Iowa Football Offseason Defensive Superlatives: Best upgrades, question marks, and position battles
The college football season is quickly approaching.
Iowa’s defense was one of the best, if not the best, in college football last season. The Hawkeyes ranked fourth in the country in scoring defense and ranked in the top-10 in total yards allowed per game.
Iowa will lose some key pieces in Cooper DeJean, Logan Lee, and Joe Evans, but the Hawkeyes also return a lot of firepower and experience from last year’s defensive unit that could make this group even better than a year ago.
However, there are still a flurry of question marks with this unit, and we’ll dive into that along with other topics surrounding Phil Parker’s defense.
Bock: Linebacker
Iowa didn’t go out and land anyone in the portal this offseason on the defensive side of the ball because it didn’t need to. Instead, Iowa focused on retaining its top talent from last season and the Hawkeyes were able to do that with convincing a number of starters from last year’s team to stay in Iowa City for one more season.
The most important duo Iowa retained this offseason was linebackers Jay Higgins and Nick Jackson. Both could’ve been done with their collegiate careers and started their professional careers, but they wanted to come back for one more season in Iowa City.
One of the big question marks entering last season was how the Hawkeyes would replace Jack Campbell and Seth Benson. Well, Iowa got what it needed out of Higgins and Jackson and then some to help this defense be one of the best in the country again. Higgins tied the single-season program record for tackles, while Jackson continued to progress as the year went on and was one of Iowa’s best overall defensive players, per Pro Football Focus. Higgins was Iowa’s second-best defensive player, per the PFF scale.
Iowa was also able to get Kyler Fisher back for a sixth season. Fisher has been a fantastic piece for Iowa on special teams and is a reliable third linebacker option for the Hawkeyes as he can play all three linebacker spots.
Had all three of these linebackers left after last season, you would be looking at a completely different linebacker corp, and it would’ve been a big reason for Iowa to go into the portal or rely on backups such as Karson Sharar, Jaden Harrell, and Jaxon Rexroth to make a massive leap forward with minimal experience. Instead, Iowa can see those guys improve for one more season, while boasting one of the best linebacker units in the country this season led by Higgins and Jackson.
