It is truly remarkable that there are fans out there that think a play doesn't have to be blocked. We have reached a point in our society where somebody makes up their mind ahead of time and then all the facts they look at bear out what they want to see. If the play doesn't get blocked it's not going to go anywhere. Jordan Canzeri would not of made that play work, man alive I don't get it.
And incidentally that freshman quarterback for LSU who couldn't pass was a four star superstar quarterback who was fast and got offered by everybody in the country. He also had a month to prepare and was the number two quarterback on a team that I am told routinely recruits fantastic football players 2 and 3 and 4 deep....what's that tell you?!
i've got a couple buddies at work we laugh all the time at what seems to be a pretty ridiculous play call that goes for 60 70 80 yards. In fact one of them has a funny comment, perfect execution does not make a bad play call good. The reverse is also true... I'm going to toss this out to the gentleman that thinks he has it figured out with the "ifs" and "should've" and then, statement! If that play out there is not blocked properly very very very rarely is it going to go anywhere. You guys can whine and gnash your teeth all you want about MW, but all it really shows is a limited understanding of running the football. There are a lot of backs in the NFL that run 4.6 and 4.7 forties. Jeremy Hill from LSU for instance ran a 4.66, it's all about blocking, power, vision, lowering your pads, and running through contact. Homerun speed is in material. I agree explosion to the hole is great, but I have a sneaking suspicion when MW runs his 10 yard dash next spring a lot of people will be real quiet. Please do the research yourself I've actually done it. I'm going to go clear back to that fateful Ohio State versus LSU game from several years back. Everyone said LSU was so much faster that's where they beat them.....When in reality Ohio stating ended up putting more kids in the NFL off that team than LSU did and to a man were mostly faster. In fact LSU had 3D-backs that ran 4.6 plus 40s and two linebackers that ran anywhere from 4.89 on up to 5.0. One of the linebackers was Ali Highsmith so you can look them up yourself and one of the D backs is Craig Stelts who still plays for the Bears.In retrospect Iowa has had very few D backs run 4.6+ 40s over the last 10 years and very few linebackers run 4.8 plus... Yet superfast LSU had five on one team. See some of these other guys they are really good with Xs and Os so I defer to them but this stuff I know this stuff as I've followed it for 10+ years because I know the speed thing is mostly bull$&$@.Again I'm not trying to be an arse to you but fans have exceptionally limited knowledge of what these NFL guys are really running. Most of the RBs in this years class, the top shelf ones all ran 4.6 plus 40s. There are gobs of 4.6 to 4.7 Dbacks in the league, safeties in particular. In fact Leonard Johnson CB from Iowa State Ran a 4.71 and went undrafted. All he did was be the primary Nickelback last year for Tampa Bay and return an INT for a touchdown.Superfast Oklahoma a few years back had 2 safeties both run 4.7+ 40s and they were prior four star players. I actually can go on and on and on with this. But I'll finish with the fairly simple question you asked. How do you separate the players well fundamentals. Who has the better football IQ, who has the better instincts, who recognizes the play the fastest and therefore reacts the fastest. Again something people don't understand. The better football player you are, the better your fundamentals are, the faster you're going to look on the field.Apparently you'd be surprised to find out that over the last 10 years Iowa routinely has fielded one of the faster defenses in college football. And even though Greg Davis said we were slow out at the wideout position we've now had several snapshots that that isn't true. I mention because what I think he really meant is good and route running ability. You talk about things like separation, well few Wrs get separation like Wes Welker and let me tell you, he isn't fast.Ps....Shonn Green looked electric on a college football field and he ran a 4.58 to. 4.62 depending on whether you used his Pro day or combine time.Pps.... Ted Ginn Jr was one of the faster players in pro football and you see how limited his career has been. He got way overdrafted because of his speed, he doesn't run good routes he doesn't catch the ball well, in short his fundamentals just aren't very good.Ppps.... Please don't think these are isolated cases I could run this down for hours if you need more examples I have them and there are lots and lots of them.Ppps.... I'm not sure why are Fans in particular are so against this. But it always comes back to fundamentals and execution. I guess maybe they think if we had faster players we would be better but in reality we have a lot of fast players. They just need to play better!