As final exams wind down preparation heats up for the Iowa football team which is getting ready to take on South Carolina in the Outback Bowl in Tampa, Florida. The Hawkeyes finished the regular season with an 8-4 record and much of the reason is a defense which is ranked among the best in the country.

Iowa defensive coordinator Norm Parker says the good thing about the defense is that the seniors played the best football of their career, which he says is how it’s supposed to work. Parker says this year’s defense has been an enjoyable group to coach. He says the fun part is it wasn’t a group where you had stars, "it was just a bunch of guys that played together, and collectively as a group, they were pretty good."

Parker believes this group is as good as the 2004 defense that helped lead the Hawks to a Big Ten title. He says there were some guys in that group that had move "flash" in making big plays. Parker says there may have been more "name" guys, but he says this group is just as good.