The Takeaway: Iowa State

Talk about the perfect analogy. The previous thread compared Bielema to Ferentz in that one attempts to win games and one attempts to win seasons. The Iowa State v. Iowa game is A GAME and cannot be won using a seasonal approach. Same goes for Northwestern. Until we get that figured out we cannot consistently beat either team.

Can Iowa bounce back and still have a good season? Probably, because that’s what Kirk Ferentz does. But unless he figures out that some games require more than a “bigger picture” approach we’re going to suffer embarrassing losses every now and then.

Who are the ‘rally point’ athletes? Maybe Nielsen, Daniels? On offense? We took the ball out of VDB’s hands, so he couldn’t become the focal point. A lineman will not be a team leader on offense. The coaches need to give a couple of games to VDB to win, so he can step up and become a leader, as was Stanzi.

We had a tie game, and the ball in hand, with over a minute to go, at the end of both halves.

Ferentz gave this one away.

WHY ARE YOU DEMANDING KIRK FERENTZ BE FIRED? WHAT DO YOU WANT IOWA TO TURN INTO MIAMI OR OHIO $TATE?

/long explanation about sarcasm fonts and how I wasn’t really serious don;t worry I still like you’d

He decided to take 3 and let ISU win if they score TD.

but he’s busy preparing the team for Penn State. Thank you very much.

“Last I checked, you don’t win the Big Ten with a perfect preseason record,”

                                                                                            - Kirk Ferentz, in my head.

Of course, we helped to make him look like a superstar.

This team’s biggest weakness is the defense. There’s not a single glaring hole but several subpar areas and too few playmakers to cover up for their deficiencies.

We’re going to have to win some shootouts. Iowa can never take its foot of the pedal on offense and that’s exactly what we did on Saturday.

KOK, then

We are currently sitting on losses in rivalry games against Minnesota, Wisconsin and Iowa State.

Excuse me while I wretch all over myself.

Normally when coaches let the fans change their philosophy it backfires on them but, if the dogs are barking because they’re hungry feed them and they’ll shut up. Iowa fans can name example after example where playing not to lose has ended up in them…. losing. Will this ever change? Make it simple: at home OT is ok, on the road OT is not ok.

As the infamous 4 & 1 it made me tuck my balls between my legs and run away.

You know how it’s said that it’s easy to pick on things when your team is losing? In the case of Iowa and Ferentz, I think it’s easy to overlook things when we’re winning.

Unfortunately, that takes time, and lots of it. This is one of those years were some players just aren’t ready for the prime-time yet, but necessity dictates that they play. Overall, the defense is just in need of experience, especially the secondary. Clayborn had a lot of talent but wasn’t an All-American DE right away, Greenwood certainly wasn’t good right away, Angerer almost quit football I believe. I know it can be excruciating to watch sometimes, but I really do think this defense will improve and be vastly better by the end of the season. And lets hope so because Fuck Nebraska

After 13 years Ferentz is passing out free copies of The Ferentz script. He is being out coached in real game time situations. Examples, last year Wisconsin, Northwestern, and now Iowa State this year.

The D-line was incompetent to the point where you could have rushed 2 and it would not have made a difference. I was all about getting fast LB’s on the field versus 4 down linemen. We got Kirksey and nothing else. He was the only guy doing anything; you would think that this was enough evidence for a philosphy shift in-game, oh wait please don’t hang me for asking for in game adjustments.

…is that the criticism of the gameplan the end of regulation and on 4th & 1 in 3OT goes beyond the typical fan bitching about play calling or strategy.

It casts doubt on the Competitiveness of our coach. It shows the team, fans, and opposition that the staff lacks confidence in players when the game is on the line. It makes some of us question whether his coaching style can survive in the modern College Football environment.

/rant.

From over the weekend is that perhaps we are seeing a fundamental shift in how football is being played, and perhaps we are on the wrong side of history at this point. Our coach hasn’t changed his philosophy, to my eye, since he started at Iowa. Watching the games yesterday, with the amount of spread sets, and blitz packages out of base 4-3 (Jets/Cowboys was a prime example), makes me at least question how this will end up helping us.

One loss isn’t going to change the world for the team. Although this one really, really hurt. But at what point are we pushing a larger and larger boulder up a hill?

And lastly, if we have a ‘pro’ coach, show me the NFL coach who would play for overtime if given the same scenario as Saturday (even given the differences in overtime rules pro v. college). His mentor Belichick, took the Pats to their first SB win over the favored Rams, who had the momentum, by going for a score in that same type of scenario.

That we only wait to call blitzes when the opposing team is on the 5 yard line? It’s high risk/high reward. If we would’ve called blitzes earlier in the drive they probably wouldn’t be on our 5 yard line in the first place.

/Observation from 5 years ago.

I’ve Googled for about an hour now and am coming up with nothing. I’m trying to remember the last time we won a game in OT and am drawing a complete blank.

I’m also starting to wonder if KF realizes his clock management is poor enough that it just feels safer to him to go to OT and not make any mistakes trying to win.

When I am emperor, football coaches who hand back timeouts, 80 seconds of clock and a golden scoring chance can either resign or face a day in the stocks where fans are allowed to throw fruit at you.

…we’ll get all this shit sorted out by late October-ish.

I don’t care about how our skill players played. Games are won and lost in the trenches. Our offensive line was constantly getting pushed back and not opening holes. I think this says a lot for Coker. They were constantly stacking the box hitting Coker before the line of scrimmage or in the backfield a ton. Our defensive line was just pathetic. We were getting manhandled and when we did penetrate it was one defender from the outside and all Jantz had to do was skip away because we had no one on the other side to hold him home. No defense will perform well when you are chasing receivers for 6-10 seconds every play and there are very few lineman that can run down a scrambling QB on their own. With that said, If Ferentz improves these things we will look tremendously better. I will take Kirk Ferentz coaching the trenches. We will not be this bad for long.

But now I have to lisen to my neighbors laugh at my Hawkeyes as their Kellen Moore led Boise State Donkees roll ISU-type teams (and teams like Utah State Women’s College of Nursing. cough!). A small part of me died on Saturday; however, as stated previously, this game does not reflect on the Big 10-12ish Conference schedule. But it sure doesn’t give me much hope! I just hope they fix themselves, otherwise next week makes me nervous!

I thought that Ferentz played the end of regulation correctly. I thought so against OSU in 2009, and I thought so again on Saturday. That is to say, he ran the ball, saw what was there, but didn’t try to force anything downfield.

I did think he should have gone for it on 4th and 1, but I think not going for it is a defensible position. And it’s not like he hasn’t gone for 4th and 1 before, http://scores.espn.go.com/ncf/recap?gameId=282780127 so I don’t buy that as some “philosophical flaw.”

As the only person from my HS class who attended Iowa (the majority of my classmates went to ISU), I am getting verbally executed by my ISU friends.Comments of which include, “Should have went to Iowa State, Keith!” NO. I didn’t choose to study at Iowa because of the success of the football program.

Even if the Hawkeyes went 0-12, at least I don’t have to live in Ames. Which is a victory in itself.

and two of them appeared to be coaching-related.

1. As discussed above, we threw away the mix of plays we had in the first quarter which gave us a 10-point lead. VDB had been throwing a beautiful mid-range and deep ball. Why they quit even trying for large parts of the second half, I don’t understand. Perhaps they thought we could go back to it later but by then, VDB seemed out of rhythm.

2. We couldn’t tackle. As well as we played in the first quarter, it still should have been 10-7. ISU tried as hard as they could to give the game to us in regulation, and traditionally, we make them pay for fumbles and missed field goal attempts. But when ISU ran, the first man to the ball oftentimes whiffed. Our open-field tackling, a hallmark of the early 2000s teams, was awful. It seemed they always got 3 or more additional yards after contact. Wen ISU passed, he 4 man rush generally did nothing, to the point where Jantz looked like Chuck Long with all the time he had back there, but when we did blitz or did occasionally penetrate with 4, we couldn’t tackle. Jantz was most dangerous when we DID get into the backfield, because he’d simply scramble out past the flailing arms of our defenders and hit the open man. Yes, our d-backfield made a lot of mistakes, but you can’t continually expect them to blanket cover for a 5 to 6-count.

3. Obviously, game management. The wound is bad enough, but the salt poured in is what really stings. Despite going away from what had us scoring, despite not being able to tackle and allowing ISU to run and pass all over us, here we are with a chance to win at the end, one we frankly didn’t deserve, and we don’t take it. To me, the decisions by Ferentz at the end of regulation and in OT3 were borne of systemized thought. The problem is that because of the way the teams were playing at the time, Ferentz’ decisions end up as systemized thought taken to the point of absurdity.

This hurts all by itself but then add to that the impression it conveys, that we didn’t go for the win. It’s offensive, and I don’t mean running or passing. And it cuts deep and doesn’t go away easily, just ask Ara Parseghian (and he got away with it). Further, many of us watch this as fans of the man who resurrected this program, Hayden Fry, who would never have done this. Finally, Ferentz has gone off-system on rare occasions. The one I can think of is going for it on 4th and 1 against MSU in ‘08 rather than kicking an under-40 yard field goal because of a situational concern, Ferentz not trusting his kicker. That failure probably didn’t encourage him. But you can also argue that the legendary ’04 safety taken against PSU was not at all by the book. That was situational, too—he trusted his defense more than his offense. Ferentz will go against “the book”—not doing it this time was a terrible mistake.

We take the package that is Kirk Ferentz, good and bad. As a cyclone fan posted here over the weekend, we often forget how well we have it. Could we do better? Maybe, but this guy fits well into Iowa and its program. Ask the ISU people how much that matters. It goes without saying we could do much worse. Yes, I’m ticked at Ferentz right now. Nothing new, I got mad at Hayden too, more than a few times. I hate that Ferentz seems to have to learn painful lessons to change. I hate that he is not a good game manager at the end, and when your program’s greatest moment happened when you failed to call timeout or know what was going on as the clock ticked away against LSU, that label sticks. I’m afraid we do have to make more defensive adjustments to the dink and dunk teams. There are a lot of things I wish he would do differently, but I won’t lose my head over this game, and I hope nobody else does, either.

A 3-4 isn’t a cure-all. The perception is that more 3-4 units like to attack, or at least attack in a way that is more fashionable for Joe Fan, while 4-3 units tend to be bend-don’t-break. You can be aggressive in both. You can be bend-don’t-break in both.

Success with either setup comes down to technique, personnel and adjustments.

I trust the Iowa staff on technique. Always will. Teaching technique is a skill in which Iowa is top shelf.

To be successful Iowa needs to be able to build pressure with its front four. It isn’t right now and, truth be told, struggled to do so last season. The Hawks have no D-Linemen worthy of a double team. Against a 5-man O-line one double team means that three other guys are one-on-one, a situation that usually favors the defense. This may change as the season goes on but no one stands out after two weeks.

As for adjustments, that’s entirely on the coaching staff. This continues to give me headaches. As “blah” as this season’s D has been (at least by our standards) the staff could fold in one wrinkle per week and give most other teams fits. And by wrinkle I mean linebacker pressure or even a basic zone blitz concept.

But aren’t adjustments a matter of teaching? Yes and no. I think the staff is able to adjust but unwilling to do it.

P.S. Look at the photo up top. We lost to a team that can’t have nice things. Ugh. My headache is back.

We are a really really REALLY young team all over the place. most of our starters this year barely played prior to this year

i honestly believe once these kids start getting game experience we will start to see some drastic improvements. Ferentz, regardless of the questions about his gameday skills, is a proven football teacher who has made unknown kids into NFL draft picks and success stories.

We will get better, i think it may even end up being hard to tell that the team that is playing in the big ten is even the same team that lost to ISU.

but yeah, we arent winning the big ten this year. next year i fully expect us to win it all

Iowa State received 2 votes (or points, someone could have put them 24th, I suppose).

WAY TO GO COACHES’ POLL!

 If any of us (yes. us. the fans. who could only dream we had the football knowledge or understanding that anyone on the coaching staff, let alone Ferentz has. Well i’m gonna assume that, since I see few DIII through DI coaches commenting on our BHGP threads) think we know what we’re talking about when it comes to defensive schemes at this level of football then Iowa really is Football Coach U.

I feel like i keep hearing or reading something along the lines of “Hey Ferentz! (anyone remember when whats-his-name the host of the Golden Harvest Hawkeye Huddle lost it because Ferentz been coaching here for over a decade now and people still don’t pronounce Ferentz correctly? I’d love if someone could get a clip/soundbite of that) Stop being a derp and switch to a not KOK offense and run a 3-4 because we don’t have the talent at d line and our backers are better and Castillo is just the worst and the Packers do it and they won the super bowl and herp a derp a herpderpderp” They know more than we do. Period. I don’t think any of us attended summer training or camp or go to meetings and practice on a daily basis.

Maybe you think our coaching staff is stuck in the past and unwilling to change. And you have a point if you’re looking at jNW or Indiana. But the idea of changing the scheme of your defense can take years to successfully apply. It all starts with your personnel and recruiting. The issue with changing our scheme, even if you think we have the personnel is the possibility of it not working and actually taking a step backwards as a program defensively.

Plus if we did switch to a 3-4 how long would it be for? A one year switch? I realize that… kinda…. worked when AIRBHG first struck and left us with Sam Brownlee. But I really believe that a switch in our overall defensive structure is a longterm move which is slow in yielding results and would, most likely, cause our defense to take a step backwards initially if not permanently.

and ISU wakes up 2-0 in the Mountain West or Conference USA. Things could be worse, we could be them.

I may have been mislead or youthfully optimistic(but I’m old) that we would have a 9+ win season because all the prognosticators were saying “we have a favorable schedule”, “they do well when expectations are low”, etc, etc…After that game it was evident, to me at least, this is going to be a long, rebuilding year. A 6-6 season doesn’t look too bad now.

This team is so young and the few seniors we do have, haven’t had the opportunity to step up and lead(I’m hoping someone does). It was only really their first game, that scrimmage with TT I don’t count, with the 1 1/2 rain delay and starters playing for about 2 1/2 quarters.

I truly believe Morris will be a stud, but as Adam mentioned he’s got a lot of development ahead to get there. JVD will be good, but he’s not that leader we need on offense yet. Clearly Ferentz doesn’t think so either…

McCall’s lost is starting to hurt more now, Coker is looking more and more like a FB to me this year. Hyde needs to be moved back to CB and Castillo back to the bench. And for god’s sake can we put some tacklers on the kickoff team?! Prater and Hyde need to spend some time doing those duties.

And lastly, Ferentz has to….aaah, nevermind….

/thinkaboutit