Grading our coaching staff

[KCHawkeye]

Thanks, pc. So what I hear you say is that that there was a lack of preparation mentally. This resulted in a lack of concentration during the game. Wrong routes, plays just didn't go, etc.

I think It's getting late in the year to not be on the same page or not to be prepared. We are missing a few key people and that has hurt us. It's the responsibility of the coaches to figure it out.

Maybe you are right though, pc. We just had a bad day and there wasn't anything the coaches could do about it.

 

[hawkdoctor]

Nice post CP.

 

[SeattleHawkeye]

Very nice post, CP. Do you think it matters or should coaches receive more or less credit b/c they're coordinators? I understand it's tough for coaches to understand what they're doing in-game (as in they get caught up in the game and don't realize they just did something that many fans noticed)? My counter to your post would be, KOK calls the O and Norm (or whoever is filling in) the D, so when the other unit is on the field, shouldn't they be able to discuss, analyze and brainstorm to review play / call options? Also, over the years a number of people called for KOK to get up in the booth. Any thoughts?

 

[CP87]

KCHawkeye,

Ultimately the coaches are responsible for the product on the field, even things like penalties and dropped passes. I think the Hawkeye coaches always do a nice job of accepting that responsibility.

However, we also need to appreciate that they are striving to coax consistency out of 20 year old males (I know I wasn't always reliable at that age). If they chronically come up short in that regard, it definitely reflects on their job performance. Michigan's defense this year would be a good example of chronic poor execution, although even then it is not surprising when you look at the number of true freshmen they have been forced to play. However, Iowa has generally executed well this year, and they are traditionally among the least penalized teams in the nation, so today's game was not so much reflective of a pattern of ineptitude, but rather a bit of an anomaly.

Back to your point, execution was not sharp today, so yes, that does come down to the coaches. You will see many great coaching staffs have similar failures each and every week of the college FB season, but that absolves no one of responsibility. I am confident that a better Iowa team will step on the field next week, and hopefully we will see another win.

 

[CP87]

Very nice post, CP. Do you think it matters or should coaches receive more or less credit b/c they're coordinators? I understand it's tough for coaches to understand what they're doing in-game (as in they get caught up in the game and don't realize they just did something that many fans noticed)? My counter to your post would be, KOK calls the O and Norm (or whoever is filling in) the D, so when the other unit is on the field, shouldn't they be able to discuss, analyze and brainstorm to review play / call options? Also, over the years a number of people called for KOK to get up in the booth. Any thoughts?

I certainly am not an expert on FB strategy, but as I argued in my original post, I did not think that the offense had much need for changing strategies today. They certainly seemed to get the job done at the end when it mattered. Some people that know the Hawkeye O better than I, or who have access to the coaches tape may disagree, but it seemed like the general strategy was sound all game. As for Coach O'Keefe being in the booth, as guess as long as there are some reliable pairs of eyes up there, him being on the sideline should be fine.

The defense was also pretty solid today, holding Indiana to punts on 4 of the first 5 possessions of the second half. They blitzed a little early and had absolutely no success because of how quickly Chappell gets rid of the ball. It seems like they then tightened up their corners a bit (Hyde had a few great plays on slants) and focused on dropping everyone. It was very successful, save for the last drive. I am always surprised that Iowa does not utilize nickel packages in such situations, but more often than not it seems to work out for them.

Out of curiosity, does anyone know what happened on the last play? What coverage were they in (it looked like Cover 2 to me, but not sure)? If 2, then a LB typically has the middle third (Morris and Hunter were both underneath Belcher), and if the QB has to loft it over the LB, the safeties usually have enough time to make a play. Were our safeties out of position? Was that the wrong defense to be in for that situation?

 

[hawkfan2679]

Out of curiosity, does anyone know what happened on the last play? What coverage were they in (it looked like Cover 2 to me, but not sure)? If 2, then a LB typically has the middle third (Morris and Hunter were both underneath Belcher), and if the QB has to loft it over the LB, the safeties usually have enough time to make a play. Were our safeties out of position? Was that the wrong defense to be in for that situation?

I didn't record the game or else I'd go check. It seemed like some form of cover 2...the cover 2 you are describing is more of a Tampa 2, where the Mike (Morris) runs with the inside vertical route or, if the inside route breaks in or out, bails to a deep 1/3rd. I'm pretty sure we rushed 4 on that play, which means we should have had 5 underneath and 2 over the top, but somebody missed an assignment because we had 3 guys who were completely left to spectate whether Belcher would win or lose that game for Indiana. Thankfully...he dropped it.

 

[CP87]

Isn't Iowa's cover 2 pretty much always a Tampa 2? Or anyone else who runs cover 2 at the college or pro level, for that matter?

 

[hawkfan2679]

Isn't Iowa's cover 2 pretty much always a Tampa 2? Or anyone else who runs cover 2 at the college or pro level, for that matter?

In the nature of our bend but don't break defense, we drop our Mike LB's pretty deep in order to allow our safeties more time to fly over the top on deep balls down the middle. This also opens up the underneath though, which is where we were seemingly burned quite a bit today. But I don't think we're asking our MLB too often to carry that deep route past a certain point...just enough to make the QB put air under the ball.

 

[CP87]

Thanks for clarifying. I am usually watching on TV, so of course I can't see the whole field. I remember going to a few games in Kinnick during the Hodge/Greenway era and being amazed at how fast Greenway got back and covered the middle third, and just assumed that was pretty much the way that they always run it.

I saw someone on a separate thread suggested that they should have been cover 3. Would that have been a better strategy in this case? I suppose Iowa was not just thinking "keep them out of the endzone" because it was not the last play of the game, they also had to think "don't give up the first down," so they had to defend the intermediate stuff as well. What did Iowa play most of the game?

 

[hawkfan2679]

I saw someone on a separate thread suggested that they should have been cover 3. Would that have been a better strategy in this case? I suppose Iowa was not just thinking "keep them out of the endzone" because it was not the last play of the game, they also had to think "don't give up the first down," so they had to defend the intermediate stuff as well. What did Iowa play most of the game?

I'm like you...only able to watch on TV. But I thought about cover 3 as well...if you do that, you've got the end zone covered, but with only 4 underneath defenders, it would have compromised our short pass coverage, unless we decided to rush 3. It wasn't like that play was the final play of the game...they could have gotten a first down inside the 10 and killed the clock and still had time to run a few more plays, IIRC.

We certainly mixed in some 3-4 looks, but a lot of the time it didn't seem to really serve it's purpose. They still were able to hit the short stuff...whether it was the outside LB's not getting to their landmarks or the CB's giving too much cushion, Indiana still was able to feast using the short passing game. We're generally a pattern read cover 2/cover 4 team, but we'll OCCASIONALLY mix in some cover 3 and even less man free. For example, I think the Sash-to-Hyde lateral play was man free (at least I think so...we only had 6 in coverage), as Sash was supposed to cover the TE 1 on 1, but when he stayed in to block, Sash went with his instincts and undercut the MSU route.