Iowa was a few plays away from being 9-3 Last season...seriously

A balanced post. Thanks, Jon.

What I found interesting, but not surprising, is that many games decided by so few points. With out doing any research, I would think that's THE charcterisitc of a ferentz coached team. To be objective, that may have been the case with all of Fry's teams as well. I just don't remember if that is true or not.

As far as going into the season while looking at both the schedule and the talent on the team alone, I don't know how anyone really believe that they'll have a winning season.

The wild card would be G. Davis, of course. If he coaches well, that could change things some and could turn the tables as to them having a winning season. I totally doubt he will coach that well, though.

FreedComanche
 
hwk23 said:
The key to the bad season was JVB and no one that I know of predicted JVB would have such a terrible season after what was really a pretty good 2011.
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I hope so. That had to be one of the least productive QB seasons in the history of college football. I hope that it was more on him but I don't think it was all on him. I think GD sucks at offense.
 
theboat said:
I hope so. That had to be one of the least productive QB seasons in the history of college football. I hope that it was more on him but I don't think it was all on him. I think GD sucks at offense.
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Well, GD and company did a **** poor job of adjusting to JVB's strengths, that's for sure, and they should have been abe to do that. JVB was a terrible fit for GD's offense though.
 
LASBUR said:
Its true you are what your record say you are. Which tells me we were a team that didnt execute in close games. That is fixable. We really dont know what GD called when we ran a one yard route when we needed three. There were a lot of problems on that team. Its wasnt all GD and it wasnt all JV. Wait and see
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Lasbur - I agree totally. I believe last years fiasco was a culmination of a new coordinators, mass exodus of under class-men and lack of a true team leader. This year should be much better and with the schedule, they will have to be.
 
kicker22 said:
The other thing worth mentioning is if we improve on both sides of the ball, those "few plays" don't factor in as much because you have that many more opportunities to win the game.
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I appreciate the intent of Jon's article it did point out things aren't as dire as they may be portrayed on this board. But personally I am not one to give much credence to "moral" victories.

I think kicker22 is on the right track here. It wasn't as if last years team put on a good effort only to have victory snatched away by some fluke or lucky play by their opponent. Often this team laid egg after egg for 60 minutes by not being able to complete a drive on the offensive side of the ball or stop one on the defense side.

I see this as saying "If we had only been lucky enough to put together one miracle play in 5 of our games we could have been 9-3".

By that same theory, if only I could have been lucky enough to pick 5 more of Saturday's Powerball numbers correct I could have been a millionaire.
 
there were about a dozen times in college where I woke up puking and continued to be nausiated, vomiting dry and otherwhise for the next several hours. Those days were better than the 12 of 2012

4-8 was deserved.
 
hwk23 said:
The key to the bad season was JVB and no one that I know of predicted JVB would have such a terrible season after what was really a pretty good 2011.
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There were several keys to lasts years season going the way it did.
Receivers have to catch, linemen need to block, players need to be on the same page offensively, coaches needed to be better; just to name a few. And those are the quick ones that just popped in my head, offensively.

Don't just single out JVB.
 
Eda said:
There were several keys to lasts years season going the way it did.
Receivers have to catch, linemen need to block, players need to be on the same page offensively, coaches needed to be better; just to name a few. And those are the quick ones that just popped in my head, offensively.

Don't just single out JVB.
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I think it was beyond just "catching", the receivers have to be where they were supposed to be. Route running was not even close to being where it needed to be for JVB to have a decent season. It wasn't a secret that the former WRs coach and the OC weren't on the same page. Interviews with players and coaches elluded to this.

Anyone who just throws JVB under the bus and says he was the reason Iowa was horrible last year clearly doesn't understand how a team works.
 
FreedComanche said:
A balanced post. Thanks, Jon.

The wild card would be G. Davis, of course. If he coaches well, that could change things some and could turn the tables as to them having a winning season. I totally doubt he will coach that well, though.

FreedComanche
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I tweak your comment to, "If KF gets out of the way to let GD coach well ... "

All these guys are experts at understanding and teaching X's / O's. What KF has never been very good at is situational use of those X's / O's and, to some degree, the Jimmies and Joes -- this is long before GD arrived.

Example: Early second quarter, up 10-0 over Minny, Hyde recovers fumble, flea-flicker to Cotton puts the nail in the coffin, up 17-0. That's KF getting out of the way and letting GD go for the kill.

Example: 4th / 13 on Nebraska 30, up 7-3, late 4th quarter, touch-back punt for net change in field position of 11 yards. That's vintage KF and his dogmatic adherence to his "percentages".

The wild card this season is if KF will let GD scheme to attack a defense's weaknesses and utilize what few offensive weapons are available in situations where they will not be expected.

If they fail, then he can claim "lack of execution". If they don't even try (which has historically been the case), then that's on KF not playing to win.
 
dave3912 said:
I think it was beyond just "catching", the receivers have to be where they were supposed to be. Route running was not even close to being where it needed to be for JVB to have a decent season. It wasn't a secret that the former WRs coach and the OC weren't on the same page. Interviews with players and coaches elluded to this.

Anyone who just throws JVB under the bus and says he was the reason Iowa was horrible last year clearly doesn't understand how a team works.
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Agreed. And I eluded to the offensive syncing in my post. But in the same breath, I'll acknowledge JVB did airmail some balls and the receivers did drop plenty. IIRC, we have led the conference (or near the top) in dropped passes each ofte past two season (and not "lead" in a good way).

One could even add injuries to the list for last seasons woes. The offense was beginning to gel before the injuries in the PSU game.
 
You guys are missing the most important point... We were only 15 plays from being 12-0. Of course those plays would all have had to be touchdowns.
 
Woulda, coulda, shoulda.

I was only 6 numbers away from winning the PowerBall.
 
When I look back at 2012, it was a tale of two seasons.

Games 1 through 6 - One of the youngest teams in Hawkeye history was beginning to find themselves and improve each week. The two losses (ISU and CMU), we easily winnable games, and really CMU was a fluke of epic proportions...but it happened. The team was finding an identity with Weisman and the Oline. That all changed in with the end of game injury to Weisman in East Lansing and the two injuries at home against Penn State.

Games 7-12 were, for all intense purposes, a horror show. It's one thing to be young in the OL, but then to have two of the best young players go down there, it only magnifies the situation. The ramifications of then having to move your LG to LT, and start a revolving door of inexperienced or injured players at various times was never going to be overcome. Throw in that our QB's major weakness was an inability to make plays when the play breaks down and once again, you get a magnification of his weakness...because the play was going to break down o'plenty.

The reason we should be positive about this coming year is that our OL is a year older, a year deeper, and has another year with Brian Ferentz under their belt. It will be the strength of the team IMO by far...and most likely the best group in the Big Ten. We are bigger and more athletic this year on the OL too. If you believe this to be true, then you also know that the QB is going to be very well protected and there won't be the need for them to make something happen out of nothing. We can actually run much more stuff down the field. Couple this with the fact that we will be very deep at RB...and diverse there too. Power and speed...and guys that can catch the ball too.

If the D can make some improvements stopping the run and getting a pass rush...and I think they overachieved big time last year from an overall perspective...we will win 8-9 games.
 
That is probably because the first six games were the easiest in school history and a JV squad should have been 5-1 minimum. I can be optimistic about this year, but there was very little silver lining last year, no matter how intense the purposes were.
 
So we played a BCS Bowl Team (NIU) and a team, MSU, that lost to OSU, Wisconsin, NW, and Nebraska by less than four points in each , and you feel those 6 games were the easiest in school history. NIU, ISU, CMU, MINNY, and MSU all went to bowl games. Don't let the facts get in the way boat...you believe what you want to believe.

Honestly, people underestimate that win in East Lansing in a big way. You should watch the tape again. That was a top 10 defense last year...and 6th or 7th against the run in the country...and they played some pretty freaking good running teams (see above). Our OL played them very, very well...and executed in OT. It pisses me off when people downplay that and just tells me they have no freaking idea what they are talking about.
 
WinOneThisCentury said:
So we played a BCS Bowl Team (NIU) and a team, MSU, that lost to OSU, Wisconsin, NW, and Nebraska by less than four points in each , and you feel those 6 games were the easiest in school history. NIU, ISU, CMU, MINNY, and MSU all went to bowl games. Don't let the facts get in the way boat...you believe what you want to believe.

Honestly, people underestimate that win in East Lansing in a big way. You should watch the tape again. That was a top 10 defense last year...and 6th or 7th against the run in the country...and they played some pretty freaking good running teams (see above). Our OL played them very, very well...and executed in OT. It pisses me off when people downplay that and just tells me they have no freaking idea what they are talking about.
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The win in East Lansing was great, but I think it was raining that day and that was our best defense. The o-line played great and the running game looked fantastic and the weather conditions were perfectly suited for Greg Davis' passing scheme. The season was over when the o-line got decimated against Penn State. We keep those fellas upright and we might have at least been playing in the Pizza Pizza Bowl or something and 7-6 or 8-5 weren't out of the question.
 
tubahawk said:
I appreciate the intent of Jon's article it did point out things aren't as dire as they may be portrayed on this board. But personally I am not one to give much credence to "moral" victories.

I think kicker22 is on the right track here. It wasn't as if last years team put on a good effort only to have victory snatched away by some fluke or lucky play by their opponent. Often this team laid egg after egg for 60 minutes by not being able to complete a drive on the offensive side of the ball or stop one on the defense side.

I see this as saying "If we had only been lucky enough to put together one miracle play in 5 of our games we could have been 9-3".

By that same theory, if only I could have been lucky enough to pick 5 more of Saturday's Powerball numbers correct I could have been a millionaire.
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No one is going to sanely make the case that last year's team was a good team. It was not. That said, you don't need a miracle play to win a game the opponent scored nine points in, or two late minute collapses (Purdue and CMU), or blown 4th quarter leads (Indiana) or a six point loss at home when you had the ball with just under 4 minutes to play and down just six (Nebraska).
 
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