Iowa ran enough into 8 man fronts to keep play action a part of their plan and it worked. It worked to get DJK wide open twice and he caught one TD and dropped another. AZ was blitzing like crazy, Stanzi saw one on one coverage with McNutt and audibled to it, and it was a TD.
When teams are that aggressive, and that was one of the most aggressive blitz kreigs I have seen in a long line of teams blitzing Iowa, you take shots at them. Iowa did a lot of that.
you are not going to be able to block eight men every time..its a numbers game.
Iowa lost this game because they took themselves out of it early with self inflicted wounds. If you want to blame coaches for the players not being sharp, go ahead. But Iowa did what it should have done on offense. SOmetimes, you just dont execute 100 out of 100 times. Go figure.
You are the expert Jon, but I couldn't disagree with you more. Instead of self-inflicted wounds why don't we give Arizona credit for outplaying and outcoaching us?
1. Is inferior special teams play self-inflicted or just bad football? (Preparation and execution). While Donahue is a really good punter he takes a long time to get the kick away. Arizona knew that and this is the 3rd blocked punt of his career? And our kick coverage has been poor all year.
2. Our defense did not adjust to our exposed middle of the field and Foles and their coaches exploited it all night long.
3. And no we are not going to block 8 men every time but there were absolutely no adjustments made on that last series. And why wasn't Stanzi in the shot gun on every play of that series? He was in the gun on 4th down but he was behind center on 3rd down. Don't recall previous downs. I feel you are making excuses.
Was Stanzi still taking 5 step drops with the blitz kreig? Why not 2 step drops with a quick hit to the tight end for example? It looked to me like the receivers were still running 10-15 yard routes? Please correct me if I am wrong.
How many screen passes did we attempt during the game to slow down their rush? In my humble opinion KOK lacks the ability to adapt or show any creativity at all. Our offense is very vanilla, as is our defense, but it has been more sound than our offense with that type of scheme historically. Has Norm done a better job with preparation and in-game adjustments? Our schemes our fine if you are physically superior to your opponent, but when your opponent is just as physical and much quicker than you I believe you better mix it up a little. I believe we have an easy offense to prepare for and Arizona was prepared.
For the sake of argument, let's say the pick 6's cancel each other out, should Arizona then argue take away their own "self-inflicted" penalties the game would not have been close.
4.Yes, we were out of the game early but
we tied the game late and should have been ahead by 1. We didn't get it done when it mattered. We had every opportunity.
I know these coaches and players are working their tails off. The fatigue on KF, KOK and Phil Parker's faces was very evident. Not having Norm available I'm sure is taking it's toll. And I hope Norm gets healthy whether he coaches again or not.
I realize losing is much more frustrating for the players and coaches compared to us fans. A little dose of perspective is always good. I just don't agree with your anaylsis.