I've seen similar things done on other blogs and I thought it was a good idea. Plus, I think we are getting far enough along in the season where you can look at statistics and they start to mean something. The idea here is pretty simple...I looked at items like Iowa's averaging rushing yards gained per game versus Michigan State's average rushing yards given up per game. Then looked at the national FBS rank to see who had the advantage.
This is a very intriguing match-up because Iowa has such a big advantage in the pass game, but Michigan State has a big advantage against the run. Michigan State has a very strong front 7 led by linebacker Greg Jones. The Spartans give up less than 100 yards a game and just 3.0 yards per carry. Obviously this is an area where Iowa has struggle a little, but I think the offensive line and Robinson are just starting to come together. Still, if Iowa gets more than about 25 yards on the ground I'd be very pleased.
If Ricky Stanzi plays like he did last weekend, he should have a huge game against the weak Spartan secondary. Michigan State has one of the worst pass defenses in the country. The key will really be the pass protection something Iowa has not been doing well. The Spartans really like to bring a lot of pressure out of their 4-3 base defense and average 3 sacks a game.
Some other good news is that Iowa has a decided advantage on 3rd downs and in the red zone. Michigan State also doesn't create many turnovers. Hopefully that will lead to long drive that end with touchdowns. MSU's red zone defense has been particularly poor. Of the 19 times a team has gotten inside the 20, they have 13 TDs and 5 field goals.
Overall Advantage: Push...Too close to call. Run game - MSU; Pass game - Iowa.
Iowa Defense vs. Michigan State Offense
Category
Iowa Defense
Michigan State Offense
Advantage
Stat
Rank
Stat
Rank
Rushing Yards
127.57
53
136.43
71
H
Passing Yards
167
16
280.43
17
-
Passing Efficiency
88.69
5
146.28
24
H
Sacks
1.86
63
0.86
13
SSS
Total Yards
294.57
22
416.86
32
H
Scoring
15
16
29.29
48
HH
Turnovers
22
2
12
63
HHH
3rd Down Conversion
36
48
41.94
46
-
Red Zone PPT*
4.93
55
4.5
85
HH
The Iowa defensive against the Michigan State offense is a little bit easier to figure out who has the advantage. Pretty much across the board, Iowa has been better statistically. Starting out with the run game, Iowa has been somewhat weak this year. However, MSU no longer has Ringer and is relying primarily on a couple of freshman to carry the load (sound familiar?). They have yet to have a 100-yard rusher in a game, but Larry Caper has been decent averaging 4.4 yards per carry and just under 50 yards per game. MSU's other top running back Glenn Winston injured his knee against Illinois and is out for the year.
Passing, the Spartans have been very good, rotating QBs Kirk Cousins and Keith Nichol. Cousins has been the primary guy, though, and he is leading the Big Ten in pass efficiency. The good news is, though, that the QB tandem will be facing an Iowa defense that has completely rattle opposing quarterbacks this year and is leading the country in interceptions.
The other good news, is the Michigan State hasn't been great a finishing off drives. The give the ball up almost 2 times a game and haven't been great on 3rd downs. They have also had some problems in the red zone, and have had to settle for field goals a lot of the time. This should play right into Norm Parker's hands.
Overall Advantage: Iowa, by a long shot
Iowa Special Teams vs. Michigan State Special Teams
Category
Iowa Special Teams
Michigan State Special Teams
Advantage
Stat
Rank
Stat
Rank
Kick Returns
20.64
83
24.48
28
SSS
Punting Returns
9.6
50
10.67
40
S
Net Punting
38.66
15
37.57
26
H
Field Goal %
73.3
61
90.9
13
SS
Iowa special teams have been very good thus far this year. Murray has been on the last couple of games (and hit a career long 48 yard FG last week), and Donahue has been solid all year. Michigan State, though, has actually been better. Their kicker is 10/11 on the for field goals, and their punting is comparable to Iowa's. The also average 4 more yards per kickoff return, which will help the field position battle.
Overall Advantage: Michigan State
Prediction: Ricky Stanzi has his second straight good game and leads Iowa's offense to a couple of big second-half touchdown drives. The defense limits Cousins to his worst performance of the year.
The are 2 new recruits to follow this week (and 1 that have been forgetting...sorry Austin Gray fans), Carl Davis and Donovan Johnson. Big news this week is that Coker was injured, but should be okay. This will be something to watch though.
Marcus Coker:DeMatha 37 - St. John's 7 Marcus Coker played a limited role on Friday, but DeMatha still dominated in a win over St. John's. Coker got the ball just 11 times and ran for 61 yards, by far his lowest output of the season. Coker played just the first half after he pulled a groin muscle in the 2nd quarter. He is expected to play this upcoming Friday, so the injury must not be too bad.
Jim Poggi & Anthony Ferguson:Gilman 56 - Loyola 7 Every piece of the pie was sweet for Gilman as they rolled over Loyola. They returned the opening kickoff for a TD and didn't stop there adding another kick return TD in the 2nd quarter.
Christian Kirksey & Don Shumpert:Hazelwood East 32 – Ritenour 14 Hazelwood East's year has been split into what looks like 2 totally different teams. They lost their first 4 games and have now won 4 in a row with a 15 point victory over Pattonville. Kirksey had a team high 10 tackles and Shumpert caught an 11 yard TD in the 1st quarter that put East up for good.
Andrew Donnal:Anthony Wayne 56 - Northview 21 A week after Anthony Wayne was blanked, the team go its offense going rushing for 540 yards. Three Generals had over 100 yards running the ball in the victory.
Austin Vier:Ballard 20 -JSPC 13 Ballard rallied with 13 fourth quarter points to beat JSPC by a touchdown. Vier had a relatively poor game passing going just 6 of 15 for 65 yards. He did have his best rushing game though with 34 yards on 7 carries.
Mike Hardy:Kimberly 47 – Appleton East 6 Kimberly scored 47 points in the first half before letting up and cruising to a big win. Kimberly dominated this game stat with 20 first down compared to 3 and 363 yards compared to 78.
James Morris:Solon 42 – Regina 7 James Morris played quarterback again, and again Solon wins easily. The 35 point win game over the previously undefeated and 3rd ranked Regina. Morris ran for 3 touchdowns of 60, 46 and 33 yards and added another through the air. I actually caught part of this game on the Mediacom Connections Channel and Morris looked like a man among boys. He was bigger, faster, stronger, smarter, etc... than any other player on the field and just dominated with the ball in his hands.
Matt Hoch:Harlan 44 - Creston 0 Harlan gets another shutout and big victory moving to 8-0 on the year. Harlan limited Creston to just 78 total yards forcing the Panthers to punt 11 times.
Louis Trinca-Pasat:Lane Tech 0 – Simeon 14 Lane Tech didn't have a first down in the first half and never got the offense going getting shut out by Simeon.
Brandon Scherff:Denison 7 – MOC-Floyd Valley 3 In a sloppy game that saw no score through 3 quarters, Denison prevailed with a late touchdown. Scherff had 6 tackles on the night with 3 solo and 3 assists.
A.J. Derby:City High 47 – Waterloo West 0 City High put up a lot of points fast going up 40-0 at halftime against Waterloo West ultimately leading to a win. Derby ran 6 times for 72 yards and completed just 1 pass before sitting out the second half. Don't worry, he wasn't injured or anything...it was just a blow out.
Stephane N’goumou ? The Milford Academy site says they should have played New Haven over the weekend, but the New Haven site says otherwise. So I'm not sure what happened. I'll check back later.
B.J. LoweryHughes Center 6 – Shroder Paideia Academy 27 I was only able to find the final score.
Carl DavisStevenson 42 - Romeo 7 Stevenson stayed undefeated and wrapped up a conference title against Romeo. Stevenson had 400 yard passing in the romp.
Donovan JohnsonMartin 46 - Sam Houston 27 Martin racked up 520 yards of offense and outscored Sam Houston 20-3 in the second half on route to a victory.
Austin GrayFitzgerald 12 - Lake Shore 20 I completely missed the fact I was leaving off Gray until I was reminded on a message board. This week Fitzgerald lost its 5th game and is now 3-5. Not much else, right now...sorry that was a lame re-entry into the roundup.
The 2010 class is filling up fast, especially along the defensive line. Donovan Johnson is the 6th defensive lineman to verbally commit to the Hawkeyes (maybe we'll actually see a rotation some time in the future!). He is a 3-star by Rivals and 1-star by Scout, defensive tackle from Arlington, Texas and committed after visiting Iowa City for the homecoming victory over Michigan.
High School: Johnson plays for the Martin Warrior who are 4-3 on the year. For the Warriors Johnson plays both on the offensive and defensive lines. The only video I saw of him was on ESPN and just showed him playing offense. He looked pretty quick and did a nice job blocking, so I hope that can translate to success on the other side of the ball.
One last note...how hard is it to spell his name? Scout consistently uses Donovan, but Rivals has Donavan and Donovan on the same page! ESPN has the O. Looking at the roster from his high school's site, it looks like the conventional spelling, Donovan is correct.
The Hawkeyes picked up two more verbal commitments this past week, both along the defensive line. The first is Carl Davis from Sterling Heights, MI. Davis is a 3-star defensive tackle by both Scout and Rivals.
High School: Davis plays for the Adlai E. Stevenson Spartans. Kirk Ferentz likes his winners, and much like other Hawkeye recruits Derby, Morris, Coker, etc...Davis plays on a undefeated team as the Spartans have outscored its opponents 278-113 through 7 games. Davis has done his part on defense with 22 tackles and 4 sacks.
Thoughts: Davis has really nice size for a tackle (something Iowa has been lacking) coming in a 300 pounds. He also had some nice offers from around the Big Ten, so he is a really good pick up. This class is starting to look very good in the front 7 on defense and it has been fun seeing how it has come together.
The initial BCS standings were released today and Iowa comes in at #6 behind Florida, Alabama, Texas, Boise State, and Cincinnati. The computers love Iowa (as they have all season) and the Hawks come in at #3 in the computer average behind Florida and Alabama. The Coley Matrix poll has Iowa #1 and the Billingsly has Iowa #4...those are the 2 that are dropped for the average. The others have the Hawks in 2nd or 3rd place.
There are 3 other Big Ten schools in the standings: #13 Penn State, #19 Ohio State, and #21 Wisconsin. Another Iowa opponent, Arizona also comes in at #22 thanks to some love from the computers. So that means, Iowa has beaten 3 teams in the top #25 of the BCS. That's pretty impressive if you ask me.
If Iowa wants to move up in the standings, they are going to need a little bit of help. I believe Iowa can surpass Boise State just by continuing to win due to the much more difficult schedule. But the other 4 teams are going to have to lose. Here are their remaining schedules.
Florida: @Mississippi State, Georgia, Vanderbilt, @South Carolina, Florida International, Florida State, SEC Championship Game Alabama: Tennessee, LSU, @Mississippi State, Chattanooga, @Auburn, SEC Championship Game Texas: @Missouri, @Oklahoma State, UCF, @Baylor, Kansas, @Texas A&M, Big 12 Championship Game Cincinnati: Louisville, @Syracuse, Connecticut, West Virginia, Illinois, @Pittsburgh
Alabama and Cincinnati seem to have the toughest stretch ahead. Tennessee throttle Georgia their last time out, LSU is obviously a good team, and Auburn has one of the best offenses in the country (plus it's a HUGE rivalry game). Then it's likely the Alabama will meet Florida in the SEC Championship Game, so one of those teams will have to lose.
Cincinnati's biggest tests will be against West Virginia and then at Pittsburgh to end the season. But don't count out Louisville either as Cincinnati will be without its senior leader at QB Tony Pike who injured his arm this weekend against South Florida.
So, if Iowa wins out and Alabama and Cincinnati lose, that'll be 3rd. So here is where we need help. Maybe OK State can knock off Texas, or Bama will lose to Auburn but still beat Florida for the SEC crown. And, there are a million other scenarios, but none out it will really matter if Iowa cannot win out. So here's to beating Michigan State and the next 4 after that.