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Norm Parker had a bit of sparkle in his eye Friday when he talked about the challenge his Iowa defense faces when it meets Oklahoma in the Insight Bowl.
The Sooners average 532.1 yards per game, fourth in the nation, and that will test a young Hawkeye defense that Parker is preparing for the last time before completing a 48-year career in coaching.
“I think the big thing now is to see if we can slow down these Boomer Sooners and then see where we go from there,” Parker said.
The veteran defensive coordinator said he wouldn’t mind having a few Hawkeyes in uniform as he tries to find a way to slow down the offense orchestrated by Landry Jones.
“I’d like to know what Matt Roth is doing that day, somebody like that who could go get the quarterback,” Parker said.
“I think a lot of positions will have to play very well for us. I’d like to know what (Sean) Considine is doing that day. I think the free safety is going to be an intricate part of what we’re doing. To try to stop them, you have to have a free safety. I’d like to know what Considine is doing that day, see if he has that ability left.”
Parker appreciates the skill he sees as he watches Oklahoma’s offense work.
He said Oklahoma State seems to have been the only team to have much success slowing the Sooners this season.
That leaves him with one final test, one final challenge.
And yet, Parker still views it as the next team on the schedule.
“Got to play somebody,” he said. “Everybody’s got to be some place that day. Where else would you rather be than doing that? You wake up in the morning, you got to be some place. Might as well be here. Let’s go have a football game, see if you can win. That’s what you do it for.”

The announcement of the retirement of Iowa defensive coordinator Norm Parker leads to a rare opening on the Hawkeye football staff.
Iowa’s staff has been one of the most stable in the country during coach Kirk Ferentz’ 13 seasons and Parker’s departure marks just the seventh opening Iowa has had during that timeframe.
Don’t underestimate the value of that stability. It’s one of the reasons the Hawkeye program has been bowl-eligible in each of the last 11 seasons and is preparing now for an Insight Bowl match-up with Oklahoma.
There are several capable in-house candidates to replace the venerable Hawkeye defensive coordinator and most likely, Ferentz will promote from within.
Phil Parker has been on the Hawkeye staff throughout each of the 13 seasons Ferentz has headed the Iowa program.
The Hawkeye defensive backs coach, who is not related to Norm Parker, was a three-time all-Big Ten defensive back at Michigan State. He spent a year as a graduate assistant at his alma mater and then coached at Toledo from 1988-98 before joining the Iowa staff.
Darrell Wilson is in his 10th year at Iowa and coaches linebackers and special teams. Like Ferentz, he is a Connecticut graduate and his college coaching resume includes stops at Rhode Island, Rutgers and Wisconsin before his arrival at Iowa in 2002.
Promoting from within would also provide Ferentz with the opportunity to elevate Iowa’s fourth-year administrative assistant, former Hawkeye LeVar Woods, to an assistant coaching position.

Oklahoma will be missing three players when the Sooners face Iowa in the Insight Bowl on Dec. 30 in Tempe.
Coach Bob Stoops announced today that wide receiver Jaz Reynolds, fullback Aaron Ripkowski and running back Brandon Williams will not be available for the game against the Hawkeyes, adding to a lengthy list of injuries Oklahoma has dealt with during its 9-3 season.
“We’ve had some significant injuries over the last half of the season, but this is an opportunity for other players,” Stoops said.
Reynolds is the Sooners’ third-leading receiver with 41 catches for 715 yards and five touchdowns in 10 games. Oklahoma previously lost all-American receiver Ryan Broyles to a season-ending injury. He had caught 83 passes through nine games.
Ripkowski had no rushing statistics this season, while Williams is the Sooners’ foruth-leading rusher. He gained 219 yards on 46 carries. Oklahoma previously lost its leading rusher, Dominique Whaley to injury after he gained 627 yards in seven games.

Two very different types of books paint two very different pictures as the Iowa football team works toward its Insight Bowl match-up with Oklahoma.
Iowa’s football players have done a respectable job of hitting the books and graduating compared to the student-athletes at other bowl-bound institutions.
Iowa is one of nine bowl-bound teams with an NCAA Graduation Success Rate of 80 percent or better, ranking eighth with its 2011 GSR of 83.
The Hawkeyes rank third among their Big Ten peers which qualified for a bowl – Northwestern ranks second to Notre Dame with a 97 GSR and Penn State ranks fourth with an 87.
The Big Ten is the only conference which has more than one bowl qualifier graduating better than 80 percent of its football players.
Meanwhile, the folks who run the sports books in Las Vegas have installed Oklahoma as a 16-point favorite to defeat the Hawkeyes in the Dec. 30 game at Tempe, Ariz.
It’s the biggest point spread the oddsmakers have established for any of this year’s bowl match-ups.
Eighteen of the 35 bowls on this year’s schedule have early spreads of three points or less and only five lines opened with double-digit differences.
In addition to the Iowa-Oklahoma match-up, Boise State is picked by 13.5 points vs. Arizona State, TCU is a 12.5-point favorite against Louisiana Tech, Texas A&M is favored by 11 over Northwestern and Baylor is a 10-point pick over Washington.

Iowa’s return invitation to the Insight Bowl is as much about what Iowa isn’t as opposed to what this 7-5 Iowa football team is.
Call it poetic justice if you will.
A year ago, Michigan jumped over Iowa in the Big Ten bowl pecking order despite the Hawkeyes’ win over the Wolverines.
In a pick that was about image over substance, Michigan spent New Year’s Day at the Gator Bowl getting thumped by Mississippi State 52-14 and Iowa dropped down a slot in the bowl pecking order and enjoyed a win over Missouri.
This year, Iowa got the nod over 9-3 Penn State because of image as well. No player on the Nittany Lions team that handled Iowa 13-3 in October had anything to do with Jerry Sandusky and the sex scandal that led to the ouster of coach Joe Paterno and university president Graham Spanier.
That didn’t prevent the Insight Bowl, the Gator Bowl and the Meineke Car Care Bowl of Texas from passing on Penn State.
The Nittany Lions will ring in the new year at the TicketCity Bowl in Dallas, where it was a balmy 33 degrees a year ago at kickoff.
The Insight Bowl has its own reasons for avoiding the scandal that hangs over the Big Ten program.
The bowl is operated by the same organization that runs the Fiesta Bowl. Within the last year, it has seen its top executive ousted following an internal investigation that turned up charges of bowl employees being reimbursed by the bowl for political contributions, a felony, and a myriad of other accusations.
As it tries to move beyond its own well-publicized issues, the one thing the Insight/Fiesta bowls did not need this year was a participating team with its own baggage.
With the other Big Ten contender for that bowl bid, Ohio State, dealing with its own NCAA issues, that created an opportunity for Iowa to ride in on the white horse.
Director of athletics Gary Barta said tonight that the topic of Penn State did not come up as he spoke with Insight Bowl officials in recent weeks.
“When I talk to bowl reps, there is no discussion on other teams. The focus is entirely on Iowa and what we have to offer, our fan support, our bowl history, the experience of our coaching staff,” Barta said.
“I don’t talk at all with them about other teams.”
In this case, he didn’t need to.

Somehow, it is seems fitting that Michigan State and Wisconsin are meeting in the inaugural Big Ten Championship game tomorrow night in Indianapolis.
The Spartans and Badgers favor the black-and-blue brand of football the league has traditionally been known for, and at Lucas Oil Stadium the two will pound it out for the right to play in the Rose Bowl.
The teams rank 1-2 in the league in defense, with Michigan State specializing in stopping the run and Wisconsin ranked as the league’s best in denying the pass.
Tonight’s loser will likely find themselves on the outside of the BCS looking in.
That’s familiar territory for Michigan State, which finished in a three-way tie for first in the Big Ten a year ago, but watched the Wisconsin team it defeated during the regular season in 2010 enjoy the coveted berth in a game that remains the granddaddy of them all in the eyes of Big Ten players and coaches alike.
Wisconsin is favored to make it two in a row, installed as a 10-point favorite by the oddsmakers against a team it lost to on Kirk Cousins’ game-winning touchdown strike in October.
The reasoning is understandable. The combination of Montee Ball’s rushing and Russell Wilson’s passing has allowed Bret Bielema’s to pound opponents by an average of nearly 30 points per game this season.
The Badgers have rode the strength of Ball’s legs into a rematch with the team that handed Wisconsin the first of its two conference losses.
The Badgers average 246.7 rushing yards per game, 144.2 more per game than the Spartans’ league-leading rushing defense has allowed.
If Michigan State is going to reach the Rose Bowl for the first time since 1987, the Spartans will need more than Cousins to lead them there.
MSU’s defense has at been the most dominant in the Big Ten from start to finish of the conference season and will need to play that way again.
However, Michigan State’s ability to get something, anything, out of a rushing attack which ranks last in the league with its average of 139 yards per game, is critical to the Spartans’ hopes.
Michigan State doesn’t have to run for 200 yards, but it does have to pose enough of a threat to keep the Badgers’ defense honest.
That is the only way Saturday’s game has a chance to live up to anything close to what transpired when the two met in East Lansing earlier this season.