It's the Running Backs Stupid

W

WinOneThisCentury

Well-Known Member
In light of the fact that two of our offensive tackles were drafted, one with the 5th pick, and we likely have a guard also (Blythe) that will go in the top 2-3 rounds (if not higher depending on the coming season), how do you explain the abysmal performance of the 2014 running game? We also had a very physical FBs and TEs.

1) Poor Gameplan / Play Calling by the OC
2) Poor offensive line play blocking schemes?
3) Injuries
4) Poor Running Back Performance

Although certainly all had some impact on the eventual result, #4 bears the most responsibility...and it's not even close. The reality is that we didn't have a TB that would start AT TAILBACK anywhere else in the B10. Hell, likely be second team is probably more ACCURATE. I get you have Daniels go down with an injury, then Canzeri gets hurt, but how you go with Weisman at TB as long as we did is ridiculous. Wadley was the only one that showed any of the skill you need to play Division 1 football at the running back position. I get he had an issue with putting the ball on the ground (two lost fumbles in 33 attempts), but when you don't have anyone else who can play...he should have gotten more chances.

People can point to the Rudock-Beathard fiasco and say that was the downfall to the late season swoon. The reality is a decent threat at the running back position would have certainly helped the passing game. We did nothing on the ground in any of the games we lost. Why was Mitchell on the bench at WR all year? How does Wadley get no carries against Nebraska?

KF's conservative nature was on display all year and it's likely put him in a make or break year. Even Barta's got to realize that he's in everyone's top 5 overpaid and underperforming coach's list...and it's only going to get worse. With another 7-6 performance against a very, very favorable schedule...I don't think KF will get 2016.
 


#1. When the fans know that every audible is a short pass to the flat from Mr. Happy Feet, it's not hard for real DC's to stop that offense. Or the other audible of a run to the short side of the field.
#2. The best RB not getting the playing time because they can't pick up an 11 man blitz against a defense that knows exactly what our offense is doing.
#3. No vertical threat in the passing game. No game breakers at the skill positions. See Recruiting.
 


Very little counter play action in the running game which can sometimes lead to big plays, see J Parker's 60 yard jet sweep vs jNW IIRC. When you dont make the defense hold guys back against a potential counter play then even a good Oline is going to have trouble consistently blocking against 8 man fronts.

All the items you mention are true, really good football teams do have a synergy where the whole is much bigger than the sum of the parts and a lot of that is due to trickery in play calling. Smash the ball down someone's throat and then 4 big plays over the top gets you 28 points.
 


See the Wegher thread. Really haven't had a runningback to fit the scheme since '09. Even someone like A-Rob who wasn't overly athletic understood how to run in this scheme.

Basically, we have seen d-coordinators let their linebackers run loose without worrying about cutbacks.........strong side DE(s) and LB(s) just crashing the backside because Coker/Weisman couldn't get the footwork down to make them pay.

The bread and butter has been the outside zone run that looks like an off tackle run. Where it starts inside and then bounces outside. Not sure why exactly Coker/Weisman had a lot of success running it.......maybe because it didn't require that much footwork to be successful.
 


This is what I am getting at.....watch the highlights Coker/Weisman success came on the inside/outside zone stuff. Imo, what got Iowa in trouble is repeatedly running the stretch plays off the hip/butt of the tackle Coker/Weisman could never or wasn't capable of getting the footwork down.

[video=youtube;kCPsxoU3zWI]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kCPsxoU3zWI[/video]
 


thanks for posting the videos. I've forgotten about a number of those plays. Whats interesting is that many of those, he wasn't touched for 10 yards. Imagine how long some of those runs would have been if the RB was as good reading the OLine and had the break away speed.

On a tangent, most of those were against weak opponents.
 


NCHawker said:
thanks for posting the videos. I've forgotten about a number of those plays. Whats interesting is that many of those, he wasn't touched for 10 yards. Imagine how long some of those runs would have been if the RB was as good reading the OLine and had the break away speed.

On a tangent, most of those were against weak opponents.
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Agreed. My point is why repeatedly run stretch plays with Coker/Wiesman. Since Iowa couldn't find a change of pace back who complemented them, why not placate to their strengths. That is why KOK's playcalling/gameplan was so great in the Insight bowl they simply went with what Coker did best.
 
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to be fair, Weisman seemed to run better when he was a healthy sophomore. but the consensus was that he got too many caries early in the season and was not healthy enough to be productive in late season.

So the plan was to use him early in his senior season, but that pretty much backfired. If he would have been used more against weak Iowa St and Ball St, maybe Iowa wins those games by double digits. Then later when he would have gotten hurt like he always does, Iowa could have switched to Wadley at that point.
 


Did you watch any of the games this past year? I don't know where you're getting this idea that Ferentz has been more conservative than normal. I remember people going crazy because he was going for it on 4th down so much.
I know he has been overly conservative throughout his tenure, but seriously he played either Wadley or Parker at RB and didn't pull him until about their 3rd fumble in about 2 games.
I get that people don't like Ferentz, but he didn't just go with the status quo last year.
 


guffus said:
to be fair, Weisman seemed to run better when he was a healthy sophomore. but the consensus was that he got too many caries early in the season and was not healthy enough to be productive in late season.

So the plan was to use him early in his senior season, but that pretty much backfired. If he would have been used more against weak Iowa St and Ball St, maybe Iowa wins those games by double digits. Then later when he would have gotten hurt like he always does, Iowa could have switched to Wadley at that point.
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Or Maryland......Imo, it is inexcusable.
 


Iowa has several talented running backs on the roster and I believe that the team will run the ball well this year.
 




Mademyaccount4u said:
Did you watch any of the games this past year? I don't know where you're getting this idea that Ferentz has been more conservative than normal. I remember people going crazy because he was going for it on 4th down so much.
I know he has been overly conservative throughout his tenure, but seriously he played either Wadley or Parker at RB and didn't pull him until about their 3rd fumble in about 2 games.
I get that people don't like Ferentz, but he didn't just go with the status quo last year.
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He did go for it on 4th down more but that doesn't mean that the play calling that lead up to those 4th downs were well designed or creative. The pro-style offense needs skill position players to make it efficient. That's always been lacking in KF's Iowa teams and the offensive output and rankings have told that tale.
Look at the 2002 skill positions. Brad Banks could run and throw. Fred Russell. Dallas Clark. Mo Brown and CJ Jones. All of that to go along with NFL level OL-men.
 


lightning1 said:
He did go for it on 4th down more but that doesn't mean that the play calling that lead up to those 4th downs were well designed or creative. The pro-style offense needs skill position players to make it efficient. That's always been lacking in KF's Iowa teams and the offensive output and rankings have told that tale.
Look at the 2002 skill positions. Brad Banks could run and throw. Fred Russell. Dallas Clark. Mo Brown and CJ Jones. All of that to go along with NFL level OL-men.
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Ding, ding, ding...we have a winner. Look at 2008, you had a legitimate NFL running back (top tier) in Shonn Greene. He was a the last one we have had. Certainly Wegher and Robinson were good...but not top tier as freshmen. They were good though. We have to recruit better at RB IMO. That being said, I'm hopeful that Wadley, Mitchell, and Daniels can make progress toward making plays.
 


Nobody would argue that we haven't had serious problems at the running back position for many years but anyone who thinks Wadley was ready to play major minutes ahead of Weisman last year is toking the bong a little too hard.
 


Hmmm, that's strange. We didn't have a 100 yard rusher until about the 7th game of the season...and that just happened to be the first game Wadley got to play. His yards per carry were double Weisman's...and he only played during the Big 10. Weisman stuck the bed going against cupcakes.


BlindDogScooter said:
Nobody would argue that we haven't had serious problems at the running back position for many years but anyone who thinks Wadley was ready to play major minutes ahead of Weisman last year is toking the bong a little too hard.
Click to expand...
 


iowalaw said:
Hmmm, that's strange. We didn't have a 100 yard rusher until about the 7th game of the season...and that just happened to be the first game Wadley got to play. His yards per carry were double Weisman's...and he only played during the Big 10. Weisman stuck the bed going against cupcakes.
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....really?

I love how you twist reality to fit your biased opinions.

Wadley's "strong" performances were mostly in garbage time of two blowout games. In the final three games of the year, he had a combined 9 carries for 12 yards. And he put the ball on the ground multiple times.

Yes, I think Wadley may be a decent RB when all is said and done. But showing flashes as a freshman doesn't mean that you just automatically insert the guy as the starter. He only got carries at all because of injuries to other players.
 


That video was fun to watch I needed that on a Monday morning... So much of Weismans success was that the blocking on a lot of those was just text book. When he was healthy he wasn't bad by any means. I'd rather watch a guy run through someone then out run them as a fan any day but that's just me. Yet to fall in love with him the way Iowa did/had to was in and of itself not good. It's unrealistic to use a guy with that running style for that many touches. For two obvious reasons RBs wear down and the play calling gets predictable with a runner like him.

Yet I don't think (for the benefit of the doubt they probably don't deserve)that the coaches intended for Weisman to be the man the following year either so they wanted to get all millage out of him as they could... It may have been just a hindsight deal where yea if they knew/thought Weisman was going to be the man for almost 3 yrs that they wouldn't have ran him like crazy the first one...

That Oline this last year was just so disapointing to me.. You can count on one hand almost the amount of runs where the back was able to get 5 yards down field before getting touched... Almost a third of Weismans carries on that video show he had more then that.
 


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