Q: What was your reaction at the end of the game? You have been around Coach Ferentz in some big games and this is still family to you.

Jared Clauss: I was happy for our defensive staff; they have close ties to Michigan State and Iowa has not had a lot of success up there so I was really happy for them to get the monkey off their back and it was a big win for Iowa. I was glad for Coach Ferentz; last year Iowa was losing close games, this year they are winning the close games. It was just great to see, because this has been something that has been hanging over their heads for a while because they have not won up there. When you have a victory like that, that is why you play the games and coach. You want to be a part of great games and great finishes.

Q: What did you see from the Michigan State defense, in what they were doing to frustrate Iowa so much? They were not stacking the box the way Wisconsin was; they had a 4-3 look up front for the most part.

Clauss: I thought they were bringing pressure from Stanzi’s blind side a lot. They blitzed effectively, they pick and chose when they were brining pressure and try to get the ball to come out at a certain time. I thought they were good at what they did. Iowa was so close on a lot of runs, in terms of just getting a helmet on one more guy, or getting a combo block off to the second level and that was frustrating to watch. They will kick themselves when they watch that tape. Michigan State really played well on Saturday. They tackled well, they were emotional and just like Iowa, when you can shut at team down inside the one yard line, that is impressive.

Q: What did you see out of Michigan State’s defense on Iowa’s last drive that made Iowa have success?

Clauss: The coverage that Michigan State had on that drive was really good for the most part. The throw to Stross was just like what was hurting Iowa; he got in front the linebackers and it was a great play and run after catch. The ball to DJK was great coverage by the MSU corner, but DJK has a knack for making catches in traffic with someone right on him and it was a great ball by Stanzi. In the end, I thought Iowa did a great job of blocking Michigan State’s pressure close to the line, because more than anything, it’s important for Rick to be able to throw smoothly and not change his motion. I thought Eubanks and the guards did a good job of funneling the pressure away on both the third and fourth downs to make a clean attempt. It was just a great drive. On the flip side of things, we had two big sacks against Michigan State on their last drive. It’s 3rd and 18 and they throw the hook and lateral. I thought ‘This is Michigan, 2001’. Our defense shut them down all game, and it took a trick play, the fumblerooski, to move the ball on us. So they pulled a fast one on us. To Rick’s credit, to Coach O’Keefe’s credit and to the entire offense, we didn’t panic, drove the ball down and what a finish.

Q: It was pretty tough sledding for Iowa’s offense again this week. Was Michigan State doing anything special?

Clauss: Michigan State did a lot of what Wisconsin tried to do, and that was more base blocking, but then chipping with one linemen blocking a defensive linemen and the off, offensive linemen slamming the defensive lineman across. They know if you base block Iowa, you will have a tough time getting a guy out of his gap, because we will not get reached or driven off the ball that often. But I thought early, and they stayed with it most of the game, their offensive line did a great job of trying to get guys out of their gaps. On the flip side, I thought this was Eubanks best game. He and both of the guards did a great job of reaching the defensive tackle to the play side and combo blocking onto the linebacker. I only saw one time they missed it. Almost every time, Eubanks got around the interior defensive linemen and the guard stayed on him long enough and he got off onto the second level. Kudos to the inside of Iowa’s offensive line there.

Q: Based on your view, was it a matter of Iowa’s receivers not getting open?

Clauss: I thought there were some interesting route combinations on both sides this game. Early on, DJK and Wegher ran some good combinations, I thought MSU had some good combinations on play action which they did very well in this game, getting tight ends and wide receivers behind our linebackers, and that is a tough thing to do. They did a good job of running crossing routes, so kudos to MSU on that. But again, we didn’t give up the big play. Other than the late touchdown pass, we had them covered up well but they snuck a few deep routes in on us.

Q: Iowa had some success on the ground this game, even though the yards were hard to come by.

Clauss: Early in the game, Iowa was doing a lot of hard, outside zone plays, a lot of stretch plays to either side. They came back with the counter play in the second half. It didn’t work that well, but I like the fact that they had Michigan State playing light and going side to side fast, and to come back with a counter play, those are things that most people don’t recognize. It will pay dividends. We are so close, and they were close again this week and it didn’t happen in terms of breaking a big run.

Here are some additional observations from Jared Clauss

“I like how Iowa showed blitz on one side with and either coming off the edge on the other side or getting Cousins to check.  One time, when we had the hold on us, we forced him to come out early and got him thinking, and that was good.”

“Michigan State was trying to run to our weak side a lot, and a lot of teams don’t do that because it means you are blocking a tight end on a defensive end, and the defensive end usually wins that.  But Michigan State was pounding that over and over, trying to reach that a lot.  In the second half, Iowa adjusted.  Hunter came running through, and Iowa showed the linebacker up on that side a lot of times and MSU went away from it, so a great adjustment by Iowa there. ”

“I thought Michigan State did the best at edge blocking this year.  Edds is tough to block; he is fundamentally sound and they did a really good job of blocking him.  It takes a lot and they had to focus on that during the week.”

“Early in the year, (Adam) Robinson was putting his head down and bouncing off tackles and now he is using his spin move more.  He doesn’t have that burst, but he has good vision.  I am encouraged by his progress thus far and he will get stronger as his career goes on.”

“Iowa’s defense started to swarm in the second half.  As soon as Greenwood went down, the next play was the wide receiver reverse pass, so they tried to take advantage of that right away.  We had it read well and there was nothing there, but I think they made an effort to go after Conklin and see how he would handle things.”

“Iowa started to move the pocket more in the second half.  Stanzi was also able to get MSU to jump twice on a hard count.  The commentators say ‘you are staring right at the ball’, but the hard count is louder when you are right over it.  Good job to Stanzi for barking the snap and for the offensive line to hold their ground.”

“One of Stanzi’s most impressive things last year was his ability to avoid sacks and pressure, throw the ball out of bounds, some nifty footwork.  He showed that again last night. It’s still there, it just hasn’t been there this year.  I hope he can develop more of that and have confidence to step up and make plays with his feet as well. ”

“He did a great job with his audibles at the end of the game.  Michigan State came out with three defensive linemen a few times.  I am not a big fan of that.  The more defensive linemen on the field, the better.  If you can’t get pressure on a guy, it’s like 7 on 7 out there.  Eventually a wide receiver can get open.  I think Michigan State made a mistake going to the three lineman front.  On one third and six, Stanzi’s audible to the run against a six man box was a great call.”

“Iowa continues to do a good job of batting down passes.  Klug had a couple he just missed, too.  We are doing a really good job if the rush isn’t there of getting our hands up.  That pays dividends for us.”

Jared Clauss played for Iowa between 1999-2002. He also played four years in the NFL, and is presently a wealth manager in his hometown of West Des Moines, Iowa.

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