Breaking down Iowa football’s success in third quarter of games in 2024 season

IOWA CITY — Iowa football had some fun in the third quarter during the 2024 season.

In the Hawkeyes’ 40-14 win over Northwestern, that’s when then-Iowa quarterback Brendan Sullivan ran for a touchdown and appeared to joyously exchange some words with a former teammate afterward.

In the Iowa’s 42-10 rout of Wisconsin, that’s when the Hawkeyes literally ran at will against the Badgers on a 10-play, 86-yard touchdown drive — with all 10 plays being rushing attempts — against their rival.

Those are not isolated cases either. Iowa outscored its opponents, 121-62, in the third quarter of games in the 2024 season. That accounts for a disproportionately high 33.6 percent of Iowa’s total scoring, yet only 26.7 percent of opponents’ total scoring.

Iowa’s third-quarter success largely coincided with its overall success in 2024. When the Hawkeyes had a third-quarter scoring advantage, they went 7-1. When scoring was either tied or in the opponent’s favor, the Hawkeyes went 1-4.

The one time Iowa had the scoring advantage in the third quarter, yet lost was its 32-20 loss to Michigan State. But that also was when Michigan State had some cushion after building a somewhat comfortable 12-point first-half lead.

Game scenarios — and consequently how aggressive Iowa needed to be on offense — could have an impact on the higher third-quarter scoring output. The Hawkeyes held halftime leads in only seven of their 13 games, and that includes a two-point lead against Northwestern and a six-point lead against Illinois State.

Iowa offensive coordinator Tim Lester offered a different reason for the Hawkeyes’ relatively strong showing last season in the third quarter as his offense operated his Shanahan-style system for the first time in 2024 — and as defenses had to handle a relatively novel concept for the college level.

“We did a really good job — at least the first half of the year — at making adjustments in the third quarter because we had no clue what (opposing defenses) were going to do,” Lester said last month on The Gazette’s Hawk Off the Press podcast. “Not a clue of how they’re going to handle this run with this fly motion. Are they going to bump? … And it’s hard to get it on film because not a lot of people do it.”

Now ahead of the 2025 season, Iowa is “way ahead” from a film preparation standpoint. That is in part because of already having one chance to see how Iowa State, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Michigan State and Nebraska will handle what Lester’s offense presents.

“We’re going to play teams a second time,” Lester said. “We’re going to have a pretty good idea of what they’re going to do, and we’ve just had more time to study defenses and which plays in this offense work really well against certain college defenses.”

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