lightning1
Well-Known Member
He's getting better.
Brian Ferentz - How do you like me now?
- Thread starter WinOneThisCentury
- Start date
Ree4
Well-Known Member
tksirius
HN's Love Doctor
Unlike the Ferentz groupies, I can be objective and give praise as well as criticism. Brian has done a better job this year so far. That being said, that stat might be a lil misleading. Currently, Iowa is 78th in total offense. Let's be honest. If the D was 78th in total D, we wouldn't be 6-1.@tksirius again with that stat!
Ree4
Well-Known Member
Hah all I was saying is that the biggest stats that matter to the Ferentzes are these two, and I'm happy to see that we are dominant in both. Ball control, methodical teams like Iowa's tend to be underrated when using total yards for offense while defense would be overrated using total yards (since their total number of possessions would generally be lower than teams without the same game plan).
I would absolutely agree, you have been giving some credit to BF and I hope that it doesn't come back to bite us
Hopefully you don't get an "I told you so" moment and I bet you hope for the same thing.
78th is still an improvement over what it has been though!
deanvogs
Well-Known Member
Does it really matter where total offense lands when we are scoring so many points per possession? This week we had horrible weather, so we took the air out of the ball and slam ball and ground out an impressive win yet again. But we dropped in total offense stats while doing so. We were averaging 412 YPG, but with the horrible weather this weekend we dropped to 397 YPG now. In the scheme of things does it really matter? Is our offense really that much worse now, or did we scratch where it itched and got yet another dominating never in doubt win?
AreWeThereYet
Well-Known Member
Against FBS power 5 opponents that the rank for total offense goes up to #54 (Yards/Game). If you look at Yards/Play against power 5 opponents the rank goes up to #42.
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tksirius
HN's Love Doctor
Well, our offense is still worse than the KOK era, so....
tksirius
HN's Love Doctor
So what you're saying is even after manipulating the data, we're still not in the top 40. If Phil's defense was 78th and Brian's offense was 3rd, I highly doubt y'all would be riding Phil's lap like y'all do Brian's. Let's try to be objective, folks.
BigD
Well-Known Member
Hah all I was saying is that the biggest stats that matter to the Ferentzes are these two, and I'm happy to see that we are dominant in both. Ball control, methodical teams like Iowa's tend to be underrated when using total yards for offense while defense would be overrated using total yards (since their total number of possessions would generally be lower than teams without the same game plan).
I would absolutely agree, you have been giving some credit to BF and I hope that it doesn't come back to bite us
Hopefully you don't get an "I told you so" moment and I bet you hope for the same thing.
78th is still an improvement over what it has been though!
^^^^^^^^^^^^ last sentence is sad^^^^^^^^^^^
None the less Brian is showing life and I hope he continues on in the right direction.
AreWeThereYet
Well-Known Member
Call it manipulation if you wish. I will maintain that data against power five teams is far more relevant. Just remember the numbers went in the opposite direction for the bulk of teams. Ranking #54 against opponents at your level is more relevant than how much you ran up the score on UTEP.
Yards per play against power 5 opponents is also a relevant of how well the team is moving the ball. That measure is a little more independent of the clock than yards per game. I'm not saying this is an offensively oriented team by any stretch of the imagination, but a ranking of #42 on yards per play is workable if you have a really good defense.
Iowa is also #18 in time of possession against P5 teams (#10 over all TOP). Their number of plays per game 59 is also very low (no rankings). That's kind of a neat trick if you can get a half way decent yards/game, a low number of plays per game, and still have a high TOP.
( Note this is all FBS against P5 ranking, not P5 against P5. We aren't dealing with a smaller sample of teams. )
Ree4
Well-Known Member
I think you missed the point of my entire post if you focused on the last sentence...
But obviously both of those numbers are influenced by the Hawk's style, i.e. fewer snaps per game and fewer possessions per game. That will necessarily decrease the yards/game for the offense as well as the defense. Which is why it makes more sense to focus on the per possession #s.
I am not sure why we are always pitting our own O against our own D. The D is awesome, one of the best in the nation by many metrics. The O is much improved, and above average in many metrics (among the best in the nation in a few like pts/possession, 3rd down production, etc.). I don't get the, "Yeah, but they're not as good as the D" or "They're not as good as KOK's offenses" stuff.
Maybe some are lap-riding. I think most are just pointing out that many of this board unequivocally stated the BF did not know football, that he was unqualified for this job, and that the offense would always be awful as long as he was in charge. Others were saying, "Let's wait and see, there were a lot of factors working against the O last year, and we saw some rays of light."
So far, it looks like the "wait and see" position was the wiser one to adopt.
BigD
Well-Known Member
I wasn’t criticizing your comments but agreeing with them. It is however sad that that low of a ranking is a big improvement as that ranking should not be acceptable to anyone. With the facilities we have, the fan support the multiples of millions that comes in from the BTN, ticket sales, and other revenue makers there is absolutely no reason Iowa can’t at the very least produce a top forty offense year in and year out. At least that’s how I feel about it. There may be apologist who want to argue and dispute this and they are entitled to their opinions. I just don’t buy it.
I liked to see someone name forty power five programs that can match Iowa’s annual revenue, quality of facilities, and fan loyalty. It ain’t happening.
27th among P5 in points per play.
https://www.teamrankings.com/college-football/stat/points-per-play
18th among P5 in ESPN's offensive efficiency rankings:
http://www.espn.com/college-football/statistics/teamratings/_/sort/offEfficiency/tab/efficiency
I am sure you feel much better about those numbers.
It is odd, most basketball fans have realized for several years that comparing absolute pts/game #s (offensively or defensively) is flawed due to different playing styles and different numbers of possessions per game. It is more appropriate to focus on per-possession #s. That idea has not sunk home among football fans for some reason.
earlkoppelman
Well-Known Member
Cap allowing the Offense to Breath? Improvement yes.Playing to Win. Not to not Lose. ***! Next Big Step pleese..
I would imagine pretty similar. Take out N. Illinois (poor offensive performance) and UNI (good offensive performance) and it will probably look about the same.
I think this misses the point of Iowa's game plan. We're 10th in the nation in time of possession. We want to grind it out, wear them down, and give our best unit time to rest. That contributes to our defense being in the top 5 for both scoring and yards.
Looking at the stats, we can only do 9 spots better than that on offense. Interestingly, two of those are occupied by Wisconsin and Michigan, 40th and 28th respectively in scoring offense. We're at 56th (30.9ppg). To me, that seems about right. It's pretty difficult for a ball control offense to put up more than 40 points in a game and it seems like our offense has at least one head scratcher of a drive every game that leaves points on the field. If we kick a field goal on those drives, we're Wisconsin at 33ppg. If we score a TD, we're Michigan at 36ppg. That puts us about 80-90% of the way there. Spot on with the 30.9ppg we were in 2015. I'll take that if it's done consistently, but I would love to see that last 10-20% that would make us a truly dominant team.
If you've made it this far, God bless you for making it through my ramblings.
