How good is this Hawkeye Defense?

W

WinOneThisCentury

Well-Known Member
I'm somewhat baffled by this question. I'm having one of those, do my eyes deceive me type of things? First things first:

Run defense - Personally, my eyes tell me we have some cracks in the armor here. Against the only OL that I've felt wasn't overmatched, ISU, there were some running lanes...and we gave up some longer runs. Nwangwu averaged 9 yards a pop. Then I look at the rushing totals and it's only 91 yards. Purdy didn't really hurt us in the running game. We held Rutgers and Miami to very little also and avg. 76 yards a game in run defense. The stats are good...but my eyes aren't convinced for some reason.

Pass Defense - Once again...through three games very good numbers. Two big plays in the passing game against Iowa State really skew things from a numbers standpoint. That being said...Miami had success throwing the ball...ISU moved the ball through the air easily as we were giving them the short stuff in the flat..and they picked on our freshman corner. The big thing here is that we are pressuring the QB, but not getting sacks. We need negative plays to make the defensive stops easier and more frequent.

Scoring Defense - Hard to argue here. Let's face it...ISU scored 17 points and 14 of it came on two plays. As easily as they moved the ball...that's pretty remarkable. Miami got two scores also...and one was an absolute great throw and the other was a jump ball.

Honestly, we are averaging giving up 10pts a game, and two of those touchdowns are attributed to a freshman corner blowing coverage. I should be thinking we have defense that could be great. I'm not feeling that way yet. There is alot to clean up after the ISU game...their tight end was open every play, we played soft...and our linebackers were clueless as to coverage half the time. We need Hankins and Brents back for sure...and Merriweather.

I'm just not yet sold on this defense. Michigan will answer some questions though.
 
I think when they are healthy the defense will be better and remember Reiff was out as a starting Dtackle. And maybe Brents as a long lean playmaker could be a really good 5th defensive back.

But I am with you that we play too much cushion and soft much of the time. I would like the corners to show press or close coverage but back out just before the snap for confusion , mix it up.
 
I think this has the look of another tough Iowa defense. But I also think they're going to have their work cut out for them to match where they were in 2017 & 2018 when they gave up an average of 19 and 18 points per game.

We are seeing the effects of such huge losses on the DL. Last year's 4 DEs were the best top 4 in the KF era which is really saying something. Tough to run on and rushed the passer, always stayed fresh. Plus they lost their best DB from a year ago.

Maybe some DEs and a couple guys in the back 7 step up to make up for the losses.
 
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WinOneThisCentury said:
I'm somewhat baffled by this question. I'm having one of those, do my eyes deceive me type of things? First things first:

Run defense - Personally, my eyes tell me we have some cracks in the armor here. Against the only OL that I've felt wasn't overmatched, ISU, there were some running lanes...and we gave up some longer runs. Nwangwu averaged 9 yards a pop. Then I look at the rushing totals and it's only 91 yards. Purdy didn't really hurt us in the running game. We held Rutgers and Miami to very little also and avg. 76 yards a game in run defense. The stats are good...but my eyes aren't convinced for some reason.

Pass Defense - Once again...through three games very good numbers. Two big plays in the passing game against Iowa State really skew things from a numbers standpoint. That being said...Miami had success throwing the ball...ISU moved the ball through the air easily as we were giving them the short stuff in the flat..and they picked on our freshman corner. The big thing here is that we are pressuring the QB, but not getting sacks. We need negative plays to make the defensive stops easier and more frequent.

Scoring Defense - Hard to argue here. Let's face it...ISU scored 17 points and 14 of it came on two plays. As easily as they moved the ball...that's pretty remarkable. Miami got two scores also...and one was an absolute great throw and the other was a jump ball.

Honestly, we are averaging giving up 10pts a game, and two of those touchdowns are attributed to a freshman corner blowing coverage. I should be thinking we have defense that could be great. I'm not feeling that way yet. There is alot to clean up after the ISU game...their tight end was open every play, we played soft...and our linebackers were clueless as to coverage half the time. We need Hankins and Brents back for sure...and Merriweather.

I'm just not yet sold on this defense. Michigan will answer some questions though.
Click to expand...


Iowa so far has been two totally different defenses personnel wise. The defense that played Miami is probably a top 10 defense nationally. The defense that played Iowa state after injuries is probably 8-4 good. Having Brents and Hankins is a massive plus. Koerner vs Merriweather is probably a push. Depth from reiff is nice.
 
WinOneThisCentury said:
I'm somewhat baffled by this question. I'm having one of those, do my eyes deceive me type of things? First things first:

Run defense - Personally, my eyes tell me we have some cracks in the armor here. Against the only OL that I've felt wasn't overmatched, ISU, there were some running lanes...and we gave up some longer runs. Nwangwu averaged 9 yards a pop. Then I look at the rushing totals and it's only 91 yards. Purdy didn't really hurt us in the running game. We held Rutgers and Miami to very little also and avg. 76 yards a game in run defense. The stats are good...but my eyes aren't convinced for some reason.

Pass Defense - Once again...through three games very good numbers. Two big plays in the passing game against Iowa State really skew things from a numbers standpoint. That being said...Miami had success throwing the ball...ISU moved the ball through the air easily as we were giving them the short stuff in the flat..and they picked on our freshman corner. The big thing here is that we are pressuring the QB, but not getting sacks. We need negative plays to make the defensive stops easier and more frequent.

Scoring Defense - Hard to argue here. Let's face it...ISU scored 17 points and 14 of it came on two plays. As easily as they moved the ball...that's pretty remarkable. Miami got two scores also...and one was an absolute great throw and the other was a jump ball.

Honestly, we are averaging giving up 10pts a game, and two of those touchdowns are attributed to a freshman corner blowing coverage. I should be thinking we have defense that could be great. I'm not feeling that way yet. There is alot to clean up after the ISU game...their tight end was open every play, we played soft...and our linebackers were clueless as to coverage half the time. We need Hankins and Brents back for sure...and Merriweather.

I'm just not yet sold on this defense. Michigan will answer some questions though.
Click to expand...

Good points all around. And it's a very fair question to ask, just how good is this defense? I think we are a step back from last year and I base that on the lesser effective D-Line (at least so far). I would say though that we are probably never going to be a top statistical defense like a Michigan State or somebody like that. Our defense is designed to stop the run, give up the shorter completions and shut down the long pass plays. I also think this defense gets better as the year goes on. I have total faith in Phil Parker.
 
WinOneThisCentury said:
I'm just not yet sold on this defense. Michigan will answer some questions though.
Click to expand...
Michigan needs to answer it's own questions about its offense before it will answer questions about our defense.

We're going to have a good defense. There's a few games where we might need to have a great defense. I'm not convinced we have a great defense. But .... Phil Parker.

Wisconsin looks to be the measuring tape.
 
WinOneThisCentury said:
I'm somewhat baffled by this question. I'm having one of those, do my eyes deceive me type of things? First things first:

Run defense - Personally, my eyes tell me we have some cracks in the armor here. Against the only OL that I've felt wasn't overmatched, ISU, there were some running lanes...and we gave up some longer runs. Nwangwu averaged 9 yards a pop. Then I look at the rushing totals and it's only 91 yards. Purdy didn't really hurt us in the running game. We held Rutgers and Miami to very little also and avg. 76 yards a game in run defense. The stats are good...but my eyes aren't convinced for some reason.

Pass Defense - Once again...through three games very good numbers. Two big plays in the passing game against Iowa State really skew things from a numbers standpoint. That being said...Miami had success throwing the ball...ISU moved the ball through the air easily as we were giving them the short stuff in the flat..and they picked on our freshman corner. The big thing here is that we are pressuring the QB, but not getting sacks. We need negative plays to make the defensive stops easier and more frequent.

Scoring Defense - Hard to argue here. Let's face it...ISU scored 17 points and 14 of it came on two plays. As easily as they moved the ball...that's pretty remarkable. Miami got two scores also...and one was an absolute great throw and the other was a jump ball.

Honestly, we are averaging giving up 10pts a game, and two of those touchdowns are attributed to a freshman corner blowing coverage. I should be thinking we have defense that could be great. I'm not feeling that way yet. There is alot to clean up after the ISU game...their tight end was open every play, we played soft...and our linebackers were clueless as to coverage half the time. We need Hankins and Brents back for sure...and Merriweather.

I'm just not yet sold on this defense. Michigan will answer some questions though.
Click to expand...

Read Chad L’s article on how Parker adjusted to slow down States passing game in the second half. Will make you feel a lot more secure.
 
If the back end is healthy I am okay with the defense. Imo, it begins and ends with the Iowa offense. It is 2019, you have to be able to generate points.
 
I think Coach Parker is probably still learning about this year's defensive personnel, as he does each year. His switch to the 4-2-5 last year after the Wisky game was genius. Against ISU, he saw that the current D-line was just not capable of creating QB pressure on their own -- hence Purdy goes 16 of 17. When he dialed up pressure 50% of the time for the remainder of the game, Purdue went 8 of 17 or something like that. It seemed like Wisconsin brought at least 1 extra guy every down vs Michigan on Saturday...you just HAVE to do that to get good offensive teams out of rhythm. If Parker sits back in the soft zone vs MIchigan, he'll make Shea Patterson look like the great QB is ISN'T.
 
HuckFinn said:
Read Chad L’s article on how Parker adjusted to slow down States passing game in the second half. Will make you feel a lot more secure.
Click to expand...

Grady said:
His switch to the 4-2-5 last year after the Wisky game was genius. Against ISU, he saw that the current D-line was just not capable of creating QB pressure on their own -- hence Purdy goes 16 of 17. When he dialed up pressure 50% of the time for the remainder of the game, Purdue went 8 of 17 or something like that.
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Phil is a good coach, but the 4-2-5 is hardly new / exotic. Switching to that was no more "genius" than deciding to blitz more in the 2nd half against ISU.

Those moves are called "being the DC".

And, Huck, Chad is hardly unbiased. You might say he's a homer.
 
I think with the variety of offenses that we have yet to play what matters more than anything is how versatile can we be? Michigan has mismatches with their receivers because they are all so big and athletic, Purdue will spread us out and make our linebackers play in space, wisconsin has the power running game with an elite back along with a good cast of receiving options including a TE, and Nebraska has a QB that can beat you all himself if he is upright by then. MN even has good receivers but not a cast like Michigan, and PSU has enough talent all over to be competitive while not really posing a mismatch. I think NW just isn't very good and we know Illinois isnt.

Saying all that, I think our defense is as good as our linebackers and our safety positions allow us to be. I don't get too hyped up about the 4-3 or the 4-2-5 because there will be times we will need to have 7 back in coverage as well as have everyone involved to stop the running quarterback. We know what our DE and DT positions will do, and we know our corners are going to play soft cushions because we don't have a king or Jackson on the roster. Niemann and Colbert are critical side to side in that short to medium range, Stone will have to have his name called a lot and I think we need the athleticism of Merriweather to be really good.
 
hawkeyes87 said:
Phil is a good coach, but the 4-2-5 is hardly new / exotic. Switching to that was no more "genius" than deciding to blitz more in the 2nd half against ISU.

Those moves are called "being the DC".

And, Huck, Chad is hardly unbiased. You might say he's a homer.
Click to expand...

This I completely agree with. Phil is a good coach, but I’d say his genius is in talent identification and evaluation, Player development and teaching technique. As an in game tactician, I’ve never really seen anything that proves him better than any other coordinator.
 
On the defensive line they've been super conservative about doing anything to create pressure. A lot of that is by design. They've concentrated on controlling the edge and keeping the linemen in their lane assignments. So far they have been able to tighten up the pressure on opposing quarterbacks in the second half of games.

Epenesa didn't suddenly become a poor pass rusher. He's a starter now an has to tend to the rest of his assignments. The question is, how fast will Epenesa and Golston take to settle in as starters. Nixon on the inside started his first game. Lattimore has at least incrementally stepped up his game. There is still hope that defensive line play will dramatically improve. The down side is they are quickly running out of time.

This next game they badly need to get some of the second string defensive linemen out there in support. Otherwise, the starters are going to get gassed.
 
I think it is a Phil Parker defense. It's good. Designed to keep points off the board but gives up some yardage. Look, against ISU, we chose to bring the fight at times, tried to simply slow them down at times, but we held a very prolific offense/system/coach to 17 pts. That is going to be a pretty special offense in Ames. I cant imagine a better start to the season with the game time experience going deep and coming out with victories and quality performances. If our health is back to normal by Michigan, it will be a near perfect start to the season and bodes well for those first two games in October!
 
Jonrn said:
This I completely agree with. Phil is a good coach, but I’d say his genius is in talent identification and evaluation, Player development and teaching technique. As an in game tactician, I’ve never really seen anything that proves him better than any other coordinator.
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I'd say consistent top 10-20 defenses nationally will only occur if you know what you are doing on Saturdays as well. The in-game adjustments are typically outstanding on the defensive side of the ball. I'd like to see a bit more blitz pressure, but I'm an armchair guy and will trust Phil
 
dirtwrap said:
Saying all that, I think our defense is as good as our linebackers and our safety positions allow us to be. I don't get too hyped up about the 4-3 or the 4-2-5 because there will be times we will need to have 7 back in coverage as well as have everyone involved to stop the running quarterback. We know what our DE and DT positions will do, and we know our corners are going to play soft cushions because we don't have a king or Jackson on the roster. Niemann and Colbert are critical side to side in that short to medium range, Stone will have to have his name called a lot and I think we need the athleticism of Merriweather to be really good.
Click to expand...
For me it’s the exact opposite. I had higher expectations for this Dline and so far they haven’t lived up to them. The sack and TFL numbers are alarming. AJE has done his thing but he’s being game-planned for. Haven’t heard much from Golston, Lattimore, Nixon, or Reiff. To me this defense will go as far as these guys can take them and they need to step up their play.

We pretty much know what we have in the back 7. A solid group nobody super outstanding besides maybe Stone. If the Dline can get us in more third and long type situations it will allow the back 7 to make some plays and put the offense in some tougher spots.
 
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