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!