Wisconsin Badgers early scouting report: Iowa Hawkeyes

With Big Ten media days fast approaching and fall camp slated to open shortly thereafter, the 2024 college football season is right around the corner. In year two of the Luke Fickell era, Wisconsin has further revamped its roster but faces a daunting schedule littered with marquee matchups.

Throughout July, BadgerBlitz.com will break down each game on Wisconsin's slate. We'll continue with the Iowa Hawkeyes, who have stacked two straight victories over Wisconsin.

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Love 'em or hate 'em, one has to marvel at Iowa's remarkable consistency under head coach Kirk Ferentz. Even while deploying quite literally the worst total offense in the nation, the Hawkeyes registered a 10-win season, the eighth time Ferentz has won double-digit games in his 25-year tenure.

Even with the Hawkeyes' putrid offense, they went 7-3 in Big Ten play last season before dropping the Citrus Bowl to Tennessee on the backs of a dominant defense that checked in at No. 4 nationally in scoring and No. 7 in total yards allowed each game. The comedic dichotomy between Iowa's stifling defense and lethargic offense made them one of the more talked-about programs in the nation last season, especially with much-maligned offensive coordinator Brian Ferentz still at the helm.

This year, Iowa is looking to build off its relative success from last season and put together the program's first back-to-back double-digit win seasons since 2003-2004. With a defense that should again be top-10 in nearly ever major category, and an offense with literally nowhere to go but up, there's buzz around this program that Iowa could be better in 2024 and sneakily be one of the better teams in the conference.

After falling drastically short of the 25-point-per-game ultimatum given to the play-caller Ferentz last season (15.4, second worst in the nation), Iowa elected to bid its head coach's son farewell and bring in Tim Lester from the NFL ranks.

Lester spent the 2023 season as an offensive analyst for the Green Bay Packers after serving as the head coach at Western Michigan for six years. When the coach was the Broncos' primary play-caller, they had three consecutive top-35 finishes in terms of total offense. Lester is the fresh, experienced mind the Hawkeyes desperately needed on that side of the ball.

He'll inherit an offense that returns 80 percent of its production, per ESPN. That lays a good foundation for Lester to install his scheme, and he'll have an experienced quarterback with which to work in Cade McNamara.

McNamara is reportedly operating at full capacity this offseason for the first time since arriving in Iowa City. The gunslinger tore his ACL against Michigan State and missed the remainder of the 2023 season after tossing for 505 yards, four touchdowns and three interceptions while completing 51.1 percent of his passes. Those numbers aren't anything special, but Iowa's offense last year was so handicapped by its scheme and play-calling that its hard to hold those numbers against him. Even when he took Michigan to the college football playoff, McNamara was more of a game-manager. But with how Iowa plans on winning football games — namely with its defense — that's all he really needs to be.

He'll share the backfield with Iowa's two leading rushers from last season, Leshon Williams and Kaleb Johnson, both of whom return. Wisconsin fans in particular know how dangerous Williams can be, as his game-breaking 82-yard touchdown scamper against the Badgers last season was the difference in the battle for the Heartland Trophy.

With two experienced backs returning to pair with McNamara and an offensive line on which four of the five projected starters are seniors, this is a unit that should at least in theory be able to control the clock and bleed teams to death. Iowa's pass-catchers are a bit of a question mark, as its projected top two receivers for 2024 combined to produce just 33 catches for 365 yards and two scores last year. Regardless, this isn't a team that will beat you with big plays through the air. They know exactly who they are, and if Lester can get this offense to play at even a middle-of-the-pack level, it'll be extremely hard to beat this team.

Iowa is once again set to boast one of the most intimidating defenses in the nation in 2024. This is a very experienced unit that returns most of its key pieces.

The headliner of this unit is middle linebacker Jay Higgins, who burst the stat sheet at the seams with his staggering 172 tackles last fall. Higgins is always around the ball, and he has a penchant for the splash play with two sacks, an interception, a forced fumble and two recoveries last year as well. He's next in the seemingly endless line of incredible linebackers Iowa both deploys and then sends to the NFL.

Higgins is flanked by Nick Jackson at linebacker and Sebastian Castro at the CASH spot, the later of which also topped 100 tackles last fall with 110. Castro also added three interceptions, eight pass breakups and a sack while Jackson tacked on four sacks. Those three are the heart and soul of Iowa's defense.

Iowa also returns its starting safety tandem of Quinn Schulte and Xavier Nwankpa, which is a good combination of production and pedigree: Schulte made 65 tackles a season ago, while Nwankpa was a five-star recruit and top-20 player nationally in the class of 2022.

At cornerback, the aforementioned Castro returns and while Iowa must replace star corner Cooper DeJean, it returns Jermari Harris and Deshaun Lee, who are expected to start on the outside. Both bring plenty of experience to the secondary, as the least experienced of the two (Lee) played over 400 snaps last season.

In the defensive trenches, Iowa must replace its top lineman from last year in Logan Lee. He was a forced to be reckoned with in the middle, but the Hawkeyes return Yahya Black and Aaron Graves, both of whom saw significant playing time last fall.

Overall, this unit needs to replace a few key starters but is still dripping with talent and should once again be nearly impenetrable.

Wisconsin's defense will likely be licking its chops to get revenge on Williams, whose heroic 82-yard run pushed Iowa past the Badgers last season. Williams returns as Iowa's lead back, but he didn't have as dominant a year as that game in Camp Randall might've suggested.

Williams' 174 yards rushing against the Badgers was easily his highest output on the season. His long touchdown run in that game was his lone rushing score on the year. He only topped 100 yards on the ground on two other occasions, and had several dismal stat lines of six carries for 17 yards, 11 carries for 13 yards, six carries for nine yards and so on.

Stopping the run is always key against Iowa, but look for Wisconsin's defense to take extra pride in bottling up Williams this year.

We spoke to Adam Jacobi of HawkeyeBeacon to get the inside scoop on Iowa:

1. Just how improved is this offense expected to be in 2024?

This is THE question with Iowa football, and there are so many variables that July’s just too early to put a bullseye on how much the offense SHOULD improve. But it really, really should.

Cade McNamara is fully cleared after last year’s knee injury, and coaches are cautiously optimistic about how he’s responding to the ramp-up. If the worst-case scenario happens and he’s out for extended action again, at least Iowa can lean on backup QB Brendan Sullivan from Northwestern, who represents a substantial step up in Big Ten preparedness from your old friend Deacon Hill, who’s now at D-2 Utah Tech.

Iowa’s offense also gets an actual offensive coordinator in Tim Lester, who has worked extensively with the offense in implementing an RPO/motion-heavy attack that should slow down opposing defenses that had spent about a decade crashing the LOS with impunity. Iowa’s players still need to make plays and they’re still probably not in the top half of the B1G in terms of overall skill, but the gap is (mercifully) closing fast.

2. What are the expectations for Cade McNamara coming off a serious knee injury?

As mentioned before, McNamara is fully cleared as of late June and keeping him upright through the season is an utmost priority for staff. Even before the injuries, McNamara was not a particularly productive runner so I don’t think he’s going to be Denard Robinson 2.0 all of a sudden, but his footwork and vision should play nicely with the timing involved in Lester’s offense.

I’m more optimistic than most about McNamara’s 2024 prospects; if he can limit mistakes and the receivers take a step forward under new position Coach Jon Budmayr, Iowa might actually start sustaining scoring drives with some consistency. With a defense that nasty, it won’t take much improvement moving the ball to put Iowa back in some contention with the conference’s elite programs — and maybe even flirt with a lower playoff seed.

3. Who looks like the next superstar Hawkeyes defender?

MLB Jay Higgins is swimming in preseason accolades after leading the Big Ten in tackles last season, his first as a starter after Jack Campbell matriculated on to the NFL. He’s Phil Steele’s preseason defensive player of the year and a first-team preseason AA for Steele, Athlon and Walter Camp.

If we’re talking guys that aren’t quite on the radar yet, former 5-star safety recruit Xavier Nwankpa is poised for a monster junior season, and DT Aaron Graves has game-wrecking potential on the interior.

4. Who or what is the biggest X-factor on this team?

It’s got to be McNamara’s legs, right? If he’s healthy and able to execute the offense to the tune of even 25 ppg, there aren’t many teams on Iowa's schedule that can put the same kind of pressure on the vaunted defense in return.

Other than that, the departure of All-American CB Cooper DeJean puts the onus on corners Deshaun Lee and Jermari Harris to step up from serviceable starters in 2023 to lockdown in 2024; there’s little else in the way of potential weak spots on defense.

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