A dozen practices to work on pass game;crossing and slant patterns

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uihawk82

Well-Known Member
If you watched Mich at OSU you saw a clinic in crossing patterns against Mich's man to man coverage. OSU just demolished Mich with them. Those patterns take longer but are very hard to cover with safety or lbkr against a wideout (as we know when we try to cover them). The pass protection has to be there. The hawks run them some but many times dont throw it to the open man or wait long enough for it to develop.

And we had nearly back to back quick slants against Nebby to Easley and Fant I think and they were wide open and good throws by nate which allowed the receiver to catch and run.

What are your thoughts about the hawks passing game and the lack of quick slants and crossing patterns. We run them but not often.

These are bread and butter type plays and when defenses stuff the box with 7 to 8 players these plays should be open against man to man. The slant can be paired with a deeper post or go route and if the safety comes up and qb has time there should be a open man deep. ISM, Smith, Fant, Easley , and Hock are plenty good enough to run these patterns. And hitting these plays will back the defense up and open the run game.

What passing game improvements do you want to see in the bowl game? And I will just laugh at the usual snide remarks as I can already imagine most of them from you football wonks. Of course it depends on who we play also.
 
I think the slants are a great weapon. The problem with our receivers is most of them are body catchers so much of the RAC threat is eliminated as the cradle the ball to their body and then go down to the ground. I brought this up in another post but if you watch Smith he lets everything get to his body when he has massive hands and good athletic ability. The receivers don't pluck the ball out of the air like the should in my opinion allowing them to make a play. The last really good hands catcher we had was McNutt. If you take McNutt's hand ability and transfer it over to Smith he would be unstoppable on the under throw fade to the corner of the end zone and the crossing patterns. If Marsette caught with his hands the slants would be his bread and butter because he is so quick and fast he could not be covered.

The other problem is can Stanley lead the receivers enough to allow them to catch with their hands and keep running?

I also want to see more seams and posts and stretch the field. By getting some of those defenders out of the box will help the run game and play action. Stanley does have very good ball skills on the fakes but when you have 8-9 guys on the box your run game suffers and play action is neutralized to a point
 
uihawk82 said:
If you watched Mich at OSU you saw a clinic in crossing patterns against Mich's man to man coverage. OSU just demolished Mich with them. Those patterns take longer but are very hard to cover with safety or lbkr against a wideout (as we know when we try to cover them). The pass protection has to be there. The hawks run them some but many times dont throw it to the open man or wait long enough for it to develop.

And we had nearly back to back quick slants against Nebby to Easley and Fant I think and they were wide open and good throws by nate which allowed the receiver to catch and run.

What are your thoughts about the hawks passing game and the lack of quick slants and crossing patterns. We run them but not often.

These are bread and butter type plays and when defenses stuff the box with 7 to 8 players these plays should be open against man to man. The slant can be paired with a deeper post or go route and if the safety comes up and qb has time there should be a open man deep. ISM, Smith, Fant, Easley , and Hock are plenty good enough to run these patterns. And hitting these plays will back the defense up and open the run game.

What passing game improvements do you want to see in the bowl game? And I will just laugh at the usual snide remarks as I can already imagine most of them from you football wonks. Of course it depends on who we play also.
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Can’t add to it. You’re right.

So I’ll detract from your wishful thinking since you and I both know that these twelve practices are for fundamentals—not for new plays/schemes.
 
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Ball placement, vision, and pocket position is uber important on longer crossing routes. To get yac its gotta be a pretty tight window.

Definitely something to work on.
 
kameltoez102 said:
I think the slants are a great weapon. The problem with our receivers is most of them are body catchers so much of the RAC threat is eliminated as the cradle the ball to their body and then go down to the ground. I brought this up in another post but if you watch Smith he lets everything get to his body when he has massive hands and good athletic ability. The receivers don't pluck the ball out of the air like the should in my opinion allowing them to make a play. The last really good hands catcher we had was McNutt. If you take McNutt's hand ability and transfer it over to Smith he would be unstoppable on the under throw fade to the corner of the end zone and the crossing patterns. If Marsette caught with his hands the slants would be his bread and butter because he is so quick and fast he could not be covered.

The other problem is can Stanley lead the receivers enough to allow them to catch with their hands and keep running?

I also want to see more seams and posts and stretch the field. By getting some of those defenders out of the box will help the run game and play action. Stanley does have very good ball skills on the fakes but when you have 8-9 guys on the box your run game suffers and play action is neutralized to a point
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Look at the film of Smith making his endzone catch.
 
I think we have been running a short cross pattern with each tight end starting on the line or just off it.
 
thetrza said:
I think we have been running a short cross pattern with each tight end starting on the line or just off it.
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Yes I mentioned we run them but the TEs could each be catching 6 more passes a game. Need to hit these passes and look for them to be opened and throw them the ball
 
HawkeyeTech said:
Smith has made some tremendous hands catches this year. What games have you been watching?
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i have watched every game this year, even at airports, yes Smith has made some tremendous catches this year.

But I was replying to the other poster who typed "Look at the film of Smith making his endzone catch." without elaborating. The other poster could have meant several things and I wanted elaboration. Is that ok with you?
 
Should have been more clear, sorry. I watched the first half on my dvr last night and remember that when Brandon made the end zone catch, he clearly made that grab with his hands, then brought the ball into his body. In general, I think you over generalize when you say our receivers bring the ball into their bodies too much.. They are taught to do that when in heavy traffic so the ball is protected. Makes sense. If they are in a position for a run after catch, then you are right on: They need to catch with their hands.
 
HuckFinn said:
Should have been more clear, sorry. I watched the first half on my dvr last night and remember that when Brandon made the end zone catch, he clearly made that grab with his hands, then brought the ball into his body. In general, I think you over generalize when you say our receivers bring the ball into their bodies too much.. They are taught to do that when in heavy traffic so the ball is protected. Makes sense. If they are in a position for a run after catch, then you are right on: They need to catch with their hands.
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Receivers should catch the ball with their hands almost all the time, down low, over the shoulder and head, on swing passes, in routes, and out routes, and about the only time they do not is when the ball is coming in about waist high directly at them where they cant get their hands in a good safe catch position and they catch it in the breadbasket.

I used to watch Tim Dwight warm up on the sideline and in drills and he did a quick tuck after catching every pass so the ball was put away and protected and he was immediately in sprint mode.
 
uihawk82 said:
If you watched Mich at OSU you saw a clinic in crossing patterns against Mich's man to man coverage. OSU just demolished Mich with them. Those patterns take longer but are very hard to cover with safety or lbkr against a wideout (as we know when we try to cover them). The pass protection has to be there. The hawks run them some but many times dont throw it to the open man or wait long enough for it to develop.

And we had nearly back to back quick slants against Nebby to Easley and Fant I think and they were wide open and good throws by nate which allowed the receiver to catch and run.

What are your thoughts about the hawks passing game and the lack of quick slants and crossing patterns. We run them but not often.

These are bread and butter type plays and when defenses stuff the box with 7 to 8 players these plays should be open against man to man. The slant can be paired with a deeper post or go route and if the safety comes up and qb has time there should be a open man deep. ISM, Smith, Fant, Easley , and Hock are plenty good enough to run these patterns. And hitting these plays will back the defense up and open the run game.

What passing game improvements do you want to see in the bowl game? And I will just laugh at the usual snide remarks as I can already imagine most of them from you football wonks. Of course it depends on who we play also.
Click to expand...

Good post and I like the thought, but the problem is that half of those plays are illegal. Clemson ran a blatantly illegal rub play to beat Bama when DeShaun was QB. No flag. OSU runs them. Never flagged. The issue is that when a team like Iowa runs them, they get flagged. But the brand name teams can run them and the refs just "let them play."
 
Seth53 said:
Percentage for either Fant or TJ (or both) sitting out the bowl practices and game?
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no effin way either sits out practices/bowl game, EVEN IF they plan on going pro! They are competitors, high integrity guys. More importantly TEAM-FIRST guys. Would never in a million years leave coaches/teammates hanging like that.
 
I would not be surprised if these two guys would not only participate in the bowl game, but also would return to Iowa next season.
 
I think both guys will not be on Iowa's roster next year -- too much talent, and with Kittle lighting it up in the NFL no GM is going to let a highly ranked Iowa TE get past them. I'd say 100% Hock plays in the bowl game; Fant 50-50...as the potential first TE picked in the draft he would be risking more to play. Then again, the combination of getting thrown to so few times each game combined with him being so much bigger than the CBs and Safeties that tackle him -- the odds of injury are minimal.
 
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