3 and Out

1. Power trio

- Last week, Iowa's offense showed a three-tight end look on seven snaps. If you follow the X-and-O parts of Iowa football closely, you probably remember that from the 2013 game at Ohio State. Iowa still lost to an Ohio State team that had the makings of a national champion, but the tight end attack gave the Hawkeyes a fighting chance. The tight ends finished with 11 catches for 191 yards and two TDs. Jake Duzey put up the best numbers (six catches for 168 yards, which included an 85-yard TD) for a tight end in a single game during Ferentz's 15 seasons, topping Dallas Clark's 116-yard effort against Purdue in 2002.

The three TE set is a standard for a lot of teams on the goal line or in short yardage. The defense has to ask itself what it wants to commit to when three tight ends line up. If you match it up with a heavy defensive personnel group, then you'll have tight ends outrunning linebackers or overpowering corners in coverage.

'They don't really know if we're going to send four guys down the field deep or if we're just going to run a power play at them,” junior TE George Kittle said. 'It puts them at a disadvantage. If they try to match us big, then we can throw the rock. And if they go small, then we can just run the ball.”

Kittle and senior Jake Duzey could potentially put a defense on guard with their speed. Kittle, slowed by a knee injury this year, showed some last week with a 43-yard TD reception. Duzey played last week and that's a positive step. He suffered a torn patellar tendon in spring and hadn't played until the second half against North Texas.

'I'm pretty close to 100 percent,” Duzey said last week. 'I've just got to get more practice in and be able to do everything during the week.”

And don't dismiss senior Henry Krieger Coble. He has 10 catches for 105 yards this season. Coming into the year, he had seven catches for 58 yards for his career.

Iowa showed the three-TE set last week. That doesn't mean it'll be a centerpiece. It probably won't be a centerpiece, but it's something the Badgers defense will have plan on matching up.

'It's a set that isn't common in college football today,” Krieger Coble said. 'I think that's one of the reasons we've tried to use it, give people a different look and try to get people in different matchups.”

How much Iowa practices the three-TE set depends how much it's in the plans. So, no news on how much they practiced it this week.

2. There are ties when these teams meet

- Iowa fullback Macon Plewa is from Franklin, Wis. He said he grew up more of a Packers fan and not as much of a Badgers fan, but his family does live in Wisconsin. Plewa's girlfriend and grandfather are UW grads. His grandfather Don VanderVelden, used to take him to watch the Badgers at Camp Randall. VanderVelden lettered for the Wisconsin football team in 1960 and 1961.

Plewa had to do some scrambling with teammates to get enough tickets for family this week. He only asked for one thing in return.

'If you want these tickets, you're cheering for the Hawkeyes,” Plewa said. 'Everyone is wearing black and gold. I can't enforce it on game day, but I'm sure my dad will be out there looking.”

3. Going into a hostile environment

- The Hawkeyes are 1-0 this season in places where they are despised, where people want to see them fail and then laugh at them when they do fail. OK, maybe that's overstating it a bit, but there were few loving embraces for Iowa in week 2 at Iowa State. Iowa head coach Kirk Ferentz believes Jack Trice is underrated for its ferocity.

Everyone knows Camp Randall Stadium is not underrated for its ferocity.

The Hawkeyes have seemed to draw a ton of energy this season from quarterback C.J. Beathard, who is as cool as a quarter on a sidewalk in November. This week, he sounded genuinely excited going into a place that would love nothing more than to celebrate the Hawkeyes' failure and then maybe write some folk songs and sing about it for decades to come.

'It's exciting,” Beathard said. 'It gives us more juice. It's 70 against however many thousand they have in that stadium (80,321 in Camp Randall). What better feeling than to go in there and win and get the trophy back (the Heartland Trophy, which Iowa hasn't held since falling to UW in 2010, three straight games now) and win our first Big Ten game of the season. That'd be great.”

By the way, Wisconsin has won nine straight trophy games dating back to its last defeat to the Hawkeyes (20-10 at Camp Randall in 2009). In its last nine trophy games, the Hawkeyes are 4-5 with two victories over Iowa State (Cy-Hawk Trophy) and one over both Nebraska (Heroes Trophy) and Minnesota (Floyd of Rosedale).

l Comments: (319) 398-8256; marc.morehouse@thegazette.com