Iowa Football: Is it Execution or Philosophy

[iowahawkeyes89]

My only issue with coach Ferentz is that I feel sometimes he under values the talent Iowa has. He loves to use the "were just little ole Iowa, we don't have good athletes"

Sometimes I wonder if he doesn't give the program enough credit for how its evolved. DJK and McNutt were two of the best WR's in the Big Ten this year. With a 5th year senior QB, why not try to throw the ball deep more often? His reasoning is always about personnel, and not having the sexy athletes to go for big plays.

I just think he plays the "were not very pretty" card WAY too much. Give yourself a little credit coach, programs evolve, and Iowa isn't the same Iowa program that they were in the late 90's.

Iowa has athletes to match MOST Big Ten teams, maybe not OSU or Michigan, but we have some of the best young skill players that we've had in a long time IMHO.

 

[theiowahawkeye]

My only issue with coach Ferentz is that I feel sometimes he under values the talent Iowa has. He loves to use the "were just little ole Iowa, we don't have good athletes"

Sometimes I wonder if he doesn't give the program enough credit for how its evolved. DJK and McNutt were two of the best WR's in the Big Ten this year. With a 5th year senior QB, why not try to throw the ball deep more often? His reasoning is always about personnel, and not having the sexy athletes to go for big plays.

I just think he plays the "were not very pretty" card WAY too much. Give yourself a little credit coach, programs evolve, and Iowa isn't the same Iowa program that they were in the late 90's.

Iowa has athletes to match MOST Big Ten teams, maybe not OSU or Michigan, but we have some of the best young skill players that we've had in a long time IMHO.

I agree and have thought the same thing. Sometimes people play the "humble card" to the point of pure arrogance. I have felt many times that Ferentz has crossed that line. It is one thing to just say it to the press to tamp down expectations - it is an entirely other thing to actually believe it. I think KF actually believes it, which means he is, as you say, underestimating the talent on the team.

 

[SeattleHawkeye]

It is the execution. The philosophy that Iowa has is the only one that will produce results here. We do not have the athletes to run defenses that have multiple looks or blitzes. Execution is at a premium when you don't have the athletes that other schools have. It seems to me that Wisconsin is pretty vanilla, but they just dominate teams at the line of scrimmage by executing. Iowa has never possessed (and probably never will) the talent that can compensate for breakdowns in execution. The lack of execution becomes even more of a problem when players don't even want to be on the field. In the losses against NW and Minnesota, they didn't show any fire or desire to win the game. The most fire I saw out of anyone was when DJK got manhandled ten yards out of bounds and he tried to go after the guy after the play was over. When they did have a big play the look on some player's faces said "OK, great, is it over yet?".

How do you know this? B/c it's very, very easily argued that IA does so little of these things that you really can't say. IA so seldom blitzes and plays man coverages or anything other than cover 2 or 3 that I'd argue you unquestionably can't make that statement. There were also 2 LB's and a CB drafted in the first 3 rounds (I think) of last year's NFL draft. It's like saying your car can't go 100 mph when you've never even tried to drive over 70.