No. 21 Tennessee 35, No. 17 Iowa 0: Rocky Flop
Nine years ago, Iowa football suffered a humiliating loss to Tennessee in a Florida bowl game. On Monday, history repeated itself, with the Hawkeyes getting outplayed, outcoached, and outmanned by Tennessee in a 35-0 blowout loss in the 2024 Citrus Bowl.
That 2015 defeat, dubbed the HawkSlayer Bowl by many, spurred several changes to Iowa's football program in the aftermath of the 2014 season. Time will tell if today's defeat, the most lopsided loss in Iowa's bowl history, will have the same impact on the Iowa program, though at least one notable change is already assured: this loss marked the final game for Brian Ferentz as offensive coordinator for Iowa. That Ferentz's tenure at Iowa ended with back-to-back shutouts is as perfect a summation as you can find for why his time at Iowa has ended.
Monday's defeat was Iowa's third shutout loss of the season and second in a row. Entering 2023, Iowa had not been shut out in a game since 2000. Iowa had not been shut out in consecutive games since 1966 and had not suffered three shutout losses in the same season since 1972. Every week this offense has seemingly found new depths to plumb and new historic lows to achieve.
Iowa finished the game with 173 yards of total offense, the fifth time this season the Hawkeyes have been held under 200 yards of offense. Iowa ended the game with just 60 yards passing (somehow only its third-lowest passing yards total of the season), despite playing a Tennessee team without several starters in the defensive secondary and playing multiple true freshmen.
Deacon Hill had an absolutely awful game, going 7-of-18 for 56 yards with two interceptions (one a pick-six that made the game 28-0 in favor of the Vols) through the air. Hill was also sacked four times for a loss of 31 yards and fumbled on the Iowa 2-yard line.
Hill's follies directly led to 14 Tennessee points; he also prevented Iowa from scoring on the Hawkeyes' best drive of the game when he threw a horrible interception into double coverage in the end zone in the first quarter. Instead of getting at least an easy field goal to go up 3-0, Iowa got zero points and gave Tennessee's defense a boost.
The Volunteers had allowed touchdowns on their opponents' eight previous trips into the red zone this season prior to Hill's interception. Iowa never entered the red zone again during the game.
After Hill's horrendous pick-six to Tennessee's defensive star James Pearce, Jr., he was benched for the remainder of the game and replaced by true freshman Marco Lainez. Lainez made his long-awaited first appearance of the season and provided a spark with his legs, immediately running for three first downs on scrambles on his first drive.
Lainez finished the game with six carries for 51 yards, including a gutsy 16-yard run on 4th-and-15. His 51 yards rushing easily led the Iowa team (Kaleb Johnson had the second-most rushing yards on the day, with 34 yards.)
Lainez wasn't remotely as effective throwing the ball -- he went 2-of-7 for 4 yards through the air, including a pair of incomplete passes on fourth down that ended Iowa's final two drives of the game -- which perhaps indicated why the Iowa coaches were reluctant to give him opportunities to play this season.
Still, Lainez was an electric runner with the ball in his hands and provided a spark to the Iowa offense that's been present rarely (if at all) this season. Not giving him a single snap all season until Iowa trailed 28-0 in a bowl game is a baffling decision, especially when Iowa's starting quarterback was a turnover machine this year (Hill finished the season with seven interceptions and 11 fumbles).
There were plenty of other factors in Iowa's offensive struggles beyond poor quarterback play by Hill, of course. the gameplan devised by Brian Ferentz was largely inscrutable and seemed incapable of exploiting Tennessee's potential weaknesses in the secondary. Hill's accuracy in the game was poor, but he also wasn't helped by a receiving corps that had several drops. Iowa used five different running backs (Kaleb Johnson, Leshon Williams, Terrell Washington, Jr., Jaz Patterson, and Kamari Moulton) but none could find a rhythm against the Tennessee defense. And the Iowa offensive line struggled in both run blocking and pass protection (five sacks allowed) in another very forgettable day for that unit.
Maybe nothing summed up the ineptitude of Iowa's offense -- and also the excellence of Tory Taylor as Iowa's punter -- than this stat:
Tory Taylor finished the game with seven punts for 360 yards, an average of 51.4 yards per kick. Four of his punts went for 50+ yards, including a 62-yarder on his first kick of the day, and two were fielded inside the 20-yard line. Taylor easily set the new NCAA single-season record for punting yards.
Taylor entered the game needing just 20 yards punting to set the new single-season record. He ended up shattering that single-season record and finished with 4,479 punting yards this season, an almost-unfathomable total.
Taylor was one of the only bright spots in the game for Iowa, alongside a few of the senior leaders on Iowa's defense. Iowa finished the game with six sacks against the Vols, including an impressive four by Joe Evans alone. Evans finished the game with five tackles and four sacks in an impressive individual performance.
Defensive leader and middle linebacker Jay Higgins, who already announced his return to Iowa for the 2024 season, had another enormously productive game, finishing with 16 tackles, including a sack. Higgins' 16 tackles today gave him a staggering 171 for the season, tying the Iowa single-season record.
Hill's turnovers made things much harder for the Iowa defense -- they could do nothing about his pick-six or do much to prevent a touchdown after he coughed the ball up at the Iowa 2-yard line -- but this wasn't a banner day for the defense even without those issues.
The Hawkeyes allowed 383 yards of offense, the second-highest total allowed by the defense this season (behind 397 conceded to Penn State). Tennessee was particularly effective on the ground, churning out 256 yards (5.3 yards per carry) on sack-adjusted rushing yards. That's by far the most rushing yards Iowa allowed in a game this season (topping the previous high of 215 against Penn State) and made things very easy for Tennessee's true freshman starting QB, Nico Iamaleava.
Iamaleava's own ability to run the ball hurt Iowa often, as he finished with three rushing touchdowns. His final line of 15 rushes for 27 yards isn't impressive, but it's also depressed by five sacks. Tennessee's top two running backs, Dylan Sampson (20 carries, 133 yards) and Cam Seldon (13 carries, 55 yards) combined for 33 carries and 188 yards, a 5.7 yards per carry average.
Iowa's defense also failed to force any turnovers, despite facing an inexperienced Tennessee backfield. It was the sixth time this season that Iowa's defense was unable to force a turnover; the Hawkeyes went 2-4 in those games. Iowa finished the season with just 15 turnovers forced (10 interceptions, 5 fumbles recovered), its lowest total since 16 in 2014. Iowa also finished the year with 22 turnovers lost and a -7 turnover margin, its worst turnover margin since 2014, when Iowa finished with a -6 turnover margin.
It's not exactly fair -- or reasonable -- to ask the defense and special teams to be essentially perfect, as Iowa has done this season, but that's been the reality for the Hawkeyes this season with those units tethered to a historically-terrible offense. Today the offense lived down to its low standards, but the defense and special teams were not enough to bail out the team. The end result was a 35-0 defeat and the kickoff to an offseason that will be full of questions.