Is Iowa a championship team?

L

longtimer

Well-Known Member
Defense is championship caliber no doubt. Frankly I thought both Iowa and Iowa State played championship level defense. The big difference was big plays and big plays wins games! As devasted as Clones must feel it bodes well for them in a conference where little defense is played. As far as Iowa it will keep is in just about any game we have left on the schedule. If Parker isn't the leader for DC of the year something is really wrong

Offense is clearly not at a championship level. I have not been a big Petras fan and he did little to change that but in his defense our receivers are not getting open. The 2 big pass plays First down to La Porta on a 3rd and 15 and the touchdown pass to Jones were both great throws and great catches and both had good coverage from Clones. Goodsen is a top RB but we haven't given him much room to run. Other than the Big run against Indiana pretty much nothing. We had the ball late 3 times and couldn't put it away with a first down. Clearly they knew we were going to run but at that point you just have to move people out and we couldn't do it.

We have talent on offense and it isn't showing "yet" It is all on BF to come up with some schemes that open things up to get the ball to playmakers that I believe we have at wide receiver and RB. That probably will determine if this is a special year or a good one. You can't expect the defense to score every game.
 
Long way to go, but it feels like a 10-2/9-3 football team. Quarterback play in the B1G isn't great this year...other than OSU no one has a juggernaut offense which benefits Iowa a ton.
 
good summary above. I said out loud more than once yesterday. " Figure it out Brian "


WTF is the point of trying to kill the clock with the strategy of running 3 plays for zip and punting. . A pass need not be high risk. The point is to posses the ball not just have running plays. slam head on wall.

but its ok. Amazing that with the score 24-10 it felt like 240-10. That tells you that Iowa was dominating on defense.
 
I think they can be Big 10 West Conf champions and I think they can win the Big 10 Champ Game. They are not Natty Champ level unless they got all the breaks in a semi and final game. We dont have enough offense to beat Alabama. We might have trouble scoring against Georgia or Clemson who held down Georgia.

Iowa is as good as or better than every other top 25 team in the country, OU, OSU, whose defense is very pourous, A&M and others. Oregon looked very tough.
 
When it comes to defense and special teams we are championship caliber. When it comes to offense we had a long ways to go. The one thing Petras is doing great is not making mistakes. Just wish he would take a few more chances but you can’t argue with the results. Hopefully we can get a little more comfortable on offense the next few weeks.

So far Tory Taylor is one of the MVPs. I thought he might take a step forward but what he is doing so far is amazing. Every time he kicks the ball it just booms off his foot. Truly fun to see.
 
NCHawker said:
good summary above. I said out loud more than once yesterday. " Figure it out Brian "


WTF is the point of trying to kill the clock with the strategy of running 3 plays for zip and punting. . A pass need not be high risk. The point is to posses the ball not just have running plays. slam head on wall.

but its ok. Amazing that with the score 24-10 it felt like 240-10. That tells you that Iowa was dominating on defense.
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Yes, and we kept running to the right those last 2 or 3 possessions so what is wrong with trying a fairly safe jet sweep or reverse to Tracy or Ragaini who has good speed or Jones.

There was really super old school thought when running out the clock as they didnt want and incompletion to stop the clock.

And Phil Parker cannot be happy the way ISU scored their last TD with the hawks having loose coverage, not tackling well, and two or 3 big penalties on the defense to give ISU new life
 
uihawk82 said:
Yes, and we kept running to the right those last 2 or 3 possessions so what is wrong with trying a fairly safe jet sweep or reverse to Tracy or Ragaini who has good speed or Jones.

There was really super old school thought when running out the clock as they didnt want and incompletion to stop the clock.

And Phil Parker cannot be happy the way ISU scored their last TD with the hawks having loose coverage, not tackling well, and two or 3 big penalties on the defense to give ISU new life
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I feel like this was Iowa’s biggest mistake. I would add the ISU touchdown at the end of the first half also. If I’m not mistaken we played a form of prevent defense in both cases. If we play our regular defense and don’t take sacks in field goal range the final score is probably 33 to 3. Sure Kirk doesn’t try for style points but if ISU makes the field goal at the end of the game instead of shanking it they’re in a position to try to recover an onside kick and go for the tie or maybe even the win with a 2 point conversion. The coaches should have done a better job so that wasn’t even a possibility. All that being said we’re 2 and 0 and having a very enjoyable season thus far.
 
justwinbaby said:
I feel like this was Iowa’s biggest mistake. I would add the ISU touchdown at the end of the first half also. If I’m not mistaken we played a form of prevent defense in both cases. If we play our regular defense and don’t take sacks in field goal range the final score is probably 33 to 3. Sure Kirk doesn’t try for style points but if ISU makes the field goal at the end of the game instead of shanking it they’re in a position to try to recover an onside kick and go for the tie or maybe even the win with a 2 point conversion. The coaches should have done a better job so that wasn’t even a possibility. All that being said we’re 2 and 0 and having a very enjoyable season thus far.
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Yes, you and many people have mentioned the missed opportunities. Caleb Shudak looks very comfortable kicking FGs and every point is big when you have a top defense. I said in another thread that Petras hasnt been taking many of those types of sacks as I think he is coached to not make negative plays and over try.
 
longtimer said:
Defense is championship caliber no doubt. Frankly I thought both Iowa and Iowa State played championship level defense. The big difference was big plays and big plays wins games! As devasted as Clones must feel it bodes well for them in a conference where little defense is played. As far as Iowa it will keep is in just about any game we have left on the schedule. If Parker isn't the leader for DC of the year something is really wrong

Offense is clearly not at a championship level. I have not been a big Petras fan and he did little to change that but in his defense our receivers are not getting open. The 2 big pass plays First down to La Porta on a 3rd and 15 and the touchdown pass to Jones were both great throws and great catches and both had good coverage from Clones. Goodsen is a top RB but we haven't given him much room to run. Other than the Big run against Indiana pretty much nothing. We had the ball late 3 times and couldn't put it away with a first down. Clearly they knew we were going to run but at that point you just have to move people out and we couldn't do it.

We have talent on offense and it isn't showing "yet" It is all on BF to come up with some schemes that open things up to get the ball to playmakers that I believe we have at wide receiver and RB. That probably will determine if this is a special year or a good one. You can't expect the defense to score every game.
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Agree with all, however Spence's pass to Jones with 1;16 remaining in the second quarter, might have been the turning point of the game, and it was highlight-reel worthy

Spence didn't make costly mistakes and probably followed the game plan

White bread offense and Take No Chances, Do Not Beat Ourselves

Let the game grind on until the final Whistle and emerge Victorious
 
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thedukeofearl said:
Spence didn't make costly mistakes and probably followed the game plan

White bread offense and Take No Chances, Do Not Beat Ourselves

Let the game grind on until the final Whistle and emerge Victorious
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We've seen enough of these ugly "play it safe" endings to know it's all on the coaching staff. The object is to play out the clock and not screw up a 17 point lead. If the other side plays well and makes it interesting, so be it. It's Kirk Ferentz's patented turtle mode. Some of the ugliest football you will ever see.

Thankfully, not many of the pollsters watched the last eight minutes of the game.
 
Geez, we are not the Iowa state fan base! No we are not a championship team. I've learned to not have those type of expectations. A 9 or 10 win season with a chance at big title and decent bowl game and that's fine. Alabama would smoke the shit right out of us. Being in the conversation and top 10 ranking is good enough!
 
I’m still hopeful the offense can improve, the defense is already on top of its game. Last season Iowa started 0-2 and we were writing off the season with losses to Purdue and Northwestern. We are used to slow starts and this year Iowa is 2-0 having knocked off 2 highly ranked teams, one on the road, for the first time since 1960.

One part of the problem with the low offensive numbers against Iowa State was they kept giving Iowa a short field and Iowa went conservative. So I don’t think the last game is a fair assessment using numbers. Hopefully Petras can improve on his reads and know when to throw the ball away.

This offense can use a Kent State on the schedule.
 
ssckelley said:
This offense can use a Kent State on the schedule.
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Most definitely Kent St can give the hawks time to work on the run blocking and get some momentum there. We cant do much play action from under center without the run game and I hope we still have petras under center sometimes. A game like this upcoming can let us sling it around also depending on the score and staying ahead of the chains.

The offense needs work, the defense needs 2nd teamers getting mixed in for more reps
 
vork22 said:
You can’t be serious
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This Iowa team would lose by 53 against Bama. Nick is still pissed off about that Capital One game and I genuinely don't want to play him again. I think KF and Dabo are the only active coaches who are .500 against Nick. Everyone else has a losing record. I'm pretty sure KF is the only coach who was around when Nick was coaching at MSU.

I don't think anyone aside from Bama would embarrass Iowa, at least right now. Maybe it was the weirdness from The Germ, but a lot of the offenses just look like ass and a lot of the defenses do as well. As the season goes on, a team like OSU is going to get a lot better. The question is how much better will Iowa get. My guess is not much.
 
Ben Rumson said:
Geez, we are not the Iowa state fan base! No we are not a championship team. I've learned to not have those type of expectations. A 9 or 10 win season with a chance at big title and decent bowl game and that's fine. Alabama would smoke the shit right out of us. Being in the conversation and top 10 ranking is good enough!
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I was thinking Big Ten Championship I agree we are not in a league with Alabama
 
ssckelley said:
I’m still hopeful the offense can improve, the defense is already on top of its game. Last season Iowa started 0-2 and we were writing off the season with losses to Purdue and Northwestern. We are used to slow starts and this year Iowa is 2-0 having knocked off 2 highly ranked teams, one on the road, for the first time since 1960.

One part of the problem with the low offensive numbers against Iowa State was they kept giving Iowa a short field and Iowa went conservative. So I don’t think the last game is a fair assessment using numbers. Hopefully Petras can improve on his reads and know when to throw the ball away.

This offense can use a Kent State on the schedule.
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Yep. CSU and Kent St. are teams to experiment and try things on. See if you can scheme some things to get Tracy and Ragini open. Maybe this is where you start seeing Arlan Bruce or Keegan Johnson.

These next 2 games don’t pay attention on how the games looks. Pay more attention on what Iowa is trying to do on offense. Personnel packages, formations all of it
 
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