Just a kid from Hawarden.
I’m sure that’s how Hunter Dekkers and most who know him would describe him. But the Redshirt Freshman QB from small-town Iowa proved one thing on Saturday:
He was the best player in the game, and he is here to stay.
Brock Prudy is the leader on this team, and will be the starting QB from the remainder of the season, there is no doubt to that. But after this season, it looks like the Cyclones are in good hands.
After Prudy struggled in the Cy-Hawk game, Matt Campbell decided to take a risk and put in the back-up QB Dekkers. And Dekkers did the one thing he knows how to do…Ball out.
No, he didn’t lead the Cyclones to a victory on College GameDay, but the advanced stats showed he was incredible. According to collegefootballdata.com, Dekkers was used in just 23% of all plays that the offense ran, but added an incredible 0.521 predicted points added per play he was in on Saturday. That lead him to a total PPA of 8.3. To put that into perspective, here was the top offensive players from the Cy-Hawk game and their usage.
| Top Offensive Players | Usage % | PPA |
| 1. Hunter Dekkers (ISU) | 23% | 8.3 |
| 2. Breece Hall (ISU) | 28% | 4.3 |
| 3. Jaylin Noel (ISU) | 4% | 4.3 |
| 4. Darren Wilson (ISU) | 3% | 3.4 |
| 5. Charlie Kolar (ISU) | 7% | 3.3 |
In fact, to truely show how incredible Dekkers was in the 4th quarter, here is the quarter by quarter PPA for those top 5 players.
| Player | Total | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | Rush | Pass |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hunter Dekkers | 8.3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 8.3 | 0 | 8.3 |
| Breece Hall | 4.3 | -1 | 2.8 | 3.2 | -0.7 | 3.7 | 0.6 |
| Jaylin Noel | 4.3 | -0.1 | 0 | 0 | 4.4 | 0 | 4.3 |
| Darren Wilson | 3.4 | 0.1 | 3.3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 3.4 |
| Charlie Kolar | 3.3 | 0 | 1.8 | 1.5 | 0 | 0 | 3.3 |
You may be wondering, why there no Iowa players? Well, Iowa’s offense really wasn’t that great, and they were gifted some good field position. In scoring opportunities (when the team reach the opponents 40), the Hawkeyes faired a little worse than ISU, despite the Cyclones being bashed for their bad offense. Take a look at this chart:
| Scoring Opportunties | Iowa State | Iowa |
|---|---|---|
| Opportunities | 4 | 6 |
| Points | 17 | 20 |
| Points Per Opportunity | 4.25 | 3.33 |
2 of those scoring opportunities came off of INTs, so no matter how bad the Iowa State offense seemed through 3 quarters, Iowa’s offense actually played slightly worse, having only 173 yards of offense in the game. They actually only had 1 drive down the field that happened in the first quarter, and otherwise were shut down throughout the whole game. The Hawkeyes offensive woes were hidden by 2 major factors:
- The defense made some incredibly huge plays
- They were the road underdogs
Other than those 2 factors, when you look at all the numbers, Iowa’s offense was worse despite averaging a starting drive from Iowa State territory. I mean, just look at their success rate on plays from scrimmage:
| Success Rate | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Iowa State | 44% | 33% | 37% | 50% | 42% |
| Iowa | 0% | 56% | 17% | 29% | 32% |
The defense won this game for Iowa.
I truly believe that if Iowa’s defense didn’t get the turnovers they have showed they will be getting all season (6 INTs in 2 games), the Hawkeyes would have gotten crushed. The defense created havoc on 14% of plays and proved to be one of the top defenses in the nation.
That’s why Dekkers performance is even more impressive.
He performed at a high level in crunch time against an incredible defense, and in the biggest game of his home’s state’s biggest rivalry. Plus, he did it in just his 4th appearance for the Cyclones.
Cyclones fans may be disappointed in this last week’s performance of this team, but make no mistake:
Iowa State has a quarterback of the future, and his name is Hunter Dekkers.
All data was collected from collegefootballdata.com, to see the data from the game, visit https://collegefootballdata.com/boxscore/401282754
