Iowa’s Phil Parker is as worthy as any college football award-winner, ever

Awards are awards, subjective and influenced by biases.

That doesn’t mean winners aren’t deserving. Iowa football defensive coordinator Phil Parker deserved getting the Frank Broyles Award Tuesday. The honor recognizes excellence in assistant coaching.

Without Parker, Iowa not only wouldn’t have gone 10-3 this season, it wouldn’t won enough games to qualify for a bowl. The statistics speak for themselves.

The Hawkeyes are fifth in the nation in total defense at 274.8 yards per game. They are fourth in scoring defense, 13.2 points per game. They are second in fewest yards allowed per play, 3.99.

Last year they were second in scoring defense and total defense, and led the country in fewest yards allowed per play.

Iowa lost 26-0 to Michigan in last Saturday’s Big Ten title game. But ask the Wolverines about the Hawkeyes’ defense. Michigan gained just 215 yards after entering the game averaging 394. Its two touchdown drives in the game were of 5 and 6 yards.

Michigan averaged 1.9 yards per rush against Iowa after averaging 4.4 over its first 12 games.

That was despite the defense being on the field for over 36 of the 60 minutes.

Iowa fans may not want to think about what the score would have been had its defense not played superbly.

So Parker got the Broyles award, and joins a list of past winners that includes Kirby Smart, Lincoln Riley, Lane Kiffin, Brent Venables and Steve Sarkisian.

When Kirk Ferentz became Iowa’s head coach in 1999, he hired Norm Parker as his defensive coordinator and Phil Parker as his defensive backs coach. He had never worked with either.

What he did in those hires was guarantee the stability and success of his program for the quarter-century to come.

Comments: mike.hlas@thegazette.com