Howe's Friday 5: Offensive Woes, Oliver Martin, Hoops Recruiting

I enjoyed the 'Howe Friday 5'

I find it interesting that Oliver Martin continues to get so much press, and the article points it out, but he didn't even make the two deeps for NW, Calvin Lockett replaced BS.

Over the years the coaches and players have said they all know what it takes to move up the depth chart. Brian Ferentz mentioned earlier in the year that it's all about production. OM must just not be doing it in practice.

Was surprised there was no mention of Xavier Foster. If you look at guys in the NBA now, it'll be ISU. If it's Iowa, IMO, it will be because he just wants to be a Hawk.
 
Good stuff Rob.

-My thing with the 2020 basketball class is I’m of the belief it’s not over. If we get Foster the narrative completely changes. But that leads to the question of is taking a monster class wise? I would speculate that at least a couple of those guys would redshirt, in the hopes of developing into great program guys down the road. Only time will tell.
 
NikeHawk21 said:
Good stuff Rob.

-My thing with the 2020 basketball class is I’m of the belief it’s not over. If we get Foster the narrative completely changes. But that leads to the question of is taking a monster class wise? I would speculate that at least a couple of those guys would redshirt, in the hopes of developing into great program guys down the road. Only time will tell.
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I don't think bringing in a monster class is a big deal anymore with the transfers and all that. Remember the 2015 class of Hutton, Moss, Flemming, Wagner, Jones and Williams? Not a single one of them stayed in the program.
 
Well done. My only slight point of disagreement was the very last sentence. While I agree with the premise that KF's fingerprints and philosophy reign over the offense regardless of OC, KF has also made clear that he does not call plays, and rarely overrules his OC on called plays. He has also showed a propensity of late to show confidence in his offense by going for it on 4th down and using more and more exotics.

KOK remains a very good coach, but his play calling was decidedly average.

Greg Davis was a terrible OC. His scheme made little sense (horizontal passing does not compliment a power running game, Greg). I still have friends from Texas that chuckle we ever hired him.

BF has shown flashes, and I do like his flexibility and patterns at times. But, what I struggle with right now is our identity as an offense. What are we?

I disagree that the playcaller does not matter. Lincoln Riley, as your example, even under KF's constraints, would still provide an amazing upgrade in this regard. A rare few (Andy Reid, Gruden, Chris Peterson, etc) have a natural instinct to call the right plays at the right time and design an effective game plan.

Book is still out on BF to some extent, but my reaction is he is above average, but that's about it.
 
BTW @RobHowe you should write takeaways of other people's takeaways, and then do takeaways of those takeaways of other people's takeaways. Endless content!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
 
Thanks for reading. That means I have to keep writing these on Fridays. :p

I could see at least one of the Murrays red shirting.
 
When you're calling plays within the constraints of a conservative philosophy, it's tricky and player execution becomes that much more important.

Again, three different OCs and many of the same complaints I've heard for the last 21 years.

I use Lincoln Riley as an extreme example. Of course you'd think he'd be an upgrade. But his offense would look a WHOLE lot different within the KF philosophy.
 
NorthKCHawk said:
Well done. My only slight point of disagreement was the very last sentence. While I agree with the premise that KF's fingerprints and philosophy reign over the offense regardless of OC, KF has also made clear that he does not call plays, and rarely overrules his OC on called plays.

He has also showed a propensity of late to show confidence in his offense by going for it on 4th down and using more and more exotics.

it.
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KF has let the special teams do some exotics but I cant remember the offense doing one exotic this year and maybe not many last year. I think for KF an exotic is baked potato with chives rather than mashed potatoes and gravy.

Correct me if I am wrong. And going on 4th down and 1 is statistically worth the risk at the 35 or so depending on the situation especially when you have a QB averaging about 3 yards per qb sneak (slight exaggeration maybe).

The hawk offense is the prime example of having deep tendencies that are almost never broken where one trick play a game could really work and at least keep the defense guessing.

Something as simple as zone sweep to the wide side of the field where the running back laterals (for a pass downfield) or passes back to the QB could be such a surprise on an early down or 3rd and short.
 
Good stuff Rob. I like the format.

I agree regarding KF and the offense. While the OC has changed and we've had varying degrees of success or lack thereof, the one constant has been KF. The Iowa offense has largely been average to poor most of the past 21 years.

There have been a few years where the offense has been would I would dare to call "good", but those years, the skill positions seemed to be better than usual (2002 & 2008 come to mind). Iowa typically doesn't have the offensive talent to simply impose its will and out-execute their opponents with a "this is what we do - try and stop us" approach. I'm not saying we've gotta run trick plays all game long, but definitely can't be predictable and "vanilla" all the time IMO.

I also agree with the notion that we should see how the 2020 hoops recruiting class pans out before casting stones, even if I do still have concerns. Only time will tell. Nothing I can do about it anyway so may as well hope for the best. :)
 
NorthKCHawk said:
Well done. My only slight point of disagreement was the very last sentence. While I agree with the premise that KF's fingerprints and philosophy reign over the offense regardless of OC, KF has also made clear that he does not call plays, and rarely overrules his OC on called plays. He has also showed a propensity of late to show confidence in his offense by going for it on 4th down and using more and more exotics.

KOK remains a very good coach, but his play calling was decidedly average.

Greg Davis was a terrible OC. His scheme made little sense (horizontal passing does not compliment a power running game, Greg). I still have friends from Texas that chuckle we ever hired him.

BF has shown flashes, and I do like his flexibility and patterns at times. But, what I struggle with right now is our identity as an offense. What are we?

I disagree that the playcaller does not matter. Lincoln Riley, as your example, even under KF's constraints, would still provide an amazing upgrade in this regard. A rare few (Andy Reid, Gruden, Chris Peterson, etc) have a natural instinct to call the right plays at the right time and design an effective game plan.

Book is still out on BF to some extent, but my reaction is he is above average, but that's about it.
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I for one am still encouraged by Brian as the OC as I think he has improved and evolved quite a bit during his tenure, however, he is far from a finished product. What specifically encourages me is his obvious effort to exploit our strengths, whatever that may be. His game planning has been solid as well and this is evident in how we have moved the ball so well at the beginning of games. He hasn't figured out a red zone strategy of course, so we have kicked a lot of field goals, but we have moved the ball.

I think the next evolution for him, and there is no guarantee that he will develop this, is what I call more reactive game planning. No matter what the competition is, a person can choose to either be offensive and impose their will on their opponent regardless of how they counter that, dont be offensive and sit back and wait for their opponent to make a move at which time you will counter, or be reactive that you know when to be aggressive and when to be defensive. From what I see, Brian comes out of the gate in each game with a defined strategy, and he wants us to impose our will on the defense and run the plays we want to run and force the defense to adjust. Then over the course of the game, he gets a little too stubborn and still believes that we can do what we want to do offensively even after the defense has adjusted. If that makes sense. I just think he needs to read the defensive adjustments better, and counter that accordingly, efficiently and quickly.

As far as identity, remember he came from the Patriots and what did he learn? That you change your identity according to the opponent. You can be a power running team one week and a downfield passing team the next. To me it is obvious that not only does he believe in that philosophy, he is recruiting to this and playing those type of players that play that system. Is that a good thing? I don't think we know yet, I think we need more time to see how this evolves.

Final thing, I just don't think it is a foregone conclusion that someone like Lincoln Reilly would come in here and be a better OC. All we know about him is that he has had 3 heisman trophy type quarterbacks and a bunch of NFL receivers to coach. But past him, look at Chip Kelly, the offensive media darling that was a world beater at Oregon when he had elite talent, and now looks like Bill Callahan. It is impossible to compare someone who has enjoyed a massive talent advantage at critical positions because they never have to adjust their philosophy, they just run their stuff and their talent advantage will make it successful. It is a totally different level of coaching when you are playing against teams that have comparable and similar talent. At Iowa, there will never be a massive talent advantage for us against the elite teams in the B1G. Doesnt mean we cant beat those guys, we can, but it wont be won because we just trucked them with our talent like a Clemson, Alabama, Oklahoma, Ohio St., etc. do. We have to beat them with a collective team effort and solid coaching.
 
I advocated for BF being the OC because I thought if anybody could loosen up KF, it would be him.

We've seen it some. The RPO's here and there, etc. The father-son offense still has not meshed, however, and we're in Year 3.

Maybe it's a process and we'll have a breakthrough. That's what I'm hoping.
 
dirtwrap said:
I for one am still encouraged by Brian as the OC as I think he has improved and evolved quite a bit during his tenure, however, he is far from a finished product. What specifically encourages me is his obvious effort to exploit our strengths, whatever that may be. His game planning has been solid as well and this is evident in how we have moved the ball so well at the beginning of games. He hasn't figured out a red zone strategy of course, so we have kicked a lot of field goals, but we have moved the ball.

I think the next evolution for him, and there is no guarantee that he will develop this, is what I call more reactive game planning. No matter what the competition is, a person can choose to either be offensive and impose their will on their opponent regardless of how they counter that, dont be offensive and sit back and wait for their opponent to make a move at which time you will counter, or be reactive that you know when to be aggressive and when to be defensive. From what I see, Brian comes out of the gate in each game with a defined strategy, and he wants us to impose our will on the defense and run the plays we want to run and force the defense to adjust. Then over the course of the game, he gets a little too stubborn and still believes that we can do what we want to do offensively even after the defense has adjusted. If that makes sense. I just think he needs to read the defensive adjustments better, and counter that accordingly, efficiently and quickly.

As far as identity, remember he came from the Patriots and what did he learn? That you change your identity according to the opponent. You can be a power running team one week and a downfield passing team the next. To me it is obvious that not only does he believe in that philosophy, he is recruiting to this and playing those type of players that play that system. Is that a good thing? I don't think we know yet, I think we need more time to see how this evolves.

Final thing, I just don't think it is a foregone conclusion that someone like Lincoln Reilly would come in here and be a better OC. All we know about him is that he has had 3 heisman trophy type quarterbacks and a bunch of NFL receivers to coach. But past him, look at Chip Kelly, the offensive media darling that was a world beater at Oregon when he had elite talent, and now looks like Bill Callahan. It is impossible to compare someone who has enjoyed a massive talent advantage at critical positions because they never have to adjust their philosophy, they just run their stuff and their talent advantage will make it successful. It is a totally different level of coaching when you are playing against teams that have comparable and similar talent. At Iowa, there will never be a massive talent advantage for us against the elite teams in the B1G. Doesnt mean we cant beat those guys, we can, but it wont be won because we just trucked them with our talent like a Clemson, Alabama, Oklahoma, Ohio St., etc. do. We have to beat them with a collective team effort and solid coaching.
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Your final paragraph was exceptionally insightful. Have really enjoyed many of your posts.
 
The only progress I want to see out of BF is to get Iowa's record back up to .500 against ranked teams and Big10 teams with a winning record. So far under his time leading the offense, Iowa is beyond bad. And it is the offense's fault when we don't seem to break 20ppg against these teams.

The Parker defense (both Norm and Phil) could get really annoying sometimes, but more times than not they show up in big games. Only a handful of times has that side just been blown out of the water (PSU few years ago, Rose Bowl of course...)
 
RobHowe said:
I advocated for BF being the OC because I thought if anybody could loosen up KF, it would be him.

We've seen it some. The RPO's here and there, etc. The father-son offense still has not meshed, however, and we're in Year 3.

Maybe it's a process and we'll have a breakthrough. That's what I'm hoping.
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I hate to sound like a homer here, but if this team the last couple years just didn't make the big mistakes and executed on the easy plays, they would be undefeated and really without having to do anything extraordinary. Last year we beat Wisconsin if we dont fumble and make the mistake on the punt, then throw the pick. Penn State we win if Stanley connects with TJ on that easy throw that was perfectly set up by OC, and/or there could have been expected communication on the goal line and not thrown the pick when Fant wasnt looking. We beat NW if we dont fumble. We beat Purdue if we play our normal style of defense, but injuries in the secondary were a killer. This year we beat Michigan and Penn St if the offensive line played at any sort of respectable level and we dont turn it over like we did.

I am not saying this is a great offense or a great team or that it couldnt be better. I am saying that this system works, and Kirk, Brian and Phil put everyone in winning situations if they just play sound, fundamental and smart football and execute. I mean, what else do we want? Are we not happy unless we just line up and blow everyone out by 50?
HuckFinn said:
Your final paragraph was exceptionally insightful. Have really enjoyed many of your posts.
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HuckFinn said:
Your final paragraph was exceptionally insightful. Have really enjoyed many of your posts.
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Thank you for saying that, I really appreciate it.
 
RobHowe said:
I advocated for BF being the OC because I thought if anybody could loosen up KF, it would be him.

We've seen it some. The RPO's here and there, etc. The father-son offense still has not meshed, however, and we're in Year 3.

Maybe it's a process and we'll have a breakthrough. That's what I'm hoping.
Click to expand...

Rob, how do you run a RPO when your QB cant run that well or at least that fast. I have not seen any RPO from Iowa the last two years if you are talking about the QB stressing the opposing defense with the treat to run and then running or passng,
 
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