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

Yes, the penalties count and yardage numbers were pretty lopsided. But UNI earned every single one of them. If you don't want to be hammered by penalties, have coaches who can teach the players how to play within the rules.
 
Maybe the reason why GD thought his offense was more explosive this year...is because they were throwing against Iowa's secondary. ya think?
 
brhawks18 said:
If you're tired of watching it's going to be a long season for you.

For the past 6 years or so Iowa's MO is what we watched today. Iowa football is an average product and that's it.

If you add up the total yards Ruddock threw for and completed during the game, it totaled approximately 400 yards. Problem is 150 of those yards were sideways.

If anybody wants exciting football it'd be best to look elsewhere. It's not happening with KF and his staff. I personally accepted that a few years back.

Just hope they win 8 games per year.
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I disagree and have been watching Iowa football for many, many years. It has been very difficult to watch. I honestly would take KOK offensive scheme any day and all day over Davis.
 
brhawks18 said:
Don't take me the wrong way. I'm not complaining. As a longtime fan we have a choice of accepting the program as is or we are free to find another program to cheer for. Iowa is not bad. They are plain vanilla with a few sprinkles mixed in. Just not enough to change the flavor. I'm just amazed however by the fans that keep complaining. Have they not been watching this program in the past 6 years? You should know by now what you're getting with the Hawks.

As for Ruddock and his confidence. He is a Junior now with easily to most talented WR group since he's been a QB at Iowa. If he doesn't trust them now then when? I don't believe he trusts himself very much on long passes in my honest and non expert opinion.
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Did you intend to go back 6 years? Because I attended a Orange Bowl in Miami, Florida that featured a 10-2 Iowa team that was pretty damn good on both sides of the ball. and in 2010 watch a damn good Iowa team start season 7-2 and they also were solid on both sides of the ball as well. So not following the 6 year reference. IMO and this is just my opinion BR, but it's been really tough to watch Iowa offensively these last 3 years.
 
tm3308 said:
I remember seeing him get beat at least once, but it wasn't on one of Johnson's huge plays.
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The first one was the second play of the game for UNI. HGF tweeted about it, Chuck Long singled him out. There was another one a few plays later...then later in the game, maybe 4Q, I watched him miss a chip and then chase Johnson and he got beat again. There were more. HGF later tweeted that he still believes Spearman's best days will probably be with his hand on the ground (end).
 
Even with Jake constantly dumping off, checking to the run plays, the Iowa offense managed to move the ball fairly well. In fact I would speculate that they moved the ball better than they have in most games against decent competition. The checking and dumping can and will be fixed. It's the first game. The defense may take a bit longer.

The big thing that's usually a problem is the line. And while there's room for improvement both sides did a good job. The team played with a lot of effort and when it came to the fourth quarter they shut UNI down.
 
HawkeyeDenis said:
Even with Jake constantly dumping off, checking to the run plays, the Iowa offense managed to move the ball fairly well. In fact I would speculate that they moved the ball better than they have in most games against decent competition. The checking and dumping can and will be fixed. It's the first game. The defense may take a bit longer.

The big thing that's usually a problem is the line. And while there's room for improvement both sides did a good job. The team played with a lot of effort and when it came to the fourth quarter they shut UNI down.
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+1
 
JonDMiller said:
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.
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You're egging me on, aren't you?

EDIT: even though KF is an ultra conservative coach, I think he likes winning more. If Iowa's pass defense doesn't come around and Iowa gets behind in games, I think he'll take more chances on offense (what did I just say?).
 
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The good news is I think UNI is the most talented team Iowa will play until after the first bye.

Pitt may end up a loss but a case can be made that UNI has more talent than Pitt.
 
HawkIPA said:
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.
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Teams often creat penalties when there're physical mismatches on the other side of the line. I don't think that Iowa was as lucky as they were physically superior.
 
MY take? Well the LBs are in Land of the Lost. They were clueless yesterday. The coaching staff still doesn't get it offensively. Jake Ruddock needs to quit audibleing into a play that every one in the stadium knows he's checking to. The coaching staff needs to tell him...run the play we've called more. Same ol same ol...and our mediocre recruiting over the past few years is highly evident.

No chance against really good teams. Good news is we only play 2 really good teams this year.
 
Bluesman said:
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.
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I would agree 100% here and there's no doubt KOK or GD it's allllll KF and he can't be that bright if he gives his QB one option to ALWAYS check to the zone run. HOw many times do we need to see 11 defenders all flowing to the same point of attack because everyone in America knows what he's checking to. The line can't block 10 or 11 defenders all flowing to the point of attack. How many TFLs do we need to see before Ferentz pull his head out.
 
most troubling aspect of this game was our inability to run the ball against a lower level opponent like this... I'm not sure I can remember that.

The positives were our run defense and zero turnovers.

C is pretty much how I would grade it also.
 
^Yes, very disappointed in the mediocre/poor rushing "attack". Two "trick" running plays and the nice TD run by Daniels were about the only ones to get excited about. These short little throws combined with what they try to do on the ground ain't gonna cut it. The passing game needs to get better or it's going to be more of the same. Going by history, I'm more confident they'll get the problems on defense figured out, and we will continue to say wtf at our underperforming offense.
 
Back away from the ledge, peeps. A week 1 win is a week 1 win. Our rushing attack will get better and better, and the fresh faces will settle in and play faster - be encouraged by their playmaking abilities - Bower’s INT, Jaleel’s sack, Mabin’s INT, Alston had a couple big plays in crunch time. Keep in mind what the first couple weeks have looked like the past 15 years.

Really like what I see from a playmaking standpoint with the receivers. Look for KF and GD to mix in Willies and Powell more and more.
 
If we would have capitalized on Bower's interception and if Hamilton would have caught that pass at the 5 which would have likely been a TD, nobody is complaining. Welsh had better figure it out in practice this week as he had some missed assignments yesterday and I bet whoever is backing him up will be fired up to show they deserve an opportunity in practice this week.
 
I’ll throw in my two cents with an observation, for what it is worth.

Jake Rudock’s off season began with bulking up quite a bit, working on arm strength, along with making some corrections to his throwing mechanics, release point, and probably aiming points. Many of these changes were subtle, some not so subtle. They spent pretty much the entire spring working with both quarterbacks and the wide receivers. Lots and lots of repetitions, making sure Rudock’s muscle memory gets fully accustomed to those changes and he gains confidence. The results are that Rudock no longer seems to be chronically under-throwing, if anything he seems to be occasionally overcompensating.

So the Northern Iowa game is the first time Rudock gets to test the changes out in a live game. The results of the off-season changes seem to be good, but Rudock seems to still be a little unsettled about it. He’s still thinking about getting it all right, rather than just letting his muscle memory do the job. The staff plays it conservatively giving Rudock lots of high percentage throws to get comfortable with. After a nice starting series, he gets a little too deliberate with all the check downs and short passes. The fourth quarter comes along and the staff tells him he’s got to show some confidence in his arm and his receivers. Time to stretch the field. Rudock responded well.

I’ll admit this explanation is a bit speculative, but it may be a lot closer to the truth than some of the other stuff I see here.
 
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