Leistikow: What's made Iowa's Seth Wallace one of the best-kept secrets in college football

Seth Wallace still remembers the quizzical look across Kirk Ferentz’s face in February 2008. Wallace, then an Iowa graduate assistant, had marched into the head football coach's office and unveiled a somewhat puzzling decision: That, at age 29, he would turn down a plum head-coaching gig at his alma mater. “He looked at me,” Wallace recalled, “and said, ‘I’m not real sure what you’re doing.’” It’s wild to think about what that decision has meant, 15-plus years later. Wallace, a former star wide receiver at Coe College with big coaching aspirations, had interviewed twice for Coe’s head job and even met with the team’s players. Wallace was poised to hold the keys to a Division III program, like his father did from 1988 to 2008 at Grinnell College. Wallace was excited about this coaching break, and Iowa was coming off a forgettable 2007 season both on and off the field. It seemed like, on the surface, a fortuitous time to make a career jump. But something in Wallace’s heart convinced him he should say no and stay and help coach defensive backs in his third and final year as a Hawkeye graduate assistant. A hand-picked GA by then-defensive coordinator Norm Parker, Wallace was hungry to continue learning from a living legend – while gradually earning the trust of ornery-but-ingenious defensive-backs coach Phil Parker (no relation to Norm, who was 66 at the time and died six years later). “It just felt like I had a chance at that time in my career to get my doctorate in defensive football. I felt like I was around something that was unbelievably special,” Wallace said in an extensive interview this week with the Des Moines Register, some of which aired on Wednesday’s Hawk Central radio show. “The way Norm treated me was beyond anything. … He groomed me to see things defensively big picture, as well as small picture, with each position.” That decision served as a pivotal moment in Wallace’s coaching career and, arguably, the future of Iowa football. He stayed and forged a stronger relationship with Phil Parker and was a valued coaching cog in the Hawkeyes’ 2008 defense that yielded just 13.0 points per game (still the low of the 24-year Ferentz era) and helped turned around a two-year program slump. Iowa’s Parker/Wallace-coached defensive backs intercepted 23 passes that year while yielding just nine touchdown passes. Flash forward four years later at a scene inside the Iowa press box in December 2012. The Hawkeyes didn’t make a bowl game after a 4-8 season, so the coaches were hosting a batch of official visits. And while recruits scarfed down their lunches overlooking Kinnick Stadium, the only football game on TV was the Division II championship game. In that game, underdog Valdosta State’s defense forced six turnovers plus another four turnovers-on-downs by Winston-Salem State, which entered as an offensive juggernaut at 42 points a game. The defensive coordinator for Valdosta State in that 35-7 win? Seth Wallace. “I was getting text messages right after that game was over from everybody on the (Iowa) staff,” Wallace said. Hawkeye coaches appreciated what Wallace did in his GA stint in Iowa City and in his three years as Valdosta State's DC, a position that’s been held by the likes of former Florida and South Carolina coach Will Muschamp (2000) and current Georgia head coach Kirby Smart (2001). Barely more than a year later, Wallace was plucked to return to Iowa and replace Eric Johnson as its recruiting coordinator and assistant defensive-line coach for the 2014 season. He has been coaching Iowa’s linebackers since 2016, after Jim Reid left to become Boston College's DC. This will be Wallace's seventh straight season as Phil Parker’s right-hand man as assistant defensive coordinator, and he’ll earn a $755,000 base salary. Back in 2008, a Division III head coach probably would have earned between $55,000 and $65,000. Money or career checkpoints, though, have never been a focus for Wallace – as evidenced by his decision to turn down Coe. It’s something he learned from his father. Greg Wallace had the difficult task of trying to make Grinnell, a school with high academic standards that's been called "the Harvard of the Midwest," a football winner. And in 1998, Grinnell went 10-0, to this day the best season in school history. “I saw my father in a pretty significant leadership role for the majority of my life,” said Wallace, who was 9 years old when his father took over at Grinnell. “He never did anything more than try to be really good at his job.” Wallace’s role in Iowa’s elite defense is significant Wallace will eagerly jump at any chance to credit Norm Parker for the foundation of his career path. It was total luck that he ended up in Iowa City (and often in the passenger seat of Parker’s golf cart, where he would pick the brain of Iowa's 13-year defensive coordinator). While on staff in his early 20s at Lake Forest College in Chicago, Wallace got connected with Chuck Bullough – from a long line of Michigan State Bulloughs – in 2004. Bullough had been among the laid-off Chicago Bears staff under previous coach Dick Jauron but was still being paid by the Bears, so he used that year to volunteer his time in Lake Forest (a Chicago suburb where the Bears still practice). Bullough wound up sharing space with Wallace, who had one of the team’s larger offices as offensive coordinator. Bullough was impressed by what he saw in Wallace – in the office by early morning and still grinding late at night – and felt he could be a difference-maker at higher levels. So, Bullough introduced Wallace to Norm Parker, a longtime Michigan State defensive coordinator under George Perles. That got Wallace’s foot in the Iowa door and, as he put it, the Norm Parker doctorate program of defense. Parker's influence is felt in Wallace's approach today, with tweaks that have helped modernize the Hawkeyes’ defense. Wallace was instrumental in Iowa’s switch to a 4-2-5 base scheme midway through the 2018 season. “The one thing that is unique about our defense is (that) it’s been in place since coach Ferentz got here and Norm arrived,” Wallace said. “There's some stuff that we're doing differently with the front, but the foundation of it has always been pretty structured. "We’re not a defense that is real cosmetic. We're just kind of who we are, but I think that is what has allowed our players to have success.” It is because of Wallace’s complete understanding of how Iowa wants to play defense that Phil Parker can, as coordinator, focus much of his time on grooming the defensive backs. Parker delegates stopping the run to Wallace. And it’s a complicated task, but one that the Hawkeyes have continued to perfect in recent years. They have had a top-15 rushing defense in each of the last five seasons and last year ranked second nationally by allowing 2.83 yards per carry. What makes that more impressive is that Iowa intentionally plays with a disadvantage in its front seven. How so? It’s complicated to explain without hours of coaching clinics. But in the simplest terms, there are eight gaps (as Iowa coaches it) in which opponents can try to run the football on any given play. And Iowa steadfastly believes it can stop all eight gaps with seven defenders, which allows both safeties to protect against big plays. If they need to bring a safety into the box to stop the run, they will – but only if absolutely necessary. As Parker outlined in a recent Hawk Central podcast, Iowa’s winning percentage is near 80% and yields around 13 points a game when it allows two or fewer scrimmage plays of 25-plus yards. If Iowa allows three or more explosive plays in a game, its winning percentage is closer to .500. “There’s no statistic we need other than that,” Wallace said. “We pride ourselves – (defensive line coach Kelvin Bell) prides himself – on, ‘We’re going to get this done, even if we’re a man short.’” Because of his time working with Phil Parker in the mid-2000s, Wallace gained an early understanding of the importance of protecting Iowa’s secondary from being involved in the run game. That style has worked. Since 2009, Iowa’s 218 interceptions are tied with Alabama for No. 2 at the FBS level (Oregon is No. 1 at 219). In 2021, the Hawkeyes set a program record with 25 interceptions, the most by a Power Five school since 2014. They did that while allowing just 3.15 yards per carry that season, eighth-best in FBS. “We’re not going to compromise the back end,” Wallace said, “unless we have to.” How has Iowa been able to keep Wallace? Ironically, Iowa may have been fortunate that Wallace was for 10 months named a defendant in the discrimination lawsuit brought against the university and football leaders, but not one racial-bias claim was publicly made against Wallace. He was dropped from the suit in February. That may have briefly scared some suitors away. But at some point, another major program is going to sweep in and offer Wallace the keys to its defense. That doesn’t necessarily mean Wallace would jump at the job. His parents still live in Grinnell, and wife Erica’s parents live in Mount Pleasant. Having four grandparents nearby for their two children is a luxury the couple doesn't take lightly. Plus, Ferentz has continued to pay Wallace like a coordinator. And he has already scratched a bit of the defensive-coordinator itch by winning that national title at Valdosta State. He doesn't have unfinished business to prove to himself or others. “If I had never had that opportunity and was sitting here right now with the success that we’ve had, maybe I would be looking a little bit more,” Wallace said. “But there’s a part of me that’s had that (experience).” Hawkeye fans and players can, for now, appreciate that Wallace is still a part of this elite defensive staff. Wallace doesn’t take Iowa's stability for granted. “That doesn’t happen too many places,” Wallace said the day after Northwestern fired 17-year head coach Pat Fitzgerald. “We're seeing (firings) more and more in college football.” More: Why Ferentz's career survived program firestorm and Fitzgerald's didn't Still, he acknowledged, “I get that the clock’s ticking. And coach Ferentz isn’t going to do this forever.” If Wallace ever does depart Iowa and take another job, it’ll have to be a great fit. He’s still only 44 years old. He has a coaching lifetime in front of him and can afford to be patient and picky. And wherever he coaches, he’ll always be armed with that so-called Norm Parker doctorate. “There’s a lot (at Iowa) that doesn’t put me in a situation where I’m chasing something,” Wallace said, another lesson he learned by watching his father for 21 years at Grinnell. "When you want something so bad or want to be that guy … sometimes you look back and say, ‘I don’t know if I should have done it that way.’ “To me, I think it will happen. If it does happen, it’s got to be with the right person, at the right time, in the right situation. Because it’s too good of a situation here.” Hawkeyes columnist Chad Leistikow has covered sports for 28 years with The Des Moines Register, USA TODAY and Iowa City Press-Citizen. Follow @ChadLeistikow on Twitter.