How do the Hawks fix their main weakness of pass protection/pass rush?

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uihawk82

Well-Known Member
Yesterday's game showed what happens when the Hawks are not the best defensive and offensive lines. Karlauftis (the 2nd best athlete on the field after Bell), the PU DEnd and his buddies were in Petras's face or right around him consistently in 2.5 seconds , I would wager.

Our Offensive tackles our a known liability NOW if not before and the coaches got caught with two inexperienced young guys playing there but no fault of their own. The hawks need to fix this and they know it and they want to do it.

How do the coaches do this? Wisky was having passing issues so the last two games they have gone run heavy, take Mertz out of the offense except for a little bit of probably play action, and leave it to the defense and the special teams.

The hawks may have to go to two TEnds and a fullback and/or Blitz pick up guy a lot more to give max protection. Use a formation like this on first down to fake run and pass the ball. The Hawks may have to use way less of 3 wide out formations.

Goodson needs to become really good at blitz pickups.

A 2.5 second protection package should be enough to run 5-7 yard slants, TEnds 10 yards up the hashes, quick outs, and stop/sitdown passes. That is if Brian has enough pass patterns in his playbook. Brohm's passing playbook is amazing, routes all over the place and in combination. Brohm the former college and NFL qb, great offensive coordinator just knows how to pick Iowa apart. Phil Parker will need to change some with this opponent

Pass rush, well maybe more blitzes are needed. Or was Purdue's offensive line just really that good after their bye week?

How do you fix it?
 
uihawk82 said:
Yesterday's game showed what happens when the Hawks are not the best defensive and offensive lines. Karlauftis (the 2nd best athlete on the field after Bell), the PU DEnd and his buddies were in Petras's face or right around him consistently in 2.5 seconds , I would wager.

Our Offensive tackles our a known liability NOW if not before and the coaches got caught with two inexperienced young guys playing there but no fault of their own. The hawks need to fix this and they know it and they want to do it.

How do the coaches do this? Wisky was having passing issues so the last two games they have gone run heavy, take Mertz out of the offense except for a little bit of probably play action, and leave it to the defense and the special teams.

The hawks may have to go to two TEnds and a fullback and/or Blitz pick up guy a lot more to give max protection. Use a formation like this on first down to fake run and pass the ball. The Hawks may have to use way less of 3 wide out formations.

Goodson needs to become really good at blitz pickups.

A 2.5 second protection package should be enough to run 5-7 yard slants, TEnds 10 yards up the hashes, quick outs, and stop/sitdown passes. That is if Brian has enough pass patterns in his playbook. Brohm's passing playbook is amazing, routes all over the place and in combination. Brohm the former college and NFL qb, great offensive coordinator just knows how to pick Iowa apart. Phil Parker will need to change some with this opponent

Pass rush, well maybe more blitzes are needed. Or was Purdue's offensive line just really that good after their bye week?

How do you fix it?
Click to expand...
Real good ideas here. I'm struggling to add much as it is hard to do much when you have a QB that is a sitting duck, or a statue. Maybe giving him more protection like you suggest would help. Iowa has capable tight ends and our other receivers are doing a good job getting yards after the catch when they are in space. It is just getting them the ball that is a problem.

Another huge problem is Goodson getting dropped for 3 and 4 yard losses behind the line of scrimmage on first down.

A Greg Davis 3 or 4 yard pass would still be better than that. Goodson up the middle or a slow developing stretch play is a waste of a down. But, you don't want to completely abandon the run game either. How about more counters, tosses, sweeps? Maybe use that screen pass play that Penn St was using against us on the sideline.

We need to find a way to punish teams for stacking the box against us.....a problem that has plagued Kirk through his whole career at Iowa.

On Defense.......we need more effective blitz packages to keep QBs who are getting hot against us in our base packages more honest.....yet again another problem that has plagued the Parkers at Iowa.
 
HaydenHawk56 said:
Real good ideas here. I'm struggling to add much as it is hard to do much when you have a QB that is a sitting duck, or a statue. Maybe giving him more protection like you suggest would help. Iowa has capable tight ends and our other receivers are doing a good job getting yards after the catch when they are in space. It is just getting them the ball that is a problem.

Another huge problem is Goodson getting dropped for 3 and 4 yard losses behind the line of scrimmage on first down.

A Greg Davis 3 or 4 yard pass would still be better than that. Goodson up the middle or a slow developing stretch play is a waste of a down. But, you don't want to completely abandon the run game either. How about more counters, tosses, sweeps? Maybe use that screen pass play that Penn St was using against us on the sideline.

We need to find a way to punish teams for stacking the box against us.....a problem that has plagued Kirk through his whole career at Iowa.

On Defense.......we need more effective blitz packages to keep QBs who are getting hot against us in our base packages more honest.....yet again another problem that has plagued the Parkers at Iowa.
Click to expand...

Very good ideas and the quick receiver screens to the side even on first down when the opponent has 8 in the box to outflank the defense is a good idea. And I still think running our receivers deep except a TEnd over the middle and a running back quick to the outside can get easy catches and YAC.
 
Basically been thinking about this a lot all I have been doing this morning is running errands and doing odds and ends...so I have time.

Not going to shit on Richman/Dejong because at some point they will very be good it just won't be this year. So what is better 12 personnel( 2 tight ends, one runningback) or the old Jon Miller argument of spreading people out to run the football? Not to wuss out on the question, but I would like to see more of both. All due respect to Pottenbaum.

Not too worried about the defense when Iowa is in cover 4 Brohm makes the safeties have to make tough calls on whether to help the corners or not. Purdue and OSU are the only two teams in the conference that can force the safeties to make those tough calls.
 
Can we get anyone off the transfer portal and have them ready to play in 12 days? Because that's the only way you fix our woes on the line.
 
I was thinking the same as the original post. I'll be shocked if the Hawks don't come out in a 2-TE set for the entire 1st half of the Wisky game. The Badgers line up 7 guys at the LOS prior to each snap and there's no way to tell who's coming and who's dropping -- which is why the 3-4 has given Iowa fits over the years. There's no way Iowa's OLIne can handle that unpredictability without additional help from both TEs. Keep the game close until halftime, then in the 2nd half pull out every wacky formation you've got, every trick play you've been working on during the bye week, and hope to steal one on the road.
Every pass play needs to feature max protection. Every. Single. One. Half of Iowa's WRs are just running straight up the sideline and are frankly useless anyway in BF's route trees. Let's see what Mr. Petras can do with max protection.
 
While the Jon Miller suggestion to spread people out to run the ball works well for most teams, it assumes your 5 Olinemen can handle 4 Dlinemen. We know that Iowa's OLine cannot do that, so that option shouldn't even be on the table.
 
uihawk82 said:
Yesterday's game showed what happens when the Hawks are not the best defensive and offensive lines. Karlauftis (the 2nd best athlete on the field after Bell), the PU DEnd and his buddies were in Petras's face or right around him consistently in 2.5 seconds , I would wager.

Our Offensive tackles our a known liability NOW if not before and the coaches got caught with two inexperienced young guys playing there but no fault of their own. The hawks need to fix this and they know it and they want to do it.

How do the coaches do this? Wisky was having passing issues so the last two games they have gone run heavy, take Mertz out of the offense except for a little bit of probably play action, and leave it to the defense and the special teams.

The hawks may have to go to two TEnds and a fullback and/or Blitz pick up guy a lot more to give max protection. Use a formation like this on first down to fake run and pass the ball. The Hawks may have to use way less of 3 wide out formations.

Goodson needs to become really good at blitz pickups.

A 2.5 second protection package should be enough to run 5-7 yard slants, TEnds 10 yards up the hashes, quick outs, and stop/sitdown passes. That is if Brian has enough pass patterns in his playbook. Brohm's passing playbook is amazing, routes all over the place and in combination. Brohm the former college and NFL qb, great offensive coordinator just knows how to pick Iowa apart. Phil Parker will need to change some with this opponent

Pass rush, well maybe more blitzes are needed. Or was Purdue's offensive line just really that good after their bye week?

How do you fix it?
Click to expand...
Brohm is a great offensive mind and the Boilers were due to score more points; they threw for 370 against Minnesota, had a RB go for 95 but somehow only scored 13.

But a huge story (as you elude to) was the complete lack of pass rush, which allowed Purdue's receivers to run double move after double move. O'Connell also was tall and had a high release, so Iowa's d linemen never had a shot at knocking down the ball. I have given up on most of the upperclassmen on the defensive line and would rather see more of Van Ness and Craig.

Blitzing isn't part of Iowa's scheme and I find it unlikely they can add it in effectively with one extra week midseason.
 
okeefe4prez said:
Can we get anyone off the transfer portal and have them ready to play in 12 days? Because that's the only way you fix our woes on the line.
Click to expand...
Maybe spread the splits out some on passing downs and drop Spence a yard or two in the gun on those too.

Really hard to do with one week of practice, but maybe with two maybe you could get it done.

This is one year where the H back set needs to be used to give us some blocking help. Miss sarge in that backfield a whole lot for his pass blocking.

I know it wouldn't have helped Saturday because Latchey was out, but maybe swap in Pottebaum for the Hback wherever Karlaftis was so he couldn't push pull and bull rush all day long.

It severely limits your downfield passing ability to not have the three wides, but that doesn't matter when you can't even get the ball off.
 
SmokeTownHawk said:
Can you have a quarterback make that change in mid-season?
Click to expand...
Probably not one with the mobility problem Petras has. But just backing him up before the drop and going wider on the splits would give him a heartbeat more time and that might make a lot of difference.
 
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