Iowa Offense: Statistical Look Since 2001

[Saginawbay]

Always hard too tell how any coaching change will work till after the fact. If KOK does take a head coaching job wish him and well and we will see from the point. Cannot argue the success Iowa football has had the last decade for sure. Plus let's not forget 6 bowl wins as well.

 

[HawkeyeMike23]

Here's Iowa's points per game ranking in the Big Ten since 2004. This includes all games, I couldn't find a website that just showed points per game within conference games which is what I was looking for.

2010: 28.9 6th
2009: 23.2 10th
2008: 30.3 2nd
2007: 18.5 11th
2006: 23.8 7th
2005: 30.0 T-7th
2004: 24.3 6th

So we have been an above average offense in the Big Ten only once in the last seven years, and the one above average season was almost single handedly thanks to Shonn Greene. I don't think a program like Iowa, who is a perennial top 25 team looking to break through to the next level, is going to be able to make that leap without an improvement in the offense.

 

[racerhawk]

Michigan is probably going to return to power style football after their RichRod failure. Minny has shifted philosophies more than a teenage girl changes her mind. Nebraska may be FINALLY finding their legs.

Iowa is fine. Three bowl wins in a row, and we're having a fantastic recruiting year. Last year was a decent recruiting year as well. The O line will likely be better next year, and LB play will be better.

I am actually quite optimistic about Iowa's future. Other teams are going to be in the process of major overhauls in the next few years (Mich, Minny, Indy), and some other schools haven't exactly "nailed it" recently. (PSU, even MSU). I'd rather be Iowa right now than nearly every other team in the big ten. Heck, even the awesomeness of tOSU is not untainted.

 

[Puttman]

After the NU game, I blasted this staff hard. Too hard. I had called 8-4 going into the season because I thought the personnel losses we had were huge and ones that we were not capable of overcoming. We should have been all over that fake punt against Wisconsin and we should have taken the wind in the 4th quarter of the NU game. Other than those things, given injuries at LB and RG, I don't think we had that bad of a year and I thought the coaching was adequate. The other teams have 11 guys on the field working their tails off, too, and some days the other team is just gonna have your number. Iowa often is the beneficiary of having other teams' numbers, but this year that didn't work out. The key in 2010 was that young guys got a chance at LB and the OL looks like it's set for next year. That OL is shaping up to be mighty salty next year and we will be back under the radar, where we generally play our best football.

WOW, bet THAT took some effort to say. Glad to see the eternal optimism of Hawkeye nation lives on.

 

[DBAHawkFan]

I think the question everyone wants to know is why did Stanzi seem to go backwards in ability once the 2nd half started?

Bowl game was pretty typical and great example. He looks great in the first half, balls have zip, he's looking at different WR.

Then 2nd half and he goes back to locking on primary (first pick), and then on the 2nd pick, Herman did have a step, but Rick threw the ball off his back foot and the ball floated. He also almost threw a pick six with the same type of out pass that was picked off so consistenly last year, but Cheney did a good job of breaking it up.

This year Iowa looked great for the first 1/2 of the year, then 2nd of of Michigan St game and we shut it down and offense tanks rest of the year....only showing a few glimpses. Is it because Arob wasn't himself? Koeppel learning the Guard spot on the job?

There are some big questions next year with JVB. Will he be accurate? Avoid the locking on WR like Stanzi....and will he play more complete games than Rick?

 

[HAWKEYEinOHIO]

The 8.4 wins per season have been nice, no doubt. I'm not discounting what we've accomplished the past decade. But would we have done even better if we had an offense that was more consistently effective instead of just playing to "stay out of the way"? That's why I think one of the earlier posters mentioned that the offense is "holding us back". With the exception of 2002, our best offenses have only sniffed the Top-25.

If the defense can consistently be Top-10 nationally, then why does the offense have so much trouble finishing better than middle of the pack? I would even be glad to see us around Top-25 most years. I'm not asking our offense to be world beaters, just effective.

While 8.4 wins may be "good enough", I personally believe we would be able to do even better if our offense was putting more points on the board. 2002 for example, is an example of what I believe we could be if we had a more consistent offense.

Our offense reminds me sometimes of baseball where you squander good pitching because your team can't hit, and you lose 2-1. If you could have scratched out 4 or 5 runs you win. You don't have to score 10.

Is it too much to ask for the offense to take some burden off the defense?

Very well put....The prediciability of the play calling along with our inability to gain a win...or just squeak out a win over NW and Indiana are really disturbing. Every once and a while KOK does what we all want and changes things up (take the 3rd and short pass call in the Insight bowl when they had the box stacked that was beautiful). We spend so much time setting up things like that and never cash it as much as we could. I would love to have seen us throw in some more passing type sets and plays throughout the season and go 4 wide. We had a great set of recievers this year and really did not use them as much as we could have. I do agree that loosing Robinson toward the end of the year hurt us, when we have a pass catching RB in the game that opens a number of other doors. I was very pleased that we were able to pull out the "W" in the bowl and just would like to see the Hawks try to mix things up a bit more and take some of the predictability out of the offensive schemes. As was noted by the announcers during the bowl game the "Collapse of the Defense" in the late game losses this year is not where the issue truly lies...it was a complete team collapse and an extra first down or two by the offense may have turned one of the 3 and out drives earlier in the game into a long scoring drive.

I think the conservative offense and the lack of any sizeable wins (with exception of the MSU game in which no substitutions were done anyway???) has also shown its head negatively in that some of our key back-ups rarely if ever get any playing time prior to being #1 on the depth chart. Take the QB position and Vandenburg last year and even this year...and the only reason we saw any RB substitutions this year was due to injuries and BW walk off.

I am a Hawkeye fan that will live and die with the team and the results, but would like to see us open up the bag of creativity and simply try to improve things a bit (is that to much to ask?). If that means using the great group of WR's that we had this past year why did we not do so more often? Break the mold a few more time to get our opponents guessing a little more.

 

[wally59]

I am proud of the team in their bowl win and i thought the offensive line played great. They executed their plan and Coker runs for over 200 yards and yet the offense scores only 20 points and needed a defensive score to win the game. This has been the main problem. Touchdowns in the red zone, so so 3rd down efficiency, poor 2- minute offense. In the Wisconsin Bowl game I though KOK was calling the plays. W first possession in the 3rd quarter they had bad field position but they managed to move the ball about 50 yards down to TCU's 40 yard line. I believe they got 4 first downs by mixing it up with the run and pass. On first down they stop what was working and throw a bomb down the field incomplete and stopped the drive and I think that lost them the game.