Iowa 37th In Sagarin

Fryowa said:
As the mighty mighty @hawkdrummer1 and I discussed the other day, the current sample size has an effect on this. It’s not invalid...but not smoothed out yet either.

I do think, however, that it reinforces the fact that the Hawks have beaten three statistically not very good teams.
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This is my take as well. The Hawks are only being rated (By Sagarin’s model) according to their scoring margin against three weak teams (Again, according to Sagarin’s model). Should Iowa State’s position improve significantly over the next two weeks, we will see Iowa’s position improve as well. Another beat down next week will help, too.

They are being weighed down heavily by only beating the clowns by one point, but his model doesn’t weigh a rivalry game, or field conditions, or any other extraneous factors. Iowa State will only become a better win according to his model when Iowa State themselves put together better wins.
 
Anytime you try and put numbers on people, you will get mixed results at best.
A game of measurements and inches, which are not subjective, played by humans that are exceedingly subjective.
But even in the end, those non subjective numbers are indeed subjective. 6 or 9? Are ISU fans right? Over 7 yard avg? Or are Iowa fans right and that avg is skewed?

I guess that's why we play the game.
 
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dirtwrap said:
I agree with you, however, I think we should expand on that. I think that depth on the defensive line and especially the ends is the biggest area of weakness on this team, and if a team can get us in a shootout where our defense is on the field for 80, 90 or 100 plays, this will show up. The last couple of years this has not been a concern and that has been out of the norm for us, but we are back to reality now. Rutgers played right into our strengths because they didn't have much of a short, quick passing game and the quarterback could not run. Our d line didnt have to hesitate and they could pin their ears back. The Miami QB and Purdy were that type of quarterback that can really hurt us because they had a short passing attack and they could use their legs. If our d line goes all out to sack those guys, most of the time it is for naught because the ball comes out fast, or, worse, the QB breaks contain and uses his legs. So I think it is methodical in that we pick our poison, especially since our secondary is good but not elite and there is no King or Jackson or Hooker back there right now. So we sit back in our cover 2 zone, the d line keeps the QB in the pocket and let him dink and dunk us between the 30's, and, if they make it that far to the 30, we bring a little pressure, tighten up on those underneath routes and use the end zone as an extra defender. All the while stop the run with our front 4. We all know Norm used to famously say that not very many college QB's can be accurate enough to do more than 1 or 2 10 play drives a game.

We still have an elite playmaker in AJE and the rest of our d line is very very good. But I think this will be the recipe against QB's that can run. That includes Patterson with Michigan, Johnson with NW, Clifford with PSU, and Martinez with Nebby. MTSU and Illinois are not relavent. I think you will see us bring some pressure consistently against Morgan from Minny with their questions on Oline and their talented receiving corp, Sindelar with Purdue because he can't run and we will want to get the ball out of his hands. Wisconsin we will have to play a lot more straight up because they are so much more balanced and even though Coan doesnt run, Taylor can house us at any time.
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Based on our style of play if our defense is on the field for 80, 90, or 100 snaps I think we have much bigger concerns than depth on our defensive line.
 
kicker22 said:
Based on our style of play if our defense is on the field for 80, 90, or 100 snaps I think we have much bigger concerns than depth on our defensive line.
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Yes, that is exactly my point because that is not our style, and if we get away from our style it will hurt us everywhere on defense but most notably and first on the defensive line.

Prime example is last year's oklahoma and west Virginia game. I just did a quick Google search for an oklahoma box score and it popped up. Oklahoma ran 65 plays, gained 668 yards, 20-27 passing for 364 yards, ran the ball 38 times for 304 yards for an 8.0 average and turned it over twice. We are talking big play offense here, down field passing, explosive plays everywhere. A lot of what I see and hear that Iowa fans want and wish for. West Virginia also turned the ball over twice and ran 90 total plays for 704 yards. 90 plays. Oklahoma did win the game, 59-56, but you can't survive that many games like that over a season without sufficient depth, something we cannot match.
 
I know it's a week early but these Sagarin ratings would have the Hawks as 26 point favrites over MTSU.

Looking even further ahead these rankings would have Michigan 9 point favorites in 2.5 weeks in Ann Arbor. I don't think the actuall line will be that big.

Conversely, using these ranking for last week's Cy Hawk game, Iowa would be a 1 point favorite.

I've always like the Sagarin ratings. But like the polls they are just numbers for fun . All that really matters are the Ws and my mantra is still - a 1 point win is all you need.
 
The NCHawker Index has Iowa at 10. Seriously, for some reason I just don't care about polls this year. Not sure why. Maybe its because I had another birthday.

At the root of so many of these rankings are High School Recruiting rankings. The perception of talent. Nobody has had the inclination or ability to quantify or put a value on a 3rd 4th or 5th year year low star player in a developmental program like so many veteran Iowa players.
 
dirtwrap said:
Yes, that is exactly my point because that is not our style, and if we get away from our style it will hurt us everywhere on defense but most notably and first on the defensive line.

Prime example is last year's oklahoma and west Virginia game. I just did a quick Google search for an oklahoma box score and it popped up. Oklahoma ran 65 plays, gained 668 yards, 20-27 passing for 364 yards, ran the ball 38 times for 304 yards for an 8.0 average and turned it over twice. We are talking big play offense here, down field passing, explosive plays everywhere. A lot of what I see and hear that Iowa fans want and wish for. West Virginia also turned the ball over twice and ran 90 total plays for 704 yards. 90 plays. Oklahoma did win the game, 59-56, but you can't survive that many games like that over a season without sufficient depth, something we cannot match.
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Honestly to me football is football. If it's well played on both sides of the ball I don't care if it's low scoring or high scoring as I'm going to enjoy it either way. That said I agree with you 100%
 
Zstatman said:
I know it's a week early but these Sagarin ratings would have the Hawks as 26 point favrites over MTSU.

Looking even further ahead these rankings would have Michigan 9 point favorites in 2.5 weeks in Ann Arbor. I don't think the actuall line will be that big.

Conversely, using these ranking for last week's Cy Hawk game, Iowa would be a 1 point favorite.

I've always like the Sagarin ratings. But like the polls they are just numbers for fun . All that really matters are the Ws and my mantra is still - a 1 point win is all you need.
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It will be interesting to see how Michigan looks in Madison this weekend. Other games that could change our ranking in Sagarin will be Iowa State and Rutgers if they play well.
 
kicker22 said:
Honestly to me football is football. If it's well played on both sides of the ball I don't care if it's low scoring or high scoring as I'm going to enjoy it either way. That said I agree with you 100%
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I totally agree. I love watching well played competitive football in any variety.
 
hawkdrummer1 said:
yep. Phil made some nice changes and shook things up. Just saying it's riskier if you're DBs are depleted
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I'd also toss the argument out there that blitzing when your DBs aren't getting it done is actually less risky in the respect that if they can't hang with receivers in open space anyway, you need to bring the house even more. They can only score 6 points at a time, I'd rather make them work for it and possibly make a QB throw a bad, hurried pass.
 
Fryowa said:
I'd also toss the argument out there that blitzing when your DBs aren't getting it done is actually less risky in the respect that if they can't hang with receivers in open space anyway, you need to bring the house even more. They can only score 6 points at a time, I'd rather make them work for it and possibly make a QB throw a bad, hurried pass.
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Taking the QB off his rhythm definitely helps. After watching ISMoo, I'd think every team will want to take Purdy off his rhythm and pressure him. They're a one trick pony offensively.
 
dirtwrap said:
. ....... We all know Norm used to famously say that not very many college QB's can be accurate enough to do more than 1 or 2 10 play drives a game.
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Going off topic a bit... I always found it Ironic that while Iowa followed this very sound philosophy, but yet on offense forgot it....asked 2-3 star guys to play perfectly against often superior talent and defy the odds ...hoping execute drives with lots of plays....and ultimately to outscore the opponent.

Nice to see Brian starting to shift away from this
 
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NCHawker said:
Going off topic a bit... I always found it Ironic that while Iowa followed this very sound philosophy, but yet on offense forgot it....asked 2-3 star guys to play perfectly against often superior talent and defy the odds ...hoping execute drives with lots of plays....and ultimately to outscore the opponent.
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I guess that’s just more evidence to the criticism that our offense requires the defense to create turnovers in big games.
 
NCHawker said:
Going off topic a bit... I always found it Ironic that while Iowa followed this very sound philosophy, but yet on offense forgot it....asked 2-3 star guys to play perfectly against often superior talent and defy the odds ...hoping execute drives with lots of plays....and ultimately to outscore the opponent.
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You have a really good point. I wonder as much if that was more of a starting point, when Kirk got the job and hired his staff if they sat down and made a blueprint of how they can compete in the B1G knowing their strengths and weaknesses. At the beginning it was survival, they probably had 4-5 years to turn it around. So it was focused on development, believing an upperclassman 2 star could basically turn into a 4-5 star for the Jimmy's and Joe's, and bank on the fact we will out execute our opponent with less mistakes, capitalizing on these mistakes, turnovers, and field position for the x's and o's. I don't think they thought of our offense as stringing together long play drives was ever part of the strategy. And I don't think that blueprint has ever changed. Because it seems like whenever we veer from that it doesn't turn out well.
 
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