Howe: Hawkeyes Not Growing Fast Enough, Time Running Out

NW limited 1 win Nevada to 20 points. They kept Bowling Green with 1 win to 1 td.


This isnt about figuring things out on O.

Iowa's D score was notable.
 
homes said:
The article sums it up quite well. I just don't understand the offense. You can always blame "execution" of the plays (although it's tiresome to hear this), but every team has "execution" problems during the course of a game. That seems to be something that should be factored into it, like an engineer factors margins of safety into designs because he knows there will likely be execution problems by the installers. Good engineers anticipate that, and develop designs (game plans) or make field changes (in game decisions) to account for those mistakes that will inevitably happen.

I don't know anything about how the game plans are put together or who is calling the shots during the game, (Brian or Kirk or some consortium of coaches), but they need to re-evaluate all of it, immediately. All I can offer - fix it.
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I like the engineer analogy. There isn’t enough wiggle room. The plan yesterday looked too much like the one at Michigan St. Very little adjustment.

As I wrote, this offense is discombobulated and too much goes wrong. Dropped passes have been an issue all season. Some of that has to do with the QB lacking touch at times. Still, those balls must be caught. WRs weren’t getting open enough yesterday. Stanley took too long to get through progressions at times. Blocking was inconsistent.

Play calling in OT was questionsble, IMO. Maybe call a pass play on third and short when NW is loaded up to stuff Wadley and did. On fourth, instead of running up to line and running a QB sneak before D gets set, they line up deliberately, run motion and the half the line jumps off. Confusing. And there were examples like that throughout the day.
 
RobHowe said:
I like the engineer analogy. There isn’t enough wiggle room. The plan yesterday looked too much like the one at Michigan St. Very little adjustment.

As I wrote, this offense is discombobulated and too much goes wrong. Dropped passes have been an issue all season. Some of that has to do with the QB lacking touch at times. Still, those balls must be caught. WRs weren’t getting open enough yesterday. Stanley took too long to get through progressions at times. Blocking was inconsistent.

Play calling in OT was questionsble, IMO. Maybe call a pass play on third and short when NW is loaded up to stuff Wadley and did. On fourth, instead of running up to line and running a QB sneak before D gets set, they line up deliberately, run motion and the half the line jumps off. Confusing. And there were examples like that throughout the day.
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How many times have we seen them rush up to the line of scrimmage for a quick sneak, then jump? Quite a few. Its pathetic that we would even have to worry about getting 4 inches against a team as bad as NW is. That NW team yesterday is simply awful in every phase of the game. We couldn't get receivers open against one of the weakest pass defenses in FBS. Lack of talent, which is due to poor recruiting, and piss poor coaching are to blame.
 
RobHowe said:
Iowa came up short again Saturday in an overtime loss at Northwestern. With time running out, HN's Rob Howe wonders if the Hawkeyes can figure things out:

LINK
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"The key is figuring how to come out on the right side of things. This team continues searching. Time is running out."

Rob, I don't know whose behind you're trying to blow smoke up -- perhaps Kirk's, perhaps Brian's, perhaps Barta's, I dunno -- but it's certainly not gonna work with the vast majority of the fan base that is tired of the mediocre product an overpaid Iowa head coach, his son and the rest of the staff is putting on the field most years.

For all intents and purposes, this season is done. Very difficult to see two more wins on this schedule to become bowl-eligible. Should miracles happen and a 6-6 Iowa team gets a bid in the post-season, most fans could not care less.

We see the excitement and enthusiasm that a young coach is bringing to that team to the West and we wonder why we have to put up with what we see most games. We're done with it. We're ready for a change.

Please don't try to sugar-coat this, or tell us the emperor has clothes when in fact most of us know he doesn't.

Just stop. Stop it now.
 
tweeterhawk said:
"The key is figuring how to come out on the right side of things. This team continues searching. Time is running out."

Rob, I don't know whose behind you're trying to blow smoke up -- perhaps Kirk's, perhaps Brian's, perhaps Barta's, I dunno -- but it's certainly not gonna work with the vast majority of the fan base that is tired of the mediocre product an overpaid Iowa head coach, his son and the rest of the staff is putting on the field most years.

For all intents and purposes, this season is done. Very difficult to see two more wins on this schedule to become bowl-eligible. Should miracles happen and a 6-6 Iowa team gets a bid in the post-season, most fans could not care less.

We see the excitement and enthusiasm that a young coach is bringing to that team to the West and we wonder why we have to put up with what we see most games. We're done with it. We're ready for a change.

Please don't try to sugar-coat this, or tell us the emperor has clothes when in fact most of us know he doesn't.

Just stop. Stop it now.
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Whatever, dude. You picked one ‘graph out of a 800 word column. It doesn’t summarize what I wrote about, at all.
 
I will give Kirk credit and assume he knows his players. It leads me to assume he doesn’t trust them to successfully implement anything beyond what they are doing. Which, considering our lack of success seems reasonable. If we can’t block a simple run with any consistency do we think anything more complex would work?
 
RobHowe said:
Whatever, dude. You picked one ‘graph out of a 800 word column. It doesn’t summarize what I wrote about, at all.
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It doesn’t??? Generally columnists use the last graf to wrap up in one tidy package their argument, which you seemed to do here. If that “doesn’t summarize what I wrote about, at all,” why is it essentially the headline for your whole piece and was the main lead for the whole site for a time?
 
RobHowe said:
Iowa came up short again Saturday in an overtime loss at Northwestern. With time running out, HN's Rob Howe wonders if the Hawkeyes can figure things out:

LINK
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2nd and 17, handoff up the middle. 3 and 15 quarterback keeper. 4th and a bunch, punt. The staff doesn't seem to care. two weeks to prepare and the first three plays are interesting... After 40 years of being a Hawkeye fan, I'm strongly considering taking the rest of this season off. Life is far too short for boring, crappy, uninspired football.. I put this overwhelmingly on the coaching staff. Bring on the hoops team, that coaching staff will never leave you wondering if they care or are fully invested.
 
tweeterhawk said:
It doesn’t??? Generally columnists use the last graf to wrap up in one tidy package their argument, which you seemed to do here. If that “doesn’t summarize what I wrote about, at all,” why is it essentially the headline for your whole piece and was the main lead for the whole site for a time?
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No, it doesn’t. As I said, it’s one graph of an 800-word opinion piece.

Based on your multitude of posts on the board the last two days, I’m sure I’m not harsh enough in my criticism. That’s what your driving at.

I was critical. For some, probably too critical. It wasn’t a positive piece if you actually read it, however.
 
judzeehawk said:
Definitely need a new o line coach. This has to be the worst in a long time. Can't even get a yard or two. I'm done and moving on to BB. This is just to brutal to watch. Enough of the excuses.
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Can add in get a REAL OC coach, not your little son who has ZERO EXP!!!
 
RobHowe said:
No, it doesn’t. As I said, it’s one graph of an 800-word opinion piece.

Based on your multitude of posts on the board the last two days, I’m sure I’m not harsh enough in my criticism. That’s what your driving at.

I was critical. For some, probably too critical. It wasn’t a positive piece if you actually read it, however.
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Rob, yes I agree the article wasn't positive. You are a good writer and easy to follow. Not speaking for others, but I don't expect a trash piece and I'm glad you didn't do that.

Where I stand to disagree is the part where you say that Iowa hasn't figured out how to get Wadley in open spaces. That does come off a bit soft. Even some of the guys who some call "apologists" are getting upset.

To be concise: Iowa doesn't really try to get Wadley into open spaces very much. They will run some misdirection plays (mostly in 2nd half), but they really just don't try. This is D1 football with a QB who is no longer inexperienced. They should be able to get him into open spaces with some degree of success.

There in lies the frustration and criticism of KF. He appears to be stubborn and aloof. There is not an easily apparent reason why Wadley isn't used in the open. I"m sure some has to do with lack of athleticism on the line and the receivers who have experience.

I"m pretty sure some of it is based on an extreme lack of willingness to take risk.
 
They don't do themselves any favors by going in slow motion on offense. Going to the line of scrimmage and standing there for so long before you snap it is the same as asking the defense if they're ready. It's such a did advantage.

Any time we run an offense with any amount of urgency, we move the ball. How many times have we scored at the end of the half this year? We hurry to the line and snap the ball and suddenly we don't have the worst offense I've ever seen. Weird how that happens. We shut Northwestern down all day...until they went hurry up. Then they moved the ball at will.

I don't know why they want to put themselves at such a disadvantage all the time. And don't give me the ridiculous arguement that hurry up doesn't give your defense enough rest. A 3 and out with the hurry up and a 3 and out without hurry up is the difference of probably 10 minutes of rest and 10 minutes 45 seconds of rest. Big deal.
 
HawkGold said:
Rob, yes I agree the article wasn't positive. You are a good writer and easy to follow. Not speaking for others, but I don't expect a trash piece and I'm glad you didn't do that.

Where I stand to disagree is the part where you say that Iowa hasn't figured out how to get Wadley in open spaces. That does come off a bit soft. Even some of the guys who some call "apologists" are getting upset.

To be concise: Iowa doesn't really try to get Wadley into open spaces very much. They will run some misdirection plays (mostly in 2nd half), but they really just don't try. This is D1 football with a QB who is no longer inexperienced. They should be able to get him into open spaces with some degree of success.

There in lies the frustration and criticism of KF. He appears to be stubborn and aloof. There is not an easily apparent reason why Wadley isn't used in the open. I"m sure some has to do with lack of athleticism on the line and the receivers who have experience.

I"m pretty sure some of it is based on an extreme lack of willingness to take risk.
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I said in another thread but I'll say it here too. I think Kirk views plays designed to get a playmaker in space as trick plays. You don't run trick plays 10-15 times per game. You run them once or twice...then feel embarrassed when they don't work.
 
HawkGold said:
Rob, yes I agree the article wasn't positive. You are a good writer and easy to follow. Not speaking for others, but I don't expect a trash piece and I'm glad you didn't do that.

Where I stand to disagree is the part where you say that Iowa hasn't figured out how to get Wadley in open spaces. That does come off a bit soft. Even some of the guys who some call "apologists" are getting upset.

To be concise: Iowa doesn't really try to get Wadley into open spaces very much. They will run some misdirection plays (mostly in 2nd half), but they really just don't try. This is D1 football with a QB who is no longer inexperienced. They should be able to get him into open spaces with some degree of success.

There in lies the frustration and criticism of KF. He appears to be stubborn and aloof. There is not an easily apparent reason why Wadley isn't used in the open. I"m sure some has to do with lack of athleticism on the line and the receivers who have experience.

I"m pretty sure some of it is based on an extreme lack of willingness to take risk.
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Thanks and fair enough. I'm frustrated with it as well.

Maybe it's semantics in saying they haven't figure it out. I probably could/should have added unwilling to unable. I really don't know if it's more one than the other. You would figure coaches at this level could figure out how to free him up rather than run him like Shonn Greene. It's almost as if they're neutralizing their best weapon rather than making the defense do it.

I guess I'm just hoping it's coming. I know AW is hoping it's coming. If it does, it will be hard to explain why it took so long.
 
RobHowe said:
Thanks and fair enough. I'm frustrated with it as well.

Maybe it's semantics in saying they haven't figure it out. I probably could/should have added unwilling to unable. I really don't know if it's more one than the other. You would figure coaches at this level could figure out how to free him up rather than run him like Shonn Greene. It's almost as if their neutralizing their best weapon rather than making the defense do it.

I guess I'm just hoping it's coming. I know AW is hoping it's coming. If it does, it will be hard to explain why it took so long.
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The really sad thing is that they are using Wadley like Mark Weisman. It just doesn't work. totally different skillsets.
 
RobHowe said:
Thanks and fair enough. I'm frustrated with it as well.

Maybe it's semantics in saying they haven't figure it out. I probably could/should have added unwilling to unable. I really don't know if it's more one than the other. You would figure coaches at this level could figure out how to free him up rather than run him like Shonn Greene. It's almost as if their neutralizing their best weapon rather than making the defense do it.

I guess I'm just hoping it's coming. I know AW is hoping it's coming. If it does, it will be hard to explain why it took so long.
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I just don't know how anyone can figure it out. When I think I do, I know I don't. When I start to like KF as a coach...then I get frustrated...and when I'm frustrated he wins me back.
 
eledmonster said:
The really sad thing is that they are using Wadley like Mark Weisman. It just doesn't work. totally different skillsets.
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Now you know why a certain person spent all of last season wanting to pack 40 pounds on a skinny kid. They had a returning senior who was tall and thick and could pound it. He left and something tells me he was encouraged to do so.
 
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