Iowa Sucks at Running the Football

We also must remember in order to have yards you have to have possession of the football, and with the defense we have ran scheme wise the other team had the ball a lot as well.
 
Iowa definitely hasn't been a dominant run team recently by any means but other teams in the 2011 B1G benefit pretty greatly from a running/mobile QB.

Top 4 rushing teams in the B1G had mobile QBs
Russel Wilson(WISC) had 79 carries for 338 yards.(4.28 YPC)
Denard Robinson(Michigan) 221 carries for 1176 yards (5.32 YPC)
Taylor Martinez(Neb) 189 carries for 874 yards (4.62 YPC)
Braxton Miller(OSU) 159 carries for 715 yards (4.50 YPC)

JVB had 78 carries for 61 yards.(.78 YPC)

Wisconsin had the least rushing yards from their QB but still got around 300 more yards out of their QB than Iowa did.

Has Iowa's rushing attack been lacking overall(sans 2008)? Yes, but not having a mobile QB contributes pretty heavily too.
 
bighawkeyedaddy said:
We also must remember in order to have yards you have to have possession of the football, and with the defense we have ran scheme wise the other team had the ball a lot as well.
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Agreed. We shorten the game. O'Keefe knew it was incumbent on him to keep the defense off the field. Sometimes that means running it into a loaded box.

We also have had a lot of turnover at the RB position. The lack of continuity hurt us. Plus, we don't pull a Wisconsin and run the score up and try to get our starter 6 TDs against some crappy school. Plus, we haven't really had a scrambling QB, which most of the B10 has moved towards - that skews our numbers drastically.

What matters the most is that when push comes to shove we have been right there and competitive with the Michigans, Michigan States, Minnesotas and Northwesterns of the conference during the time period referenced.
 
I guess that's why we are O-line U and not RB-U. I'm surprised and slightly depressed about those numbers though. Didn't realize we sucked that bad.
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v4jGSvxCRp4]Oh no! We suck again! - YouTube[/ame]
 
bighawkeyedaddy said:
Very true. I just think it is a lot of of different factors. How does this 5 year stretch compare to the previous 5 years before that?
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Outside 2004 (The Sam Brownlee era) the previous five years we never averaged less than 4.2 ypc and our LOWEST season rushing total was 1,865, a figure we have surpased only twice in the last five years.

In the last five years we averaged 1,834 yards per season.

In the prvious five (again ommiting 2004) we averaged 2,183.
 
DuffMan said:
Outside 2004 (The Sam Brownlee era) the previous five years we never averaged less than 4.2 ypc and our LOWEST season rushing total was 1,865, a figure we have surpased only twice in the last five years.

In the last five years we averaged 1,834 yards per season.

In the prvious five (again ommiting 2004) we averaged 2,183.
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And what was different in that time period? We had stability in the RB dept. We had returning So, Jr. and Sr. running the ball. They had time and experience in the zone blocking scheme system, and they were used to one cut and go. AIRBHG has taken a much, much bigger toll on our running game than anyone wants to admit.
 
Only partially true.

Our best year in that five year stretch featured Sophmnore Freddy Russle and Freshman Jermel Lewis as the primary ball carriers.

The second best year in that five year stretch featured sophmores Young and Simms.
 
We have a winner..

hawkeyegamefilm said:
Iowa definitely hasn't been a dominant run team recently by any means but other teams in the 2011 B1G benefit pretty greatly from a running/mobile QB.

Top 4 rushing teams in the B1G had mobile QBs
Russel Wilson(WISC) had 79 carries for 338 yards.(4.28 YPC)
Denard Robinson(Michigan) 221 carries for 1176 yards (5.32 YPC)
Taylor Martinez(Neb) 189 carries for 874 yards (4.62 YPC)
Braxton Miller(OSU) 159 carries for 715 yards (4.50 YPC)

JVB had 78 carries for 61 yards.(.78 YPC)

Wisconsin had the least rushing yards from their QB but still got around 300 more yards out of their QB than Iowa did.

Has Iowa's rushing attack been lacking overall(sans 2008)? Yes, but not having a mobile QB contributes pretty heavily too.
Click to expand...

Rushing stats in college FB are skewed by how they are figured. Sack yards go against rushing total, while in the NFL they go against the passing yards. Teams that have mobile QB's who run the ball a lot and hardly ever get sacked are going to rank more highly in team rushing stats.

The yards per carry for the running back is the number that should matter to Iowa. Having the overall rushing stats get depressed by sack yards doesn't give you a true look at how effective (or ineffective) Iowa has been at running the ball.
 
Taking a quick look at the cfbstats.com website linked above, I noticed that the yards per game corresponded very closely with the attempts per game. In other words, the team with the most rushing attempts, usually had the most (or nearly the most) rushing yards. As such, I don't think that rushing yards per game should be the sole indicator of whether Iowa is a good rushing team in any given year. Iowa's style of play contributes to the number of offensive plays and consequently, the number of rushing plays and rushing yards.
 
Re: We have a winner..

DodgerHawki said:
Rushing stats in college FB are skewed by how they are figured. Sack yards go against rushing total, while in the NFL they go against the passing yards. Teams that have mobile QB's who run the ball a lot and hardly ever get sacked are going to rank more highly in team rushing stats.

The yards per carry for the running back is the number that should matter to Iowa. Having the overall rushing stats get depressed by sack yards doesn't give you a true look at how effective (or ineffective) Iowa has been at running the ball.
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Iowa's YPC have been pretty bad. It is one thing I kept bringing up when people kept talking about the total yardage numbers for Coker, Robinson, and Wegher.

It is hard to run the ball effectively when everyone knows when and where you are going to run it.
 
I think losing Wegher, Hampton and Robinson skews everything. If you are able to keep 2 of these guys for 4+ years and healthy we are not even having this discussion.
 
Igothawked said:
I think this is certainly part of the reason. There are a bunch of reasons for this. Running the ball in predictable situations, running into 8 and 9 man fronts. This definately lowers the ypc averages.
Throw injuries, attrition, and some holes up front every couple years and you've got yourself quite the analysis of the problem.
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Yep, no one reason and has least of all to do with the Olines ability to run block.

Since Greene\Hampton Iowa has not had very good backs on the field. Iowa also plays imoble QBs who are going to take sacks in a drop back system.

Overall I would say it was a poorly conceived and far too simplistic offense that lead to those numbers. Way to much reliance on play action out of bunched up formations which lead to allot of pointless runs in an attempt to set it up.

For the last 8 years Iowa probably attempted less than 5 handoffs out of the shotgun...total. Opposing players weren't lying when they said over and over again that they knew what Iowa was going to do.
 
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Re: We have a winner..

CAARHawk said:
Iowa's YPC have been pretty bad. It is one thing I kept bringing up when people kept talking about the total yardage numbers for Coker, Robinson, and Wegher.

It is hard to run the ball effectively when everyone knows when and where you are going to run it.
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All three were well below average rbs for the bigten, they wouldn't start at RB for anyone else other than maybe Indiana, NW, or Minny.
 
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