A sober viewer's perspective

M

Maroons19

Well-Known Member
I have the perspective of watching the game sober b/c I'm a little under the weather, so my take may be a little different than other's. I thought for the most part the defense played great. They played their typical tough, bend but don't break. They hit hard, flew to the ball and tackled well. Unfortunatley during that last drive Foles made an All-American throw and his received made a Playboy All-American catch on that 50 yarder to get deep into our territory. Foles capped it off with a perfect (can't overstated how good it was) TD throw on the slant. I'm a chaos theory guy, so I do not think AZ's TD drive happens the exact same way if Iowa makes the extra point to go on top. The pressure on AZ had Iowa gone up would have been 10 fold compared go coming out with the game tied on the last drive.

For the most part I thought STanzi played well, especially considering he had no run game to lean on. He protected the ball (McNutt's tipped interception was on McNutt), took his shots downfield. He threw a couple errant passes, but the DJK bomb in the second quarter needed to get caught. The last drive was obviously a comedy of errors for the Hawks, but frankly, I put that on O'Keefe. No screen pass, no quick hitters, Stanzi not in shot gun, no moving the pocket. Apparently we were supposed to block 7 guys with 6. It's been no secret I think O'Keefe is terrible at making adjustments. Iowa's offensive statisical rankings the past 12 years speak for themself.

That being said, we all know by now that Iowa wins games with field position and special teams. You completely lay a special teams turd and it's frankly amazing we didn't get routed. Seriously, the fact that this team stayed at it and put itself in a position to win is amazing. Still think we can win the Big 10, but we need Jewel to do it. Hope he is okay.
 
Good stuff all around with that post.

I would like to see some screens and slants to combat the blitz Iowa is going to see the rest of the season.

The SP were awful last night but the loss goes on everyone.

I'm sick to my stomach worried about Jewel.

Paki injury was awful to watch. What's going on? Are these new and improved helmets anything but? Guys were running this fast and hitting this hard 10-20 years ago and concussions still happened but not at this alarming rate across the country. I'm offically very concerned someone is seriously going to get hurt.
 
You made a lot of good points:

- Arizona did indeed make some great plays. They made some very good throws and very good catches. Arizona simply made more plays that Iowa did. Iowa had their opportunities to make big plays, most of which were to no avail.

- Stanzi did play well, overall. The pick six was not his fault. Maybe it was a tad behind McNutt, but his still should have caught it. It was just bad luck that it deflected right into Wade's lap.

- It was not Stanzi's fault that the OL couldn't block their way out of a paper bag last night. Stanzi had to be the entire offense, accordingly, and he responded well.

- Arizona has to be credited for taking Iowa completely off of their game plan. No run game? Crappy field position? Poor special teams? How entirely un-Ferentzlike. Yet we were tied with 8 minutes to go.


Any way you look at this, you can not walk away without acknowldging both positives and negatives. Its bad that Iowa put themselves in such a deep hole, but good that they were able to climb out of it. Its good that Stanzi was able to move the ball despite not having a run game, but bad that he had to. Every unit made their share of both really bad and really good plays.

So what does this all boil down to: The Hawkeyes were not good enough on Saturday, September 18th to play Arizona on the road, but their is ample evidence that they can still be a very good team and all but the loftiest goal are still well within reach.

I personally want a rematch in the Rose Bowl!
 
What is wrong with Jewel???

I agree with the analysis. If we don't come up with some out patterns on the quick plays/blitzes, we are &#*%ed...
 
I 100% agree about the missed XP.

Was I the only one screaming for the WR bubble screen on the last drive?
 
Maroons19 said:
...Iowa's offensive statisical rankings the past 12 years speak for themselves..
Click to expand...

Pretty much sums it up. Shame too...just a little better offensive production over that time and who knows where this program would be at? Honestly think Iowa would have played for NC couple times (including this year)...probably one won.

Have we ever had a a real good QB over this time period? Would it be that hard to recruit a real good QB? And NFL potential QB? .......would our coaches know what to do with him?
 
DuffMan said:
I 100% agree about the missed XP.

Was I the only one screaming for the WR bubble screen on the last drive?
Click to expand...

Nope... I think I would have tried the bubble to both sides of the field.
Was I the only one screaming for a hard count on the first play of that drive? They were bring everything and not hiding it. Ciould have drawn them off or at very least prevented them from jumping the count. Oh well it is what it is and I have to say that ofter the initial shock of the start of the game, I was proud of how Iowa fought back into it.

Some really great posts on this thread.
 
Our team showed a ton of heart last night to be able to fight their way back into that game. How many teams in this country could have come back in the second half like that after having such an awful first half??? You have be proud of how our team never gave up and came up just short of a W.
GO HAWKS!
 
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