Instant Reaction: My Take on Iowa's Win v UNI

[HomerChampless]

Him not taking chances is probably one of the main reasons he's #1 on the depth chart.

Ruddock doesn't have confidence in the strength of his arm. To get the ball down the field and fit the ball into windows. I'm sure, like Stanzi, the coaching staff preached against his interceptions, this year...

Iowa's pass defense is a work in progress. Iowa's offense will have to score lots of points to win games this year. Unfortunately, Iowa's offense is limited. Iowa needs a lot more explosive plays like T. Smith's run. That could, at least, open up Iowa's running game. I worry Iowa will not have the passing offense to regain leads when falling behind in games.

 

[SamBrownlee48]

Ruddock doesn't have confidence in the strength of his arm. To get the ball down the field and fit the ball into windows. I'm sure, like Stanzi, the coaching staff preached against his interceptions, this year...

Iowa's pass defense is a work in progress. Iowa's offense will have to score lots of points to win games this year. Unfortunately, Iowa's offense is limited. Iowa needs a lot more explosive plays like T. Smith's run. That could, at least, open up Iowa's running game. I worry Iowa will not have the passing offense to regain leads when falling behind in games.

We've got playmakers at WR and TE. I think Tevaun/KMM/Powell/Willies/Meerkat/Hillyer/Hamilton/Duzey/Kittle is enough to have an explosive pass offense if GD can put them in position to make plays and Rudock can get the ball to them.

I thought Mabin played pass coverage pretty darn well for his first game. King is a complete goddamn stud. Our DL is very good, and we also showed quite a bit of zone blitz where we dropped the DEs into coverage and rushed Alston/Spearman/Bower.

Speaking of Bower . . . he has to be a starter. He's still too small, but he's game enough to get by and generally played better than either Spearman or Alston.

 

[JonDMiller]

When?

The three times it happened.

 

[ICHawk24]

I think Rudock doesn't know the playbook very well when it comes to deep receiver routes. It's a fact that he's been excused from a lot of game prep and practice due to his heavy premed schedule, and I wouldn't would be surprised in the slightest if he's slacked off on learning all the deep routes of GD's famously complicated passing packages. I honestly have no other explanation why so often Rudock clearly looks like he's just pretending to look downfield before he goes to short outlet pass.

This is the dumbest thing I've read on these boards. Congrats.

 

[SamBrownlee48]

The three times it happened.

Jon,

With Spearman's performance and his instagram meltdown, it sure seems like maybe Jewell was winning the position battle. Any idea on the injury and how long he's out for?

I was impressed with Bower. That's a heck of a lot of poise out there for a redshirt frosh who walked on.

 

[JonDMiller]

I think Rudock doesn't know the playbook very well when it comes to deep receiver routes. It's a fact that he's been excused from a lot of game prep and practice due to his heavy premed schedule, and I wouldn't would be surprised in the slightest if he's slacked off on learning all the deep routes of GD's famously complicated passing packages. I honestly have no other explanation why so often Rudock clearly looks like he's just pretending to look downfield before he goes to short outlet pass.

Was this a serious post or a troll? It's so outrageous, I a not sure.

 

[JonDMiller]

Jon,

With Spearman's performance and his instagram meltdown, it sure seems like maybe Jewell was winning the position battle. Any idea on the injury and how long he's out for?

I was impressed with Bower. That's a heck of a lot of poise out there for a redshirt frosh who walked on.

Ferentz said he will be out next week, then they will see after that.

I had heard that it might not have been a clean break and required pins...which would mean longer, but I am not 100% certain on that.

 

[PhoenixHawk]

Was this a serious post or a troll? It's so outrageous, I a not sure.

Look, he's either completely blind to what is happening downfield, or he's ignorant of where to find his players. There's been posts every game for the past two seasons about the fact that Rudock is not seeing open receivers downfield, and basically 'checking down' within a second or two of taking the snap as though he's not bothering to look.

KF said in an interview last year that due to his study load, Rudock has been given a pass to skip sessions.

So what do you think? Blind? Ignorant? Maybe there's something behind door #3. What would that be, nerves? GD holding him back?

Another way of putting is looking back to the 4-8 year, when the complicated nature of GD's passing game was put to blame. Rather than run strict routes, he has receivers running in certain zones, right? Well maybe enough time hasn't been put for Rudock and his receivers to learn each others tendencies, and Rudock doesn't have the confidence to spend the time looking for them? I'm just speculating.

There's got to be some reason for it considering he's hardly a true freshmen out there.

 

[wolffey]

Our pass coverage sucked. I give them a F- If we don't improve it will be a long year.

 

[JonDMiller]

Look, he's either completely blind to what is happening downfield, or he's ignorant of where to find his players. There's been posts every game for the past two seasons about the fact that Rudock is not seeing open receivers downfield, and basically 'checking down' within a second or two of taking the snap as though he's not bothering to look.

KF said in an interview last year that due to his study load, Rudock has been given a pass to skip sessions.

So what do you think? Blind? Ignorant? Maybe there's something behind door #3. What would that be, nerves? GD holding him back?

Another way of putting is looking back to the 4-8 year, when the complicated nature of GD's passing game was put to blame. Rather than run strict routes, he has receivers running in certain zones, right? Well maybe enough time hasn't been put for Rudock and his receivers to learn each others tendencies, and Rudock doesn't have the confidence to spend the time looking for them? I'm just speculating.

There's got to be some reason for it considering he's hardly a true freshmen out there.

I think he has a great grasp of the scheme. And the scheme favors the shorter stuff...Texas fans will tell you that. He did bail on some deep looks to check downs too quickly today, but there were several times he looked deep, gave it a realistic shot, and came right to the check down. He knows what is going on and has a command of it. He is not missing anything there.

It's moot, at any rate. He is the quarterback that Kirk wants to lead this offense.

 

[bcl20]

I forgot how horrible the football forum is.

 

[Jonrn]

I think Rudock doesn't know the playbook very well when it comes to deep receiver routes. It's a fact that he's been excused from a lot of game prep and practice due to his heavy premed schedule, and I wouldn't would be surprised in the slightest if he's slacked off on learning all the deep routes of GD's famously complicated passing packages. I honestly have no other explanation why so often Rudock clearly looks like he's just pretending to look downfield before he goes to short outlet pass.

If I were to pick the LEASTlikely excuse for Rudock missing deep reads, this would be it.

 

[Bluesman]

Thoroughly unimpressed with the effort today against an FCS team. If UNI doesn't get an obscene amount of penalties they probably would have won the game. The D line looked very good, the linebackers (maybe other than Bower) were absolutely awful. When UNI is repeatedly torching you for huge plays it doesn't bode well for the remainder of the season. Perhaps they will improve over time, it is after all only game one.

Many Iowa fans talk about all of the weapons we have on offense; I would think that after 15 seasons of Ferentz football you all would have figured out that it doesn't really matter because Kirk isn't going to fully utilize that talent. He does what he does which is play very plain, uninspired, conservative football. You can give him sprinters but he's still going to run the race like it's a marathon. He's done it for 15 years, he's been paid tens of millions of dollars, been given a seemingly endless contract, and been allowed let all of his sons play for him and now one coach in the program. It's worked well for him so he's not going to change. He'll slip in a 9 or 10 win season occasionally and settle in winning 6 or 7 most other years. I think most fans are happy with that and I think he is too.

I was not the least bit surprised the game was close because almost every game is close in the Ferentz era. The plain jane. low risk conservatism that keeps his teams in games with better opponents also allows inferior ones to hang around (Central Michigan, Western Michigan, UNI more than once, ISU almost every year, Arkansas St.); sometimes those teams even beat him. It's what his teams do so I wouldn't necessarily panic about a close game to UNI. I would be more concerned with how our linebackers played, our poor pass defense and our inability to run the football against an FCS team. But in true Ferentz fashion, this game really tells us very little about how the season will go; a close win against UNI, possibly a loss against either Ball St or ISU, but then they'll win a game against a better opponent and end up with a good overall record. That scenario has happened a lot during his time here.

 

[JonDMiller]

UNI had a lot of penalties called against them because they committed a lot of penalties. They could have called holding at least four or five more times, mostly trying to keep Davis from getting to Kolmorgen before the snap.

There were a couple questionable ones, and one time I think Iowa RG got away with a flinch. But nothing egregiously bad that I saw...a couple facemasks that didn't get called, too.

 

[HawkIPA]

As Jon said, UNI's penalties were blatant. Numerous personal fouls, 2 delay of games in a row, 2 offsides in a row by the same guy, an obvious PI on Tevaun in the 4th and the obvious hold on Hamilton down by the goal line in the first half account for a good chunk of them and I didn't even have to think about them that hard.

The only real break I thought Iowa got was a 3rd and long from about Iowa's 25 or 30 and UNI threw it down the sideline to the end zone. I think it was King on the coverage and I thought the refs could have flagged him for PI. He didn't get turned around until late and there was some contact.

 

[tm3308]

I'm not sure Spearman ever got burnt by Johnson on pass coverage. Unless it was early in the game, I do not remember it.

I remember seeing him get beat at least once, but it wasn't on one of Johnson's huge plays.

 

[tm3308]

UNI had a lot of penalties called against them because they committed a lot of penalties. They could have called holding at least four or five more times, mostly trying to keep Davis from getting to Kolmorgen before the snap.

There were a couple questionable ones, and one time I think Iowa RG got away with a flinch. But nothing egregiously bad that I saw...a couple facemasks that didn't get called, too.

I also thought we got away with a hold on Daniels' touchdown. I can't remember which receiver it was, but I was waiting for there to be a flag on that and thankfully it didn't come.

 

[HawkIPA]

I remember seeing him get beat at least once, but it wasn't on one of Johnson's huge plays.

As someone said earlier, it was a wheel route real early. It may have been on their first drive.

 

[LawVHawk]

Not to hammer too hard on Jake but he still has a good deal of tunnel vision when it comes to receivers. I don't know whether he spends more than a second or two scanning the play to see what is open or coming open, but I strongly suspect he doesn't. after that he locks on one receiver and proceeds with the pass. Better defenses will see where is eyes are focused and adjust accordingly. His passing is not fooling many people.

 

[LawVHawk]

Thoroughly unimpressed with the effort today against an FCS team. If UNI doesn't get an obscene amount of penalties they probably would have won the game. The D line looked very good, the linebackers (maybe other than Bower) were absolutely awful. When UNI is repeatedly torching you for huge plays it doesn't bode well for the remainder of the season. Perhaps they will improve over time, it is after all only game one.

Many Iowa fans talk about all of the weapons we have on offense; I would think that after 15 seasons of Ferentz football you all would have figured out that it doesn't really matter because Kirk isn't going to fully utilize that talent. He does what he does which is play very plain, uninspired, conservative football. You can give him sprinters but he's still going to run the race like it's a marathon. He's done it for 15 years, he's been paid tens of millions of dollars, been given a seemingly endless contract, and been allowed let all of his sons play for him and now one coach in the program. It's worked well for him so he's not going to change. He'll slip in a 9 or 10 win season occasionally and settle in winning 6 or 7 most other years. I think most fans are happy with that and I think he is too.

I was not the least bit surprised the game was close because almost every game is close in the Ferentz era. The plain jane. low risk conservatism that keeps his teams in games with better opponents also allows inferior ones to hang around (Central Michigan, Western Michigan, UNI more than once, ISU almost every year, Arkansas St.); sometimes those teams even beat him. It's what his teams do so I wouldn't necessarily panic about a close game to UNI. I would be more concerned with how our linebackers played, our poor pass defense and our inability to run the football against an FCS team. But in true Ferentz fashion, this game really tells us very little about how the season will go; a close win against UNI, possibly a loss against either Ball St or ISU, but then they'll win a game against a better opponent and end up with a good overall record. That scenario has happened a lot during his time here.

Don't know whether this is the real Bluz or not but this assessment is spot on.