I don't get running a sweep

It is difficult to jettison a playbook that gets you, usually, to 7-5 every year.

Why risk it? Risk is the key word. You usually have to take on more risk to be what you have not yet been.
You're not just jettisoning the plays. You're tossing out an ENTIRE system that every player on the team has familiarized themselves with.

Think of it this way. Every year, you have 1/4 of the team learning the system for the first time, 1/4 slightly familiar with it, 1/4 very familiar with it, and 1/4 masters of it.

The year toss out a playbook, those numbers change from above, to 4/4, 0/4, 0/4, and 0/4.
 
Feels good to watch FB clips, doesn't it?





Weisman has to hold the Iowa record for "least amount of average time between crossing the goalline and getting the ball to the official"
 
It is difficult to jettison a playbook that gets you, usually, to 7-5 every year.

Why risk it? Risk is the key word. You usually have to take on more risk to be what you have not yet been.
Adding a wrinkle to a play is jettisoning a playbook?

The very nature of sports IS risk. Every play has an inherent risk-reward level. The better coaches constantly make adjustments to what the opponent throws at them. You determine if the potential benefit of a call outweighs the risk and decide from there. Those adjustments are made both during games and in the off-season.

By your logic, we should only have one play that we run every time, and, to further minimize said risk, that play should be a QB-keeper.

You're not just jettisoning the plays. You're tossing out an ENTIRE system that every player on the team has familiarized themselves with.

Think of it this way. Every year, you have 1/4 of the team learning the system for the first time, 1/4 slightly familiar with it, 1/4 very familiar with it, and 1/4 masters of it.

The year toss out a playbook, those numbers change from above, to 4/4, 0/4, 0/4, and 0/4.
See above. Who's advocating for tossing out an entire system?

So, neither of you as coaches would ever modify your plays based upon what opposing teams are scheming? I don't mean that sarcastically at all. I'm seriously baffled by these responses.
 

Not OZ, but here is a speed-sweep to boundary out of shotgun:

IZ to boundary, taking advantage of D's overflow with natural cutback

 
Sargent just abusing the Huskers in 2018; tons of runs into the boundary (5+ yds), and a few IZ into the boundary with big cutbacks. He went 26 for 173 in that game. It probably doesn't count because it was Nebraska's D.
 
You're not just jettisoning the plays. You're tossing out an ENTIRE system that every player on the team has familiarized themselves with.

Think of it this way. Every year, you have 1/4 of the team learning the system for the first time, 1/4 slightly familiar with it, 1/4 very familiar with it, and 1/4 masters of it.

The year toss out a playbook, those numbers change from above, to 4/4, 0/4, 0/4, and 0/4.
I am not suggesting "taking out the entire playbook" just parts of it that opponents have learned to take advantage of with their own innovations. And, these are college students, changing things a bit isn't like climbing Mt. Everest. Shoot, they run the plays and see them getting sniffed out by the other side, and might relish such tweaks and change. I would. The bigger issue is the coaching philosophy and their default setting of keeping things that have "worked" the same, read here, Kirk. Changing means risk and it also means that you will have to move out of your low-risk, comfort zone of running the old tried and true 7-5 plays. Risk and change lead to a chance of more success, more unpredictability, and - more of a chance or doing worse, with more turnovers, confusion, etc. Is the risk worth it? That's the struggle for Captain Kirk. You have a good chance to become Wisconsin (what you once were) or you have a decent chance to turn into Nebraska (which isn't what they once were, or thought they were).

My guess is this...the assistant coaches and players want more of this, Kirk loathes risk and change.

Just my opinion man
 
Adding a wrinkle to a play is jettisoning a playbook?

The very nature of sports IS risk. Every play has an inherent risk-reward level. The better coaches constantly make adjustments to what the opponent throws at them. You determine if the potential benefit of a call outweighs the risk and decide from there. Those adjustments are made both during games and in the off-season.

By your logic, we should only have one play that we run every time, and, to further minimize said risk, that play should be a QB-keeper.


See above. Who's advocating for tossing out an entire system?

So, neither of you as coaches would ever modify your plays based upon what opposing teams are scheming? I don't mean that sarcastically at all. I'm seriously baffled by these responses.

So what is your evidence that running to the boundary is not working? Can you provide yards/play data for OZ zone into the boundary vs. to the field? Can you provide yards/play for zone-counter or traditional counter to field when faking OZ to boundary? What about yards/play for OZ to boundary with #s advantage vs. run to field with numbers disadvantage?

Because I can guarantee the Iowa FB team has those numbers. If you don't think they have those numbers, you don't really understand how big-time football works.

Again, the coaches are not idiots. If running to the boundary never worked, they wouldn't do it. They have evidence that it can be successful.

This is not a blanket approval of everything Iowa offense. Iowa's O really struggled last year until the last few weeks and bowl game. Much of that has to do with OZ, which we have about 3 straight years of data now illustrating that the new cut-blocking rules are really hamstringing. Iowa coaches have mentioned this. We have seen more diversity in the running game, and they have mentioned tweaks to the scheme moving forward to account for this rule change. Maybe they have been slow to respond to this (should they have changed in 2018 after Wadley was stifled in 2017?), and to @revkev73 's point, that probably has to do with risk aversion. You want to make that point, I will not argue. But this thread has not been about risk aversion. This has been about should Iowa run plays to the boundary?

Bottom line, it really drives me nuts when fans think there is one obvious thing that they see, that coaches are missing, that would make all of the difference in the world. Fans remember a couple runs to the boundary that got stuffed, but they forget the runs to the field that got stuffed, or the runs to the boundary that were successful. They see counter plays and play action have success, and they think we should run those every play, without consideration that they were set up by willingness to establish the base that is being countered. They think that their rudimentary knowledge of FB trumps a dozen staff members with a cumulative 100+ years of football immersion.
 
So what is your evidence that running to the boundary is not working? Can you provide yards/play data for OZ zone into the boundary vs. to the field? Can you provide yards/play for zone-counter or traditional counter to field when faking OZ to boundary? What about yards/play for OZ to boundary with #s advantage vs. run to field with numbers disadvantage?

Because I can guarantee the Iowa FB team has those numbers. If you don't think they have those numbers, you don't really understand how big-time football works.

Again, the coaches are not idiots. If running to the boundary never worked, they wouldn't do it. They have evidence that it can be successful.

This is not a blanket approval of everything Iowa offense. Iowa's O really struggled last year until the last few weeks and bowl game. Much of that has to do with OZ, which we have about 3 straight years of data now illustrating that the new cut-blocking rules are really hamstringing. Iowa coaches have mentioned this. We have seen more diversity in the running game, and they have mentioned tweaks to the scheme moving forward to account for this rule change. Maybe they have been slow to respond to this (should they have changed in 2018 after Wadley was stifled in 2017?), and to @revkev73 's point, that probably has to do with risk aversion. You want to make that point, I will not argue. But this thread has not been about risk aversion. This has been about should Iowa run plays to the boundary?

Bottom line, it really drives me nuts when fans think there is one obvious thing that they see, that coaches are missing, that would make all of the difference in the world. Fans remember a couple runs to the boundary that got stuffed, but they forget the runs to the field that got stuffed, or the runs to the boundary that were successful. They see counter plays and play action have success, and they think we should run those every play, without consideration that they were set up by willingness to establish the base that is being countered. They think that their rudimentary knowledge of FB trumps a dozen staff members with a cumulative 100+ years of football immersion.
You're generally a good poster, but your entire post here is a complete overreaction to what I said. My response had nothing whatsoever to do with running to the boundary versus towards the center of the field. I was responding to the following post which brought up opposing defenses reading the slant and selling out:

"...If you have a good pulling Guard, you can use him and the FB to tie up both the LB and the safety. Besides the pulling G you can't have the other team crash to that side. Iowa never runs counters so teams just crash which ever side the OLine slants to..."

Particularly the last line.

Just because the coaches are not "idiots" doesn't mean they are beyond criticism. I've always been a Kirk supporter for the most part, but any fan with any reasonable football knowledge could see that defenses were selling out at the snap once they read the slant, and the lack of any creativity to adjust to that was maddening at times. IMO, it has taken the coaching staff longer than it should have to adjust to that, and, yes, the changes to how the officials interpret cut-blocking have had a deleterious impact. It's on the coaches to adjust to that as well. As I said, I do think it is something that Brian is actively trying to rectify, and I'm interested in the new wrinkles he brings in (assuming we have a season).

My second post was in response to the assertion that adding wrinkles to plays basically equates to jettisoning the playbook or entire scheme. I find that a bit bizarre personally, but you're more than welcome to agree with it.
 
Adding a wrinkle to a play is jettisoning a playbook?

The very nature of sports IS risk. Every play has an inherent risk-reward level. The better coaches constantly make adjustments to what the opponent throws at them. You determine if the potential benefit of a call outweighs the risk and decide from there. Those adjustments are made both during games and in the off-season.

By your logic, we should only have one play that we run every time, and, to further minimize said risk, that play should be a QB-keeper.


See above. Who's advocating for tossing out an entire system?

So, neither of you as coaches would ever modify your plays based upon what opposing teams are scheming? I don't mean that sarcastically at all. I'm seriously baffled by these responses.
Bro, I was using his words, verbatim.

You complain about CP87 misconstruing your words, but you're doing the same thing in this thread.
 
to the short side of the field. Can someone explain that to me please?
Do it 25 times a game, every game, every year, every decade (under KF). It's one of the true baffling things about a KF offense. Don't forget the 24 of the 25 times, the QB audibles into the play too!
 
Bro, I was using his words, verbatim.

You complain about CP87 misconstruing your words, but you're doing the same thing in this thread.
I apologize if I misinterpreted your post.

I took it that you were agreeing with his assertion that we shouldn't make adjustments because there's too much risk and it means jettisoning the playbook. As I said, I found that to be baffling, hence the request for clarification.
 
I apologize if I misinterpreted your post.

I took it that you were agreeing with his assertion that we shouldn't make adjustments because there's too much risk and it means jettisoning the playbook. As I said, I found that to be baffling, hence the request for clarification.

I don't want to go back and forth here, but I do want to clarify my points. I think we agree on many points, and are sort of talking past one another on other points. Without a doubt, it is really nice to talk football for a change.

The OP's question was, "Why would you ever run sweep to boundary?" I assume this was referring to running OZ to boundary as OZ is Iowa's bread-and-butter run play, and it looks like sweep when it gets clogged up and bounced.

I strongly disagree that you should never run your bread-and-butter running play to the short side of the field (which was not your assertion, but was the OP's [probably hyperbolic] assertion). I posted half a dozen examples of successful OZ into the boundary, as well as some counter plays off the tendency to go OZ into boundary. If you watch the entirety of the numerous videos posted, you will find many more examples. I think the OZ to the boundary, especially off what seems like an audible (we never know because they fake audibles a lot, too), leads to a lot of confirmation bias. When we see it and it doesn't work, it reinforces our notion that it never works. When it does work, we don't notice so much.

@BVHawk95 , my IIAC brethren (now ARC, I guess), made the comment about "jettisoning the system". I think you took exception to this, on the basis of you don't need to scrap your system just to run to the boundary less. BVHawk can clarify because I don't want to put words into his mouth, but I think he was looking at this whole discussion as an attack on the zone scheme moreso than on a choice of running OZ to the boundary. Some posters mentioned opponents' aggressive slant on first movement, which really gets down to the zone scheme itself, not whether we are going boundary or field. I think he was reacting to that.

You posed the question, "So neither of you would modify your plays based upon an opponent's scheme?" I didn't think this was a fair/legit question as it was implying that Iowa's coaches do not adjust their system from week to week, which is of course ridiculous. That is kind of what set me off, which as you rightly pointed out, was an overreaction. To the point, "Iowa never runs counters off this action..." see numerous examples that I posted of counters (with pulling OL, zone counter, or IZ with cutback) off this action. That doesn't even include play action off OZ since I was only looking through running plays.

So if I am saying Iowa tweaks their scheme to their opponent, you come back and say, "Why does Iowa still run that stupid, never successful OZ play to the boundary when teams have it figured out?" And of course I would reply, "Show me the evidence that this play is not successful, because I think we might have selective memories on this one." You don't have the evidence that it sucks. I don't have the evidence that it works. We are both just going on gut, here.

I think we all agree that Iowa has been very stubborn in tweaking their run schemes since 2016. In 2016 they ran crazy on people, even without a passing game. Since then, it has been a lot of "yuck." Maybe the rule changes have something to do with that. Maybe it has been the lack of backfield talenet (though Wadley's struggles to get on track in 2017 would refute that). But the run game has been subpar, and they haven't fixed it yet. I think they were ready to make some major adjustments this spring; we will see if they can still do that with the interrupted practice time.

Anyhow, I appreciate the discussion. I hope we get to see some of this stuff on the field in the fall. If I have misinterpreted any of your thoughts/comments, be sure to let me know.

Go Hawks!
 
I disagree. Kirk and Brian have many strengths. However, on a scale of 1-10 in game play-calling is about a 2-3. If they actually keep "track of the numbers" as closely as you suggest and still run the same tried and true 2-3 yarders with those popular 6 yard pass completions when it is 3rd and 7 thrown in, it would be very sad indeed. Creativity about a 2-3. Individual player development, 8-9. Team development about a 6. Longevity 10. Contract manipulation 10. Beating teams they should beat, 8. Rising up to win the big games when opportunity knocks, 3. Touting another "bowl invite" 10.

My two cents from isolation FWIW.

If it were a 2 or 3 dude we would not win a game. A bit of exaggeration.
 
I don't want to go back and forth here, but I do want to clarify my points. I think we agree on many points, and are sort of talking past one another on other points. Without a doubt, it is really nice to talk football for a change.

The OP's question was, "Why would you ever run sweep to boundary?" I assume this was referring to running OZ to boundary as OZ is Iowa's bread-and-butter run play, and it looks like sweep when it gets clogged up and bounced.

I strongly disagree that you should never run your bread-and-butter running play to the short side of the field (which was not your assertion, but was the OP's [probably hyperbolic] assertion). I posted half a dozen examples of successful OZ into the boundary, as well as some counter plays off the tendency to go OZ into boundary. If you watch the entirety of the numerous videos posted, you will find many more examples. I think the OZ to the boundary, especially off what seems like an audible (we never know because they fake audibles a lot, too), leads to a lot of confirmation bias. When we see it and it doesn't work, it reinforces our notion that it never works. When it does work, we don't notice so much.

@BVHawk95 , my IIAC brethren (now ARC, I guess), made the comment about "jettisoning the system". I think you took exception to this, on the basis of you don't need to scrap your system just to run to the boundary less. BVHawk can clarify because I don't want to put words into his mouth, but I think he was looking at this whole discussion as an attack on the zone scheme moreso than on a choice of running OZ to the boundary. Some posters mentioned opponents' aggressive slant on first movement, which really gets down to the zone scheme itself, not whether we are going boundary or field. I think he was reacting to that.

You posed the question, "So neither of you would modify your plays based upon an opponent's scheme?" I didn't think this was a fair/legit question as it was implying that Iowa's coaches do not adjust their system from week to week, which is of course ridiculous. That is kind of what set me off, which as you rightly pointed out, was an overreaction. To the point, "Iowa never runs counters off this action..." see numerous examples that I posted of counters (with pulling OL, zone counter, or IZ with cutback) off this action. That doesn't even include play action off OZ since I was only looking through running plays.

So if I am saying Iowa tweaks their scheme to their opponent, you come back and say, "Why does Iowa still run that stupid, never successful OZ play to the boundary when teams have it figured out?" And of course I would reply, "Show me the evidence that this play is not successful, because I think we might have selective memories on this one." You don't have the evidence that it sucks. I don't have the evidence that it works. We are both just going on gut, here.

I think we all agree that Iowa has been very stubborn in tweaking their run schemes since 2016. In 2016 they ran crazy on people, even without a passing game. Since then, it has been a lot of "yuck." Maybe the rule changes have something to do with that. Maybe it has been the lack of backfield talenet (though Wadley's struggles to get on track in 2017 would refute that). But the run game has been subpar, and they haven't fixed it yet. I think they were ready to make some major adjustments this spring; we will see if they can still do that with the interrupted practice time.

Anyhow, I appreciate the discussion. I hope we get to see some of this stuff on the field in the fall. If I have misinterpreted any of your thoughts/comments, be sure to let me know.

Go Hawks!
I appreciate your thoughts. My impression is that you're sort of combining interpretation of several different posts into one, then reacting. For example, where did I post this (or even anything similar)?

"...you come back and say, "Why does Iowa still run that stupid, never successful OZ play to the boundary when teams have it figured out?" And of course I would reply, "Show me the evidence that this play is not successful, because I think we might have selective memories on this one." You don't have the evidence that it sucks. I don't have the evidence that it works. We are both just going on gut, here."

Again, my post had nothing whatsoever to do with "running to the boundary," and I never implied that we should never do so, either to the short end or the middle. Nor did I imply that it's stupid or sucks. Obviously, that play has been a very successful bread and butter play for Iowa for years.

The problem is that defenses figured out that you could completely overwhelm the scheme and blow up the play by selling out the LBs at the snap (and frequently at least one safety), and our adjustment to that was exceedingly slow and not creative. There were several missed opportunities to make the defensive coordinators pay.

Making them pay can be as simple as faking the handoff, then having the TE slip in behind the LBs. Not making those little adjustments just continued to set our RBs up for failure. Like you and I both said, though, that seems to be changing with Brian, who's showing - for better or worse - that he's not afraid whatsoever to tinker with the scheme. He "thinks outside the box," which is refreshing.

That said, I didn't mean to imply that I agree with the phrase, "Iowa never runs counters." I took that as hyperbole, even though I'm not really talking about "counter plays" per se. That's a different concept though the semantics are similar.
 
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I don't want to go back and forth here, but I do want to clarify my points. I think we agree on many points, and are sort of talking past one another on other points. Without a doubt, it is really nice to talk football for a change.

The OP's question was, "Why would you ever run sweep to boundary?" I assume this was referring to running OZ to boundary as OZ is Iowa's bread-and-butter run play, and it looks like sweep when it gets clogged up and bounced.

I strongly disagree that you should never run your bread-and-butter running play to the short side of the field (which was not your assertion, but was the OP's [probably hyperbolic] assertion). I posted half a dozen examples of successful OZ into the boundary, as well as some counter plays off the tendency to go OZ into boundary. If you watch the entirety of the numerous videos posted, you will find many more examples. I think the OZ to the boundary, especially off what seems like an audible (we never know because they fake audibles a lot, too), leads to a lot of confirmation bias. When we see it and it doesn't work, it reinforces our notion that it never works. When it does work, we don't notice so much.

@BVHawk95 , my IIAC brethren (now ARC, I guess), made the comment about "jettisoning the system". I think you took exception to this, on the basis of you don't need to scrap your system just to run to the boundary less. BVHawk can clarify because I don't want to put words into his mouth, but I think he was looking at this whole discussion as an attack on the zone scheme moreso than on a choice of running OZ to the boundary. Some posters mentioned opponents' aggressive slant on first movement, which really gets down to the zone scheme itself, not whether we are going boundary or field. I think he was reacting to that.

You posed the question, "So neither of you would modify your plays based upon an opponent's scheme?" I didn't think this was a fair/legit question as it was implying that Iowa's coaches do not adjust their system from week to week, which is of course ridiculous. That is kind of what set me off, which as you rightly pointed out, was an overreaction. To the point, "Iowa never runs counters off this action..." see numerous examples that I posted of counters (with pulling OL, zone counter, or IZ with cutback) off this action. That doesn't even include play action off OZ since I was only looking through running plays.

So if I am saying Iowa tweaks their scheme to their opponent, you come back and say, "Why does Iowa still run that stupid, never successful OZ play to the boundary when teams have it figured out?" And of course I would reply, "Show me the evidence that this play is not successful, because I think we might have selective memories on this one." You don't have the evidence that it sucks. I don't have the evidence that it works. We are both just going on gut, here.

I think we all agree that Iowa has been very stubborn in tweaking their run schemes since 2016. In 2016 they ran crazy on people, even without a passing game. Since then, it has been a lot of "yuck." Maybe the rule changes have something to do with that. Maybe it has been the lack of backfield talenet (though Wadley's struggles to get on track in 2017 would refute that). But the run game has been subpar, and they haven't fixed it yet. I think they were ready to make some major adjustments this spring; we will see if they can still do that with the interrupted practice time.

Anyhow, I appreciate the discussion. I hope we get to see some of this stuff on the field in the fall. If I have misinterpreted any of your thoughts/comments, be sure to let me know.

Go Hawks!
I refuse to call it the ARC.

If Nebraska Wesleyan didn't like the name, they shouldn't have joined the freakin Iowa Conference
 
I don't want to go back and forth here, but I do want to clarify my points. I think we agree on many points, and are sort of talking past one another on other points. Without a doubt, it is really nice to talk football for a change.

The OP's question was, "Why would you ever run sweep to boundary?" I assume this was referring to running OZ to boundary as OZ is Iowa's bread-and-butter run play, and it looks like sweep when it gets clogged up and bounced.

I strongly disagree that you should never run your bread-and-butter running play to the short side of the field (which was not your assertion, but was the OP's [probably hyperbolic] assertion). I posted half a dozen examples of successful OZ into the boundary, as well as some counter plays off the tendency to go OZ into boundary. If you watch the entirety of the numerous videos posted, you will find many more examples. I think the OZ to the boundary, especially off what seems like an audible (we never know because they fake audibles a lot, too), leads to a lot of confirmation bias. When we see it and it doesn't work, it reinforces our notion that it never works. When it does work, we don't notice so much.

@BVHawk95 , my IIAC brethren (now ARC, I guess), made the comment about "jettisoning the system". I think you took exception to this, on the basis of you don't need to scrap your system just to run to the boundary less. BVHawk can clarify because I don't want to put words into his mouth, but I think he was looking at this whole discussion as an attack on the zone scheme moreso than on a choice of running OZ to the boundary. Some posters mentioned opponents' aggressive slant on first movement, which really gets down to the zone scheme itself, not whether we are going boundary or field. I think he was reacting to that.

You posed the question, "So neither of you would modify your plays based upon an opponent's scheme?" I didn't think this was a fair/legit question as it was implying that Iowa's coaches do not adjust their system from week to week, which is of course ridiculous. That is kind of what set me off, which as you rightly pointed out, was an overreaction. To the point, "Iowa never runs counters off this action..." see numerous examples that I posted of counters (with pulling OL, zone counter, or IZ with cutback) off this action. That doesn't even include play action off OZ since I was only looking through running plays.

So if I am saying Iowa tweaks their scheme to their opponent, you come back and say, "Why does Iowa still run that stupid, never successful OZ play to the boundary when teams have it figured out?" And of course I would reply, "Show me the evidence that this play is not successful, because I think we might have selective memories on this one." You don't have the evidence that it sucks. I don't have the evidence that it works. We are both just going on gut, here.

I think we all agree that Iowa has been very stubborn in tweaking their run schemes since 2016. In 2016 they ran crazy on people, even without a passing game. Since then, it has been a lot of "yuck." Maybe the rule changes have something to do with that. Maybe it has been the lack of backfield talenet (though Wadley's struggles to get on track in 2017 would refute that). But the run game has been subpar, and they haven't fixed it yet. I think they were ready to make some major adjustments this spring; we will see if they can still do that with the interrupted practice time.

Anyhow, I appreciate the discussion. I hope we get to see some of this stuff on the field in the fall. If I have misinterpreted any of your thoughts/comments, be sure to let me know.

Go Hawks!

Righteous!
 
As stated earlier it is a numbers game and in the cases where the check down to this play occurs it is because of the numbers game. If Iowa has the numbers then they see it as a potential better scenario then the play they checked from.

The big caveat to all of this as with pretty much every other football play is are your players able to get the job done and beat the player(s) they are supposed to cover for that play. If you have the advantage of numbers in Football I will guarantee that you will take that play call minimum 75% of the time but if your players are not able to execute or get beat all that goes out the window.

My guess is that when you watch these plays where the Hawks have the advantage but the play is blown up someone didn't win their assignment, it is that simple.

Unless we have a glaring physical advantage at every position at some point some of these plays won't work because especially in the conference we play in the advantage goes to the defense because they are just better at that position or the defensive scheme call was something that countered the play call.

The whole game is a chess match not checkers and some moves may be a loss only to set-up a big gain later if the opportunity presents itself when you play the percentages like Iowa does
 

Not OZ, but here is a speed-sweep to boundary out of shotgun:

IZ to boundary, taking advantage of D's overflow with natural cutback

Love these videos. The more I watch Daniels I see Shonn Greene similarities and Sargent I see Adam Robinson similarities.
 

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