Did Iowa Use Up All Their Trick Plays?

[MelroseHawkins]

Since we had a run of special teams trick plays, our opponents are leaving their base defense on the field more often. So the opportunities are not there.

But the fact that we're forcing them to leave their base defense on the field more often has likely led to more success with our special teams, which have been very good in the last 3 years.

This actually is a great point and points to why teams should run one every once-in-awhile. This to keep teams off balance. The coaches are obviously watching for the formations and have plays locked and loaded if they choose to use them.

 

[homes]

#3 in the nation in Football Outsiders Special Teams efficiency metric (#16 each of the last 2 years).

It wasn’t long ago that a lot of people thought Woods should be fired. Those people are called “fans” not “coaches”.

 

[CP87]

It wasn’t long ago that a lot of people thought Woods should be fired. Those people are called “fans” not “coaches”.

But many aspects of special teams (kicking routine FGs, covering punts, covering KOs, etc.) are things that if they are done well, they don't really get noticed. But when their is a mix-up (say, botching 2 punt returns against Wisconsin), everyone notices. And even though the coach may have put the players in perfect position to succeed, sometimes things happen. So we make our decisions based upon a couple plays the coach had little control over, and we ignore the dozens of other plays that went really well.

That, and trotting out a shanktastic punter for 2 full seasons gets laid at his feet, but that is probably more of a programmatic failure from the top down, as opposed to a ST coordinator failure.

 

[Ree4]

The two years prior to this year we've seen Iowa run a couple fancy trick plays, in particular, fake field goals that were successful. This year we have not seen one lick of a trick play. We've seen some different plays the last two weeks but not trick plays at all. Hell, we haven't even seen a Flea Flicker all year. Not one, what I would call, trick play.

I'm not harping on coaches or anything for not calling them, it just dawned on me and I found rather strange when thinking about it compared to the last two years.

I'm pretty sure on more than a few occasions on field goals we lined up in a weird formation, didn't get the look we wanted and switched back. It happened early in the season. I think they eventually gave up trying to get the look because teams weren't getting fooled.

 

[MelroseHawkins]

I'm pretty sure on more than a few occasions on field goals we lined up in a weird formation, didn't get the look we wanted and switched back. It happened early in the season. I think they eventually gave up trying to get the look because teams weren't getting fooled.

I do remember that.

 

[Xerxes]

Does it could as a trick play if you run on 3rd and long?

 

[ICHawk24]

Since Levar Woods became Special Teams Coordinator in March 2017, our kickoff coverage national ranks:

http://cfbstats.com/2019/leader/national/team/defense/split01/category05/sort01.html

2019: 10
2018: 8
2018: 6