Iowa Vs Illinois St GAME PREVIEW | 2024-25 College Football Season

boom we are live ladies and gentlemen boys and girls welcome to the Nolan hawy Anthony YouTube channel and I thank all of you for being here wherever you may be and of course however you may be listening I can't believe we're here I said this in the previous game by game Iowa season preview and predictions video but it's just so true I cannot believe we're already here we are less than a week away from the first game of the season for the Iowa Hawkeyes we've already seen a handful of games I know for sure I watched the highlights to the Georgia Tech versus Florida State game in which Georgia Tech upset Florida State that's the beautiful thing about college football and college sports in general is the unpredictability because at the end of the day even though these individuals are highly talented highly athletic highly skilled they are at the end of the day still kids and thus make kid-like mistakes sometimes uh you know you guys catch my meaning they're they're kids in the sense that they are young adults and it's not going to be as predictable as the NFL now or professional sports now professional sports has its own unpredictability uh in that when you have people that are that talented On Any Given Sunday any team can win just because of how talented all the players are but in college sports it's a different thing it's more due to them being so young but it was a reminder all the same that we are here and we are finally ready for the season I'm pumped I brought out the Blazer it's a little toasty I'm not going to lie but I'm doing it for you guys you guys seem to like the Blazer you guys seem to like me looking sharp Looking ready to go so that's what I'm going to do this is of course the Iowa versus Illinois State game preview I'm going to be checking out the Iowa Hawkeyes checking out Illinois State giving you guys my prediction at the end of it and before we get into any of that I want to ask you guys to consider smashing that subscribe button like comment it really helps the AL algorithm uh and the channel and the video when you guys comment engage with the video uh I try and comment on all of the comments that are there as long as they are respectful uh and I would really love to get this channel to 2,000 Subs I was hoping to get there by the start of the football season and we are inching closer there uh but we aren't quite at 2K yet but we will get there mark my words uh and without further Ado let's get into this so let me start here guys Iowa coming into this game I think the question marks are mostly on offense as they always are defensively I think there are not any major concerns on every single level of the defense Iowa has a lot of talent they have NFL guys throughout the defense the first level the second level and on the back end uh High NFL level talent I think the only two semi marks that aren't like full-blown questions but there are something to keep an eye on would be the depth of the defensive line and who is going to have that second cornerback spot I don't think the second quarterback spot is going to be flat out one by the first game I think Phil Parker will roll out who he is most comfortable with in week one obviously but and that will be the the week one starters position to lose but I think Phil Parker will continue to have an open mind about who uh can possibly be the best person for that spot the primary three contenders are TJ Hall we've seen glimpses of his talent uh his athleticism he's got good size at 61 as a corner he's got that bloodline his dad as a coach it was a big win for Iowa out of the state of California which is a somewhat rare occurrence John Nester who was a nice get for Iowa out of the state of Illinois the Chicago area uh he is much better than his recruiting rankings indicated although I wouldn't say his recruiting rankings were bad they just I don't think were as accurate as what he really is especially now that we've seen him emerge pretty much immediately upon setting foot at Iowa which says a awful lot about his talent and the third player of course is DeShaun Lee who for large portions of the season last year was the starting Corner uh he was in place of Jamari Harris when Jamari Harris was out with suspension and then saw a lot of spot Duty I believe Cooper Dean went down and of course Des Deshon Lee uh was inserted into the starting lineup but he's seen various starting snaps uh for various reasons and all three of them have experience of the three I would say John Nester has the least amount of experience but perhaps has the second most upside of the three if I had to rank the upside I'd probably say TJ Hall uh is one a John Nester 1B deshun Lee two just due to him being smaller in size but all three of them are talented there is a reason why uh they are vying for the starting spot and then of course the defensive line really it's just the depth um there are some unproven guys that have gone through the Iowa developmental system that are working their way into the lineup but we haven't really seen a ton of them uh Max lellan who is a former fourstar High upside upside recruit out of Urban dale High School in the de de MO area uh and I think the defensive line is missing a the guy to start the season as I said in my defensive line preview it's certainly possible that one emerges uh out of Yaya or uh ya black or uh I always forget how to say it uh I think it's ya black uh Aaron Graves Deontay Craig and Ethan kkit I wouldn't be uh subscri or I would not be surprised at all if either one of them emerged uh if I were to place a bet on who I think it would be I would probably say uh Deontay Craig Aaron Graves or ya black those are the three they're highly talented they have great size great stature so the front four for Iowa the starting front four I think has good size good athleticism uh they have good experience it is really getting that depth and then hopefully Iowa is able to get an alpha uh to emerge on that defensive line on the offense that is the major question mark what is Tim Lester going to look like in year one does he have enough Talent uh who is going to be the starting quarterback uh is the quarterback play going to look better than what we have seen in years past from Brian fence those are all reasonable questions is the wide receiver room finally going to get involved more than what we saw last year with one of the lowest percentages uh in the entire country of wide receiver attempts or or the ball being thrown towards the wide receivers the bright spot for Iowa definitely is that they have a solid tight end group one of the best in the Big 10 they a very experienced offensive line group much like the defensive line group they don't have an alpha but one could definitely emerge it's just as of right this second they don't have a full-blown Tristan wors or you know an AJ Essa on the opposite end uh or a Tyler Linder bomb they don't have that as of yet but they have guys that are certainly capable of becoming that guy as for the quarterback position to answer that question uh I believe Kade mcir is going to be the week one starter uh Kirk fence was asked to list where he thought the quarterback kind of hierarchy was at and this was a couple of days ago he was asked this when he was interviewed for his one game suspension which I will Circle back to which is a very important piece of information coming into this game and he said Kade mcam would be one Brenan Sullivan would be two and Marco LZ or lionz would be three and I think that that is likely going to be what we see week one uh I've been saying this for a while I think Brennan Sullivan is the guy that fits Tim Lester's offense the most and I honestly believe that if it were entirely up to Tim Lester I think he would go with Brenan Sullivan but it's not of course Kirk frence is going to have input on who the starting quarterback is and I think at this point it is painfully obvious that he wants a return on his investment as he received a onegame suspension to land Cade mamero so if you're Kirk frence it's not out of the question to have the frame of mind of well I want it to be worth it so that brings me to my next point which of course is that Kirk fence will be uh suspended for game one Illinois state which is the game preview that we're doing right now alongside John bemire I don't think it will be a huge issue uh although crazier things have happened I think Iowa's coaching staff is really solid they're very professional they know how to coach uh and it's going to be business as usual especially for a ball club like Iowa that has such a fundamental and straight what it is system there is there's very little deviation from what it is that they do and who they are so whoever the the head coach is for one game it could be even for a couple of games but definitely just for one it's not going to make much of a difference with that said I'm very curious to see what Seth Wallace will look like who will likely be the listed head coach for the Iowa hawkey coming into this game he is uh as far as appearances go and what we have been able to see and glean from the Iowa media the air apparent to Kirk ference when I did a while back a video on who were possible replacements for Kirk fence I did have Seth Wallace there but I did not have him as high as he is remember at the time when I did that video you know Lavar Woods had some of the best special teams uh performances and it's not really a surprise to not have a linebacker coach as high up the list as maybe some other external candidates but the bottom line is at this point it is very obvious that the internally the Iowa coaching staff puts a high high high priority on Seth Wallace going back to the Iowa offense what I am looking for well let me let me go back even one step further as I was saying the good news for Iowa is that they have a solid offensive line hopefully they have an alpha that can emerge they do also have an experienced Run game now a lot of that will be predicated on the offensive line but Iowa does have talent and experience at the running back position they have all of their guys coming back from last year and they have proven workhorses now do they have an alpha as of yet that remains to be seen but is that more a statement about Iowa's lack of production as a whole and the scheme as a whole of the offense last year or is it a critique of the lack of alphaness of Iowa's running back room I think it is the former I think it has far more to do with the scheme and the lack of creativity offensively that led to small running rooms for these running backs Caleb Johnson of course looked to be a rising star that was going to be the next sha green for Iowa he took a bit of a step back in his sophomore year at Iowa due to injuries hopefully with one more offseason under his belt he can become the guy that that a lot of people are hoping him to be what we have seen has been very positive now I'm not going to lie to you and say that you know reports are are out there saying that he's the next dok Walker Award winner I haven't heard anything like that but everything that we have seen has been very positive and lesea Williams has been out which has given some nice reps to Kamari Molton and to uh Caleb Johnson the wide receiver room Iowa has some guys that I think are talented as well but time will tell how talented they are as a whole I've been clamoring this for a long time a lot of Iowa fans believe that Iowa is unsuccessful offensively because they do not have talent at the wide receiver room they don't have talent across the uh Entre iry of the offense I totally and utterly disagree with that I think they do have talent uh on in the wide receiver room in fact I've looked and shown you guys Iowa's wide receiver room according to the recruiting rankings time and time again and it shows that if anything Iowa has out recruited they have outkicked their coverage and what they actually should be able to get uh due to the poor performance the last couple of years offensively kayb Brown of course is the highest rated wide receiver that Iowa has ever landed uh he was a top 100 player who was committed or played one season at Ohio State and was signed with them for a Time Seth Anderson very talented uh Kaden wedin uh and there's some upand coming uh upand comers Dayton Howard uh reys vandery so there is some good there's also Terell uh TJ Washington who is a converted running uh converted wide receiver from the running back room so we'll see how many reps he gets if he ends up turning into a full-time wide receiver it is very apparent that Iowa is is doing its utmost to bolster the wide receiver room that is very apparent what Tim Lester is trying to do uh as not only has TJ Washington moved over to the wide receiver room but so has uh incoming freshman let's see what his name is here Brevin dull I I was very excited about him as a running back but I can definitely see their move of him to the wide receiver room uh when it's a a school like Iowa that struggles to get some of these athletic freaks uh in recruiting they have to prioritize the guys that they are able to land and the bottom line is the running back room is extremely healthy and vibrant right now if brevan D or TJ Washington were to stay in the running back room they would honestly be wasted talent and I got to tell you the truth while I am saddened to see him not be a running back it kind of does give me optimism about uh our new offensive coordinator Tim Les as he is showing a willingness to get talented guys on the field which is what I have been clamoring for for a long time all right guys let's take a look at some of the other things I I had to take the blazer off it was just too dang hot um maybe I'll throw it back on here in a little bit we're going to look at the game preview look at Illinois State all right guys this is Illinois state last year they went six and five of course they are FCS team FCF opponents as I'll get to later in this video have definitely given Iowa some trouble in the past although those teams went on to be very very good teams uh nor it was either North Dakota State or North Dakota uh and like I said we'll we'll recircle back to that there's an article that I have that um goes over that so uh they perhaps had a few FBF FBS teams within this um maybe Western Illinois or Eastern Illinois um but uh that's about it here are the stats from last year for some of their guys I believe Tommy writtenhouse uh is returning although it's not predicted as of this recording that he will be the starter although you know there's a good chance High likelihood that he'll see some reps especially if Illinois State and their starting quarterback which I'll Circle back to uh is the starter we can see that Tommy Written House definitely is an option on the ground as he had 140 140 yards rushing um let's see let's see if Daniel Sab Saco it is coming back he had 923 sa K subx from Arlington Heights 6'3 205 pounds he had 923 yards last year not bad 10 touchdowns that's not bad at all so and then here is Let's see we have the game preview by ESPN they have their football power index that predicts the outcome of the game and here it is by the way the game starts at 900 a.m. and it looks like it might be on the Big 10 Network we'll see Iowa comes into this game ranked 25th in the country in both the coaches and a the fpi football power index gives Iowa a 93% chance of winning this game and Illinois State a 7% chance here are the last five which you guys saw in the previous slid so uh Illinois state is coming off of a loss to North Dakota Iowa of course coming off of two back-to-back losses shutouts to Michigan and Tennessee Big 10 championship game and the bowl game I believe it was the Citrus Bowl that Iowa played in last year but they did defeat Nebraska in remarkable fashion a classic Iowa Victory uh Iowa Victory to the Bone some would say uh they defeated Illinois 153 and ruter 22 nil here is Iowa's depth chart I'm going to pull up their stats for Iowa stats from last year as well uh this is definitely going to be fluid I don't think everything that's listed here is what it's going to be exactly and unfortunately the dep chart has not been released yet as of this recording I think it'll be released tomorrow or Tuesday I'm recording this Sunday um you know the interesting aspect is red shirt freshman jariet buoy uh being in starting lineup Caleb Brown won't be there uh he'll be suspended for game one that's also I should have mentioned mention that alongside Kirk fence and um John bemire uh when discussing their suspensions but that will give some opportunity and some reps uh to Jaret Buie maybe Dayton Howard may maybe Terrell Washington Jr uh definitely Kaden wedin so I think everything else here will likely remain the same especially the offensive line the running back room uh and the tight ends and then here is Iowa's defense you guys can pause this video to check it out I'll move it to the side a little bit so you guys can see the third stringers uh as I was saying at the onset of this video there's guys like Max Luellen Jeff Bowie who kind of are classic Iowa guys they come to Iowa they you know Max Luellen was a four-star guy according to 247 Sports he was in that vaunted 2021 uh he was either 2020 or 2021 recruiting class that was a top 25 recruiting class for Iowa the one with Keegan Johnson and Arland Bruce due to the state of Iowa just having a magnificent year uh for recruits but of course that was uh either the year after the main uh cof year or uh before I think it was the year after um but the that the state of Iowa had a amazing year for uh FBS level recruits coming out of the state of Iowa uh but these guys are classic Iowa guys in that they come to Iowa they might even be uh pretty solid recruits but especially if you come to Iowa at the defensive line and things like that you got to get in the wait room and it takes time and and we kind of don't hear about them for a year two sometimes three years and then all of a sudden we see them on the depth chart they've gone through the development they've gone through the practice the Reps uh the whole nine yards and here they are I am excited to see Max lellan I think he's got incredible upside uh and uh I really hope to see some reps from him I think everything else will be accurate maybe not John Nester uh I believe TJ Hall has the edge of a of as of right now and that is that we're going to take a look at the stats here unfortunately I could not find Illinois State Illinois State's depth chart so I'm not going to be able to show that to you guys uh as they're FCS program and I don't see any articles listing their depth chart or projected depth chart so uh you know it it kind of is what it is but nonetheless uh I wanted to just mention mention that really quickly here's some of the stats for Iowa last year um Kate mcir 505 yards and an injury uh shorten season Lesean Williams nearly had a thousand yards uh he had 821 yards 4.8 yards per carry with only one touchdown that that needs to rise I think if lesea Williams can get this total up to 900 maybe even a th000 it will definitely be a productive season with a five yard average that would be really solid although 4.8 is not too bad um Caleb Johnson 463 yards only averaging four yards a carry ji Patterson 206 Kamari Molton who has seen a surge after being an Iowa's weight room he had 93 yards last year uh let's see cayb brown 54 yards rushing uh Eric all was the leading receiver even after missing a large portion of the Season uh just goes to show how bad Iowa was at passing the football last year Nico regeni AKA Niko Ragini AKA Niko Raga an 255 yards the leading receiver for Iowa Addison arranga had a nice red shirt freshman year with 192 yards and then of course there's luk Lee who under 131 before going down with an injury and then uh we can see uh some of the defensive totals you guys can pause it and uh take a look at it I'm gonna scroll all the way down so you guys can see um so Jay Higgins with a massive 171 total tackles unbelievable all right so before we get to this article here I I by the way I don't think that this is completely accurate which I'll discuss this is the projected final depth chart by dear old gold uh Kansas state which we're going to circle back to their starting quarterback is former fourstar out of the de MO area quarterback Jake rubly AKA Jake rubl um he was at Kansas State for three years he spurned Iowa in that vaunted it was either 2021 or 2020 uh recruiting class that was really uh good for Iowa top 25 as previously mentioned uh he was the very guys that did not choose the Iowa Hawkeyes from the state of Iowa uh instead choosing to go to Kansas State so let's look at but we're going to circle back to that uh they have Marco LZ as uh the projected quarterback to I disagree with that I think it's going to be Brennan Sullivan as uh Kirk fence has said as much uh if when he answered if a game were to start today what would be your your pecking order it was uh mcnamer one uh and Sullivan 2 lionz 3 and honestly lionz according to reports is actually being pushed by um the walk-on from Colorado State who was formerly committed to Washington out of the state of California uh La Hoya product which is a really good high school in the state of California um and so I definitely don't think that that is accurate uh believe is La it's Brandon Stratton is is his name so um not only do I not think this is accurate as far as uh him not being two he may not even be three at this point in time so you know Tim Lester his motivation when coming to Iowa was to improve the quarterback room and the competition immediately and he definitely has done that I agree with the running back room uh I think I agree with the wide receivers thus far uh let's see tight end's definitely I agree with the offensive line project projection uh defensive line projection I agree with linebackers of course I agree with um let's see secondary I agree with I think I don't think John Nester is going to be the week one starter but I do think I just have a gut feeling based off of the High Praise that he's received I have a gut feeling that he is going to end up being the starter when the season is done by the time the season is done but I don't think he'll be the starter week one I think it'll be TJ hall or Deshaun Lee um as Iowa will likely want to go with a more experienced guy to give time for John Nestor to continue his development uh everything else I agree with uh xaver wanpa has been injured hopefully he's healthy enough to go week one same with Cohen eninger and everything else I agree with there let's check out this article here this is a betting site that predicts uh the games uh again Illinois State verse Iowa Saturday uh 9 Eastern does not say uh what channel this is going to be on this is from diers Pro who will win says our famous predictive model gives Iowa a 97% chance of defeating Illinois State and the final predicted score is Iowa winning 31 to9 according according to our model Illinois State plus 23 and a half they're 23 and a half Point dogs has a 52% chance of covering the spread uh while the over and under total of 41 points has a 52% chance of going over and lastly we're going to review this article from The Gazette here early signs point towards Iowa football drawing a favorable schedule in the big 10's first season with 18 teams and no divisions ESPN preseason football power index while not a perfect metric rated Iowa strength of schedule 17th out of 18 teams in the Big 10 only Ruckers appears to have a more favorable schedule yes Iowa does have a date with an Ohio State team on the road that should be a uh dominant that should be dominant again in 2024 but the Hawkeyes avoided Oregon Michigan Penn State and USC Washington is on the schedule but the huskys lost their head coach and significant portions of the roster after the college football playoff appearance uh let's see let's go down the two FCF teams who recently kept it close with or defeated the Hawkeyes had more success than what Illinois state has recently experienced however the 2016 North Dakota State team that beat the Iowa Hawkeyes was coming off an FCS national championship and went on to a 12 and2 season the 2022 South Dakota State team that uh that did not they did not lose another game on its way to winning an FCS national championship and I remember at the time saying that that South Dakota state was a dang good FCS team and could definitely comp uh compete in the FBS um but you know nonetheless Iowa still should have done a little bit better in that game uh Iowa vers Illinois state three things to watch the season opener will offer the first in-game glimpse of Iowa's new offensive scheme under new offens coordinator Tim Lester we have heard about the hawkey scheme emulating the Green Bay Packer scheme under Matt lafl we'll see it in action on August 31 1 J rubley AKA G Jake ré versus Iowa secondary ré was a four-star recruit out of West de Mo B who passed on an offer from his home state Hawkeyes in favor of Kansas state after three years as a backup at Kansas State he transferred to Illinois State incumbent quarterback Tommy Rittenhouse could also see playing time uh and lastly does cade mcnamer look like his 2021 self this will be the key question for the Hu throughout the season fortunately for the former cfp starter college football playoff starter Illinois state provides a relatively easy on-ramp for what will be his first game in 11 months the Red Birds allowed their FCS opponents to complete 64 and a half% of their passes last season Iowa has not lost to an FCS opponent since 2016 this is unlikely to change this year against the Redbirds all right guys my final thoughts on this usually I would show the team stats but as always because we're only in week one uh I'm not going to do that for this game I usually start that around week three uh once there's enough data in place to make some solid inferences from uh the stats what I'm looking for as I said at the beginning of the video I want to see Tim Lester I want to see what Seth Wallace looks like as head coach and of course I want to see whether Iowa's offense improves that is unquestionably anybody else who says anything different is incorrect that is what everybody is going to be looking for is whether Iowa's offense is improved enough was enough Iowa fans were clamoring for Brian fence to be gone he's gone we need better and week one is a perfect opportunity to do so Iowa has the talent at every single position are these guys all future NFL caliber players perhaps not but still there's enough Talent on the offense to have a productive average offense okay that's all Iowa needs we're not asking them to be good we're not asking them to be great we're not asking them to be excellent we just need average okay we certainly need it better from what it was last year if Iowa can do that they have a chance at running the table due to how loaded this Iowa's defense is now again that is the main thing that I'm going to be looking for defensively of course I'm going to be watching that it's an important side of the football probably the most important aspect of Iowa football again the defensive line who's going to be starting in the secondary uh can Iowa get pressure on the quarterback is this going to be an Iowa Phil Parker defense that is uh King at takeaways uh you know we've kind of seen es and flows with that but whether Iowa is one of the top 20 teams and takeaways or not they always seem to uh be able to have a elite defense uh it's not to say that Iowa has been poor at takeaways in the years that they're not really really good they're still usually top I would say uh 40 or 50 um but you know year in year out uh I they're not I would not categorize them as a team that always is a supremely effective takeaway team the number one thing about Iowa's defense is their Ben don't break philosophy causing the other team to make mistakes and get off the field if that means settling for three points here and there that's fine just don't give up big plays that is the number one thing all the other stuff the sacks the interceptions the force fumbles that's all gravy okay Iowa wants to keep everything in front of it keep it manageable and make the offense beat them so with that said I already predicted Iowa uh in this game and I'm gonna stick to it since I predicted it just a day a day or two ago I got to pull up my score here I have Iowa winning this game 27-10 but in all truth I would not be surprised in the least if Iowa is able to hold Illinois state to even less than 10 I wouldn't even be surprised if they're able to keep them under five that's how good this defense is uh but is week one uh and you know Illinois State while an FCS team is not a pushover uh and you know Jake Ru blé will have something to prove uh they do have some guys on the offensive end that are definitely worth keeping an eye out for uh so I expect Iowa's defense to be solid even if they do just give up 10 points that's still really really good um you know I think everybody would agree uh anytime you can keep your opponent to under 15 points you have a really good chance of winning that football game uh as for the 27 points I almost went with 30 uh but I you know the last few years I have been totally screwed over by the Iowa offense uh in my prediction of them scoring 30 points so I'm not going to do that until I am able to see that they're capable of doing so would I be surprised if they do no of course not again they have the talent and I do think Tim Lester has the ability to be a decent offensive coordinator um but while I wish sheth Wallace would really take the reins off and and just be willing to do whatever he thinks best as the head coach I don't think that that's likely I don't think that he's just going to you know call plays and have a game plan that that he totally thinks is the best and it's and it's only solely him Kirk fence still going to be involved in the game plan uh and we're likely going to see a classic Kirk farence team um so I think if Iowa can get over 25 points that will be a step in the right direction while not what I am hoping for at the high end it still will be a step in the right direction uh especially if they're able to get over 300 yards of total offense at the very least all right guys thank you guys so much for watching uh we've talked a lot about this uh I've left no meat on the bone here please let me know what you guys think in the comment section also be sure to uh give a subscribe like again comment it helps the algorithm uh out I'll comment as many of the comments as I can and last but not least deap don't be a willow and facts our feelings because your feelings just still matter Iowa wins this game 2710 see you guys next time gohawks bye-bye