Week 5 Preview: Iowa

Prepare for Indiana's Week 5 matchup against the Iowa Hawkeyes with a comprehensive BSB Preview!

Indiana crushed Illinois in Week 4 (read the BSB Recap here, if you haven’t) and now has national pundits split into two majority factions — 1.) “Is this Indiana team better than last year’s Indiana team?”, and 2.) “Illinois isn’t that good, I guess!” There aren’t many top-10 teams as far right on the chart below as Illinois.

Source: Parker Fleming

When discussing Iowa during his weekly press conference, Curt Cignetti said it best: “They will not beat themselves. You will have to beat them.”

This Iowa team so far has not logged a ton of negative plays and has been elite at working within a set of parameters. It doesn’t turn the ball over often (just twice), and it doesn’t force many turnovers either (just two). It doesn’t find much explosion (ranked 119th), and it doesn’t allow much explosion either (ranked 3rd). On the ground, where it ranks 12th in attempts, it doesn’t have many negative plays, and it also doesn’t find much explosion either. And forget about a passing game.

Iowa is simply a slow, grinding mechanism, daring an opponent to win the game. This is why, when Cignetti also noted that this week’s game is even more of a challenge than the Illinois game, he wasn’t wrong. Iowa is far more serious in the trenches than Illinois, and the game will not be played in Bloomington. The chart below (credit: Bill Radjewski of CollegeFootballData.com) conveys this physical nature with an opponent-adjusted line yards measure on both sides of the ball. Indiana and Iowa is going to be a rock fight in the trenches on every play.

This also translates to EPA, where Iowa, with a strength of schedule ranked 72nd by ESPN FPI, has found itself in the desirable quadrant (unadjusted for opponent).

But what is true about Indiana since the calendar flipped from 2023 to 2024 is that it will dare to win a game, even in Kinnick Stadium, where Indiana has won once this century.

The Hoosiers are out to prove sustainability in 2025, and a win at Iowa going into the bye week would go a long way in doing so.

In this preview:

• Opponent Overview

• Indiana SP+ Progress

• Advanced Stat Preview

• QB Profiles

• Iowa OL Preview

• Iowa Key Contributors

• What BSB is Watching For

---

Opponent Overview

The Big Ten West treated the Iowa Hawkeyes very well from 2014-23. They never missed a bowl appearance in that span while averaging 8.8 wins per season. After divisions were dissolved upon further expansion of the conference, Iowa won 8 games in 2024 and missed the AP Poll for just the second time since 2017. Four of its eight wins were against former Big Ten West opponents.

Now, Iowa is navigating a changing college football landscape, under the guidance of Kirk Ferentz — head coach since 1999 — with just three former Big Ten West opponents on the 2025 schedule and the 12th-toughest post-Week 4 schedule in the nation, including Indiana, Penn State, Oregon, and USC and already a non-conference loss to in-state rival Iowa State.

But even as Iowa faces a sort of crossroads, the Hawkeyes are just as physical as ever and will beat unprepared opponents.

Indiana SP+ Progress

Note: Each week indicates Indiana’s ranking after the week’s game. For example, Indiana is in the 73rd percentile after its game versus Old Dominion in Week 1.

Notes on SP+ Progression:

• Indiana is ranked higher than we’ve ever seen in SP+. The Hoosiers jumped eight spots to No. 6 after beating Illinois.

• Also, Maryland, at No. 33, is the third-highest rated opponent on Indiana’s schedule, behind Penn State and Oregon and just two spots ahead of Iowa. I’m somewhat surprised the algorithm respects Maryland’s work to this degree, with the 111th-easiest schedule in the nation and not necessarily beating Wisconsin as badly as the score showed (see the “Did We Really Get Beat That Bad?” chart above).

• Old Dominion is getting far more respect from FPI than SP+ — No. 51 to No. 86, respectively. Much of this is likely due to SP+ weighing prior performance more than FPI, with the Monarchs finishing 97th in 2024. FPI gives ODU a 49% chance to win the Sun Belt and a 15% chance to make the College Football Playoff. They’re also projected to win 10 games.

Observations:

• Indiana’s win over Illinois launched it into a completely new set of expectations analytically. The Hoosiers are now expected to win 10 games after having just a 14.5% chance of reaching 10 wins before Week 1. This is no surprise for most IUFB fans, but it goes to show that Indiana is receiving massive respect from SP+, which is the data used in this model.

• Indiana also has a 27.8% chance to reach 11+ wins!

• Lastly, Indiana currently has only a 6.5% chance of falling short of its 8.5 win total line assigned by sportsbooks.

---

Advanced Stat Preview

Some Observations: