By Pat Harty

IOWA CITY, Iowa – To have a member of the media evaluate Tim Lester’s performance as the Iowa offensive coordinator after nine games is one thing.

But to have a previous Iowa offensive coordinator do it, in this case Don Patterson, gives the evaluation far more credibility.

Patterson made his usual Monday appearance on the Hawk Fanatic radio show and podcast and he had plenty of good things to say about Lester, whose offense is averaging 30.8 points per game this season.

Iowa also ranks 10th nationally in rushing yards, averaging a whopping 222.3 rushing yards per game.

“It wouldn’t be an understatement to say it’s been significant,” Patterson said of Lester’s impact.

Lester is faced with the daunting task of re-energizing the Iowa offense, which performed at historically low levels in each of the past two seasons.

The situation became so bad that Brian Ferentz was fired as the Iowa offensive coordinator with four games in last season despite being Kirk Ferentz’s son.

Iowa ranked 132nd nationally in scoring last season, averaging just 15.4 points per game.

Iowa also averaged just 98.9 rushing yards per game last season.

The improvement shown by Iowa’s veteran offensive line has been nothing short of extraordinary.

Iowa offensive line coach George Barnett certainly deserves credit for the improvement, but it all starts with Lester.

Kirk Ferentz has given Lester the freedom and flexibility to put his own stamp on the offense, and it appears to be working for the Hawkeyes (6-3, 4-2), who will face UCLA Friday night in Los Angeles.

Asked what has impressed him the most about Lester’s performance so far, Patterson said:

“Just that he’s doing a good job of asking the question you always should be asking when you’re developing a game plan and that’s simply asking the question, what if?” Patterson said. “What if we did this. In other words, you might see a play that someone else ran against them and it gets you thinking, you know what; that was a good play for them with their running game. But they never ran a play-action pass off that same run action.

“But what if we did that? That’s how you develop a good plan. You go one step further than what they went with their plan. A great way to run play action is to run plays that have been causing them problems, because obviously, they’ve got to commit to stopping that play action and stopping that run.”

Patterson also gives Lester credit for helping to make the offensive line better.

“It just ties in so much to keeping the pressure on the defense by not being predictable,” said Patterson, who coached under Hayden Fry for 20 seasons at Iowa, including as his offensive coordinator from 1992 to 1998. “We’re doing a better job of not allowing leakage on those run plays, too.”

Northwestern transfer Brendan Sullivan made his first star at quarterback for Iowa in last Saturday’s 42-10 victory over Wisconsin.

And while he only threw for 93 yards, he also had 58 of Iowa’s 329 rushing yards.

Iowa was also six-for-six in the red zone against Wisconsin, scoring six touchdowns.

Patterson, who also was the head coach for Western Illinois from 1999 to 2009, said Monday that he believes Sullivan will start against UCLA on Friday and that Sullivan deserves to start, even if Cade McNamara is available.

McNamara missed the Wisconsin game due to a concussion after having started the first eight games this season.

The arrival of Lester has coincided with the rise to stardom of junior running back Kaleb Johnson, who scored three touchdown against Wisconsin to push his season total to 20, which matches Shonn Greene’s single-season program record.

Johnson has now scored as many touchdowns this season as the entire Iowa offense scored last season.

The 6-foot, 225-pound Ohio native also leads the Big Ten with 1,279 rushing yards in 8 1/2 games as he missed the first half of the season opener against Illinois State.

“There’s plenty of credit to go around,” Patterson said. “Credit to the play caller and credit to the guys that are doing all the hard work