By Pat Harty

IOWWA CITY, Iowa – While I’m sticking to the I’ll-believe-it-when-I-see-it narrative about the Iowa offense looking different under Tim Lester, Iowa’s defensive players say change is underway.

Multiple defensive players met with the media on Tuesday to talk about spring practice and they all had a similar answer when asked about the much-maligned offense, which now has Lester as its coordinator.

“I see a lot of motion and just trying to trick our eyes,” said sophomore cornerback Deshaun Lee. “The offense took a big jump. I’m loving it, great competitiveness. They’re trying to just trick our eyes and get us off balance and our leverage us and stuff like that. So, we’ve just got to stay disciplined and have great eyes and compete.”

Here is what the other defensive players said about the offense:

Senior defensive end Ethan Hurkett: “I like it. It’s a lot more motions, and the tight ends, especially. It’s something new to go against and I’m having fun going against something new. I don’t want to give too much away, but they’re using the (tight ends) differently.”

Junior defensive end Max Llewellyn: “It’s different. A lot more confusion. They got us thinking a lot more out there. It’s good to work against them. A lot of motions RPOs, all that jazz. So, we’ve got to have all areas of the field covered. It’s annoying. I hate it. It’s awful. But we’ve got to do it.”

Sophomore free safety Koen Entringer: “They’re definitely trying to divert our eyes and get us out-leveraged and kind of just confuse us overall and get different guys on different pages so they can execute it.”

Junior defensive tackle Aaron Graves: “I like it. There’s a lot of motions. A lot of movement. A lot of different formations. I like it a lot. A very different look, not the same formations. A lot of movement for sure.

“I think they’re settling into it really nicely now. There was a little bit of a learning curve with the new system, but I think they’re starting to settle in very well.”

Junior strong safety Xavier Nwankpa: “It does look a lot different. I’m super excited for the fans to come see it. It’s helping us prepare for this coming all since other teams attack us kind of like they are.”

What these defensive players said about the offense is certainly reason for optimism because why would they lie?

It also seems unlikely that they all decided to push the same narrative about more motion, more movement, and more confusion for the defense without it being true.

The defensive players were describing what they’ve seen this spring, and it does seem different than the offense that Brian Ferentz coordinated for the previous six seasons before being fired last season.

However, the buck still stops with Kirk Ferentz, and this isn’t the first time that the media has been told in spring practice that the offense would look different.

I’m probably not the only one who has a wait-and-see attitude when it comes to the offense looking different.

Spring is a time for hope and optimism, and for experimentation.

So, can we assume that all this motion and movement this spring will carry to the fall and make the offense better?

I’m not ready to go that far yet, knowing that the personnel on offense will pretty much be the same as last season.

And just because there is more motion and more movement doesn’t necessarily mean the offense will be better.

One concern is that starting quarterback Cade McNamara is limited to just stationary throwing this spring as he recovers from a season-ending knee injury that occurred in the fifth game.

McNamara doesn’t have the opportunity this spring to practice at full speed and to perform all the duties of a quarterback learning a new offense.

The hope is that he will be fully recovered by the summer.

I don’t want to be a buzz kill, but I’ve learned to keep what is said during spring practice in perspective.

The Iowa offense performed so poorly in each of the past two seasons that it’s hard to envision it improving dramatically in just one season, even with more motion and movement.

It might look different, but until we see the finished product, there is reason to be skeptical about the offense being better.