Iowa Wesleyan Preview

The Iowa Wesleyan Tigers are joining the UMAC this season and judging from all the tweets and posts we've received from them, they are excited to be a part of what we know as UMAC football. A former NAIA scholarship school now making the transition into Division III football, the Tigers still have players who were (are?) under scholarship on their roster. However, with the loss of a large senior class and several other players from last year, the Tigers will need to bring their new freshman class of 30 athletes up to speed very quickly if they hope to be a threat in the UMAC. Coming into the UMAC, the Tigers have the leadership and UMAC experience of head coach Tom Parkevich, who was previously the defensive coordinator for the first four years of the St. Scholastica football program from 2008-2011. The Tigers are coming off of a 3-8 season where they faced NAIA competition making it difficult to tell how they will match up against the teams in the UMAC.

Big Losses
There may be no team in the UMAC that lost more coming into this season than the Iowa Wesleyan Tigers. The Tigers graduated twenty-four seniors from their 2012 team with seven of them starting or contributing a good amount on offense. No loss hurts their offense more than the loss of starting QB Kevin McConnell. Not only did McConnell throw for nearly 2,000 yards and 20 touchdowns, but he did it with a high efficiency rating. In addition to leading the team's passing attack, McConnell led the team in rushing with 522 yards and 9 touchdowns. Up front, the offense loses a lot on the line as LT Douglas Fuentes, LG Jordan Padgett, and RT James Daniel all wrapped up their college careers. McConnell's second favorite target, senior WR Buddy Guestella also graduated, along with the two running backs who received the majority of the carries in Brandon Harris and Daniel Veal.

Defensively, the Tigers graduated four of their starting front seven and seven defensive backs who  all received starts at some point in the season. Leading tackler, DL Richard Silva graduated after amassing 93 total tackles, 14 tackles-for-loss, and 3.5 sacks in the 2012 season. Overall, the Tigers graduated 14 of their top 20 tacklers on defense. In the defensive backfield the Tigers lose a lot of experience in those seven defensive backs, but S Duane Lee may be their biggest loss as he picked off opposing quarterbacks three times and led all DBs with 65 tackles, with 45 of those being solo tackles. The only two defensive starters who did not graduate were DL Artevin McNair and LB Carlos Morales, but neither player appears to be on the roster this year.

Key Returners
With only four returning starters on offense (former TE Jamarco Clark will be playing OLB), the Tigers will be come into the season with very little game experience and must rely on their few returners to bring the rest of the team up to speed. Look to WR Ridge Hobbs to be the leading producer this season on offense as he led the team in 2012 with 48 catches for 880 yards and 11 TDs. Looking to contribute alongside him are receivers LiMichael Peeples and Chase Tackett, who were the third and fourth leading receivers last season, respectively

Key to 2013
With very few returning starters and upperclassmen, the Tigers have to hope that their younger players will acclimate themselves quickly into the offensive and defensive schemes. Coaches may have to build new game plans around their players as they will have almost a completely different personnel from last season. But a big advantage for IWC is that they are virtually unknown to the UMAC opposition and it will be tough to game plan against the Tigers for the first few weeks. Therefore it is important for them to come out strong and fast if they hope to make an impact this season. If the Tigers' coaches are able to maximize the talent of their new players they could be a dangerous team. If not, they could be in for a long season in their new conference.

Prediction
Bottom line, we have no idea how to predict IWC finishes this year. We have never seen them before. So give us a break if we are completely off. Our prediction is based mostly off the fact that they played against better competition last season and should still have some scholarship athletes on their roster. Those facts combined with the Tigers' sheer enthusiasm on social media have us predicting the Tigers will edge out the MLC Knights and finish in 4th place in the UMAC with a 5-4 season.