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Pick any game.
If the D allows more points than the O scores, then the D is worse.
If the O scores fewer than the D allows, the O is worse.
 

r_desihawk

All-Conference
Jul 3, 2025
2,657
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phil outscored brian sometimes but we have made definite strides on offense to the point that i feel confident in thinking that the current offense will always end up putting up more points than the defense.
 
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eyesofhawk

All-Conference
Apr 17, 2011
3,006
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LOL. You lost your credibility the moment you wasted your first pixel. But that assertion is like saying the Earth is flat.

BF had no experience calling plays. He was an O-line coach. Suddenly, after a "nationwide search," KF decides the best guy to run the Iowa offense, lo and behold, was standing next to him, his very own son. So BF took the Iowa offense to depths not seen since the embarrassing years of the 1970s. He literally was running the worst offense in the nation. And then KF doubled down and named BF the QB coach. Hell, that was so ludicrous that even BF himself couldn't pretend he was qualified. He said more than once, "I don't really know anything about coaching quarterbacks." That was a rare moment of honesty.

And to top it off, BF would STILL be the OC and QB coach today if it had been left to KF. The AD had to step in and fire BF's backside because his dad refused to do it. Those are the facts. You can't spin them. They are mocking you and your idiocy from every direction.
Dude, this has all been covered with you a few times.

Every OC had no experience at that position until they actually became OC's. Doesn’t make them unqualified.

If a school with the credibility of the University of Iowa, has a guy coaching at that level of competition for 7 years, I'm guessing he was plenty qualified. Barta called him "uniquely qualified".

Like almost everyone, you are mischaracterizing who BF was, as an OC. His offense ranked last in two out of his seven seaons. And the distinguishing factor between those two, and his other five seasons, had almost nothing to do with him. There’s no reason to believe that '22's offense would have looked much different than the previous offenses, given something other than perhaps the worst Iowa O-line ever. And the factors that led to that line amounted almost entirely to luck, rather than something attributable to BF.

You think perhaps KF's knowledge of that is why he kept BF at OC, while in the midst of his winningest stretch ever at Iowa? No, it had to be because it was his son, right? Which you have implied here, and stated flat out previously. SMH. I feel sorry for you for even considering that.

From my extremely underinformed perspective, I tend to agree that BF at QB coach was not a good at idea.

But that move has also been mischaracterized by fans. KF put BF at QB coach in an attempt to streamline pre-snap communication. KOK had been butting in too much in between plays. And KF decided that he wanted his OC and QB coach to be the guy.

Again, from my limited perspective, KF may have overvalued that efficient pre-snap communication, when weighing it vs all the other things come with coaching QB's. But he's also gotten as much mileage out of his staff relationships as any football coach ever.

Forr fans to think KF made BF QB coach because he was his son, is just so lazy, and again, quite sad.

And, you don’t know for sure that BF would still be OC, had Beth not fired him
 

MeetTheFerentzes

All-Conference
Sep 6, 2022
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Dude, this has all been covered with you a few times.

Every OC had no experience at that position until they actually became OC's. Doesn’t make them unqualified.

If a school with the credibility of the University of Iowa, has a guy coaching at that level of competition for 7 years, I'm guessing he was plenty qualified. Barta called him "uniquely qualified".

Like almost everyone, you are mischaracterizing who BF was, as an OC. His offense ranked last in two out of his seven seaons. And the distinguishing factor between those two, and his other five seasons, had almost nothing to do with him. There’s no reason to believe that '22's offense would have looked much different than the previous offenses, given something other than perhaps the worst Iowa O-line ever. And the factors that led to that line amounted almost entirely to luck, rather than something attributable to BF.

You think perhaps KF's knowledge of that is why he kept BF at OC, while in the midst of his winningest stretch ever at Iowa? No, it had to be because it was his son, right? Which you have implied here, and stated flat out previously. SMH. I feel sorry for you for even considering that.

From my extremely underinformed perspective, I tend to agree that BF at QB coach was not a good at idea.

But that move has also been mischaracterized by fans. KF put BF at QB coach in an attempt to streamline pre-snap communication. KOK had been butting in too much in between plays. And KF decided that he wanted his OC and QB coach to be the guy.

Again, from my limited perspective, KF may have overvalued that efficient pre-snap communication, when weighing it vs all the other things come with coaching QB's. But he's also gotten as much mileage out of his staff relationships as any football coach ever.

Forr fans to think KF made BF QB coach because he was his son, is just so lazy, and again, quite sad.

And, you don’t know for sure that BF would still be OC, had Beth not fired him
Ryan Gosling Reaction GIF
 

eyesofhawk

All-Conference
Apr 17, 2011
3,006
3,046
113
0/10

You keep forgetting that, as bad as you are at objectively evaluating BF, and football in general, you’re even worse at being funny.
It wasn't a joke. I, for one at least, find your username to be offensive.

And I've evaluated BF just fine. I'm not the one mischaracterizing him. I've always said I didn't care for him, as an OC
 
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2D

All-American
Oct 8, 2013
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LOL. You lost your credibility the moment you wasted your first pixel. But that assertion is like saying the Earth is flat.

BF had no experience calling plays. He was an O-line coach. Suddenly, after a "nationwide search," KF decides the best guy to run the Iowa offense, lo and behold, was standing next to him, his very own son. So BF took the Iowa offense to depths not seen since the embarrassing years of the 1970s. He literally was running the worst offense in the nation. And then KF doubled down and named BF the QB coach. Hell, that was so ludicrous that even BF himself couldn't pretend he was qualified. He said more than once, "I don't really know anything about coaching quarterbacks." That was a rare moment of honesty.

And to top it off, BF would STILL be the OC and QB coach today if it had been left to KF. The AD had to step in and fire BF's backside because his dad refused to do it. Those are the facts. You can't spin them. They are mocking you and your idiocy from every direction.
Great post! Love seeing fellow users put that moron in his place.
 
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