JonDMiller
Publisher/Founder
Q: How do you feel about the play of the defense thus far?
Jared Clauss: I think they're looking more confident and they're not acting like robots. The defensive tackles are more active now than we saw one year ago and you are are seeing more confidence there. That's given the coaches more confidence in the rotation so they are able to move more players in and out and stay fresh.
You can see big jumps in playing ability along both sides of the line of scrimmage, which can happen from year to year. Speaking from experience, my first two years I was just worried about not making a mistake and was very robot-like. Then between my sophomore and junior year the light came on and I think you're starting to see that with some of these guys especially the defensive tackles. It looks like Davis and Cooper are very active and confident right now and are reading things well.
With much of the rest of the defense, the staff knew it had a lot of the same personnel coming back and they’ve established a game plan in the first two games that allows us to dictate when ball comes out. We are blitzing a lot on third downs and using slants along the defensive line for running plays; we are a lot more active on defense. It worked well against NIU as well as this past week. When you hold a team to under 200 yards of offense, that's impressive no matter who it is. I don’t think they’ve shown everything and they are not over-thinking things. Also, I would say the linebackers playing fantastic. With the game experience we have you would expect this, but they’re reacting very quickly. What I liked last week was you're starting to see more emotion out of those guys and I think other guys will feed off of that. they are playing well laterally as a defense and I haven't seen too many busted assignments it’s just cleaning up a couple of the deep shots... so far they're doing a nice job
Q: In this day and age of spread offenses, is the sack stat losing its value?
Clauss: Sacks are always going to be important, but there were a lot more five and seven step drops and slower developing plays when I was playing and so you had more time to get to the quarterback. On the defensive line you have a chance if the quarterback has to pat the ball once or twice because the coverage is good. We had some very good defensive backs when I was playing and I think several sacks came from that because there was nowhere to go with the ball. There are certain games you run on the defensive line if running backs are helping the offensive tackles with chip blocks and there are certain games that you run if you're seeing slide protections on the offense line. As this defense get more experience I think you'll have some of the defensive lineman recognizing protections and calling games on the field based on what they're seeing. But on the whole, a sack is still extremely important because if you look at the statistics, drives that allow a sack are obviously much less likely to be successful and lead to points.
Iowa isn't getting a lot of sacks but when I was in the NFL, some of the blitzes were designed to get the ball to come out early, knowing the quarterback would recognize the pressure. Iowa is not letting the routes develop, bringing the pressure and on a 3rd and 8 they are going with the mentality that ‘we will give you five yards but we come up and make a sure tackle and let's get off the field.’ By doing that you are also dictating tempo as well and you're not just sitting back and letting that happen to you. I think in general with the up tempo offenses running more plays, we are dictating the tempo more so far this year with the pressure we are bringing.
Q: What are your thoughts on the play of Jake Rudock?
Clauss: I think he looks really good. I think accuracy of a quarterback is not talked about as much as it should be. They talk about certain adjectives at the combine, but I think a quarterback who throws a ball who hits guys in the hands is a big deal. He has had a couple of bad decisions in two games, but he looks good and has a surprisingly a good pocket presence. The pass protection has been good but when he has felt pressure he has had a very good knack of escaping pressure. It’s frustrating to play against a quarterback like that. You are coming from their blind side and he takes a few steps forward and finds a hole. He’s more athletic than I thought he would be and has those rushing touchdowns; I am pleasantly surprised.
I think there is less checking at the line of scrimmage so far which is to be expected with the younger quarterback but he has shown the ability to make a variety of different types of throws. It was great to see him after the interception last week, to come back and look good on the next drive. He shook that interception of pretty well. He is a sophomore and is only going to get better and it’s just impressive watching him play.
Q: Was this a good time for a bye for Iowa State or will Iowa have an edge having played a second game to Iowa State’s one?
Clauss: You can scheme, run card plays and have the scout team run the opponents offense in an off week but unless you have injuries that needed time to heal, the game experience is a night and day better option. There is something to be said of coming out of four weeks of camp, you are beaten up and having gone through the grind of hot summer and getting a bit of a breather. I can understand that argument, too. But your ability to react quicker comes from games. I don’t care if the team you are playing is an 11-0 team or 0-11 team, game experience is the best. Game experience is best because no matter what a scout team shows you, those players were recruited for their own teams and their own schemes; it's not the same. Teams play well against other teams who have similar offensive and defensive philosophies because that's what they see during the spring, summer and fall camp, so I'm a big believer that a bye week is more detrimental. That said, it's all about what you make out of it and Iowa still needs to have a good week of practice and realize the level of competition is going to step up this week.
Another one of the challenging things ISU will encounter about preparing for Iowa is they have shown a lot of different looks..there is play action, fullback sets, 4 or 5 wide, read option, deep shots, tunnel screens...a lot to prepare for. I think they have the type of offense that can adjust. It’s not a one dimensional offense like Northern Illinois where you put a circle around one player to stop. Iowa doesn’t have that; they are very balanced and they just have to get more points. We can’t leave points on the board. ISU will play above whatever level they normally do because it’s Iowa. We can’t leave points on the board this week.
Q: Do you think this team looks better this year?
Clauss: Yes, I do think they look better, but I will add that it’s uncharacteristic to see this many mistakes and errors. They have to cut down penalties, especially pre snap. Those false starts on the sneaks are not good and will come back to hurt you. But to me, they look like they understand the offense better. As I said before,the defensive line looks more gap sound and the linebackers are playing at a high level given the experience they have. I’d say that all around they look good and just need to clean up some things in the secondary and with the drops, but it's still early there's a lot of development that can happen throughout the year. They look better and more confident than they did one year ago and it’s also good to see we are gaining depth.
While we aren’t where we were back in the Big Ten championship years, the backup tight end can roll in and make a difference. Receivers you haven’t heard of before are catching balls and making blocks, some young defensive linemen are giving guys a break and not just being a body and overall we are seeing young players play well. LeShun Daniels looks like a beast in waiting for the years to come. We are building things slowly and steadily and this weekend is a big one. It will be rocking in Ames and Hawkeye Nation needs to show up.
Jared Clauss: I think they're looking more confident and they're not acting like robots. The defensive tackles are more active now than we saw one year ago and you are are seeing more confidence there. That's given the coaches more confidence in the rotation so they are able to move more players in and out and stay fresh.
You can see big jumps in playing ability along both sides of the line of scrimmage, which can happen from year to year. Speaking from experience, my first two years I was just worried about not making a mistake and was very robot-like. Then between my sophomore and junior year the light came on and I think you're starting to see that with some of these guys especially the defensive tackles. It looks like Davis and Cooper are very active and confident right now and are reading things well.
With much of the rest of the defense, the staff knew it had a lot of the same personnel coming back and they’ve established a game plan in the first two games that allows us to dictate when ball comes out. We are blitzing a lot on third downs and using slants along the defensive line for running plays; we are a lot more active on defense. It worked well against NIU as well as this past week. When you hold a team to under 200 yards of offense, that's impressive no matter who it is. I don’t think they’ve shown everything and they are not over-thinking things. Also, I would say the linebackers playing fantastic. With the game experience we have you would expect this, but they’re reacting very quickly. What I liked last week was you're starting to see more emotion out of those guys and I think other guys will feed off of that. they are playing well laterally as a defense and I haven't seen too many busted assignments it’s just cleaning up a couple of the deep shots... so far they're doing a nice job
Q: In this day and age of spread offenses, is the sack stat losing its value?
Clauss: Sacks are always going to be important, but there were a lot more five and seven step drops and slower developing plays when I was playing and so you had more time to get to the quarterback. On the defensive line you have a chance if the quarterback has to pat the ball once or twice because the coverage is good. We had some very good defensive backs when I was playing and I think several sacks came from that because there was nowhere to go with the ball. There are certain games you run on the defensive line if running backs are helping the offensive tackles with chip blocks and there are certain games that you run if you're seeing slide protections on the offense line. As this defense get more experience I think you'll have some of the defensive lineman recognizing protections and calling games on the field based on what they're seeing. But on the whole, a sack is still extremely important because if you look at the statistics, drives that allow a sack are obviously much less likely to be successful and lead to points.
Iowa isn't getting a lot of sacks but when I was in the NFL, some of the blitzes were designed to get the ball to come out early, knowing the quarterback would recognize the pressure. Iowa is not letting the routes develop, bringing the pressure and on a 3rd and 8 they are going with the mentality that ‘we will give you five yards but we come up and make a sure tackle and let's get off the field.’ By doing that you are also dictating tempo as well and you're not just sitting back and letting that happen to you. I think in general with the up tempo offenses running more plays, we are dictating the tempo more so far this year with the pressure we are bringing.
Q: What are your thoughts on the play of Jake Rudock?
Clauss: I think he looks really good. I think accuracy of a quarterback is not talked about as much as it should be. They talk about certain adjectives at the combine, but I think a quarterback who throws a ball who hits guys in the hands is a big deal. He has had a couple of bad decisions in two games, but he looks good and has a surprisingly a good pocket presence. The pass protection has been good but when he has felt pressure he has had a very good knack of escaping pressure. It’s frustrating to play against a quarterback like that. You are coming from their blind side and he takes a few steps forward and finds a hole. He’s more athletic than I thought he would be and has those rushing touchdowns; I am pleasantly surprised.
I think there is less checking at the line of scrimmage so far which is to be expected with the younger quarterback but he has shown the ability to make a variety of different types of throws. It was great to see him after the interception last week, to come back and look good on the next drive. He shook that interception of pretty well. He is a sophomore and is only going to get better and it’s just impressive watching him play.
Q: Was this a good time for a bye for Iowa State or will Iowa have an edge having played a second game to Iowa State’s one?
Clauss: You can scheme, run card plays and have the scout team run the opponents offense in an off week but unless you have injuries that needed time to heal, the game experience is a night and day better option. There is something to be said of coming out of four weeks of camp, you are beaten up and having gone through the grind of hot summer and getting a bit of a breather. I can understand that argument, too. But your ability to react quicker comes from games. I don’t care if the team you are playing is an 11-0 team or 0-11 team, game experience is the best. Game experience is best because no matter what a scout team shows you, those players were recruited for their own teams and their own schemes; it's not the same. Teams play well against other teams who have similar offensive and defensive philosophies because that's what they see during the spring, summer and fall camp, so I'm a big believer that a bye week is more detrimental. That said, it's all about what you make out of it and Iowa still needs to have a good week of practice and realize the level of competition is going to step up this week.
Another one of the challenging things ISU will encounter about preparing for Iowa is they have shown a lot of different looks..there is play action, fullback sets, 4 or 5 wide, read option, deep shots, tunnel screens...a lot to prepare for. I think they have the type of offense that can adjust. It’s not a one dimensional offense like Northern Illinois where you put a circle around one player to stop. Iowa doesn’t have that; they are very balanced and they just have to get more points. We can’t leave points on the board. ISU will play above whatever level they normally do because it’s Iowa. We can’t leave points on the board this week.
Q: Do you think this team looks better this year?
Clauss: Yes, I do think they look better, but I will add that it’s uncharacteristic to see this many mistakes and errors. They have to cut down penalties, especially pre snap. Those false starts on the sneaks are not good and will come back to hurt you. But to me, they look like they understand the offense better. As I said before,the defensive line looks more gap sound and the linebackers are playing at a high level given the experience they have. I’d say that all around they look good and just need to clean up some things in the secondary and with the drops, but it's still early there's a lot of development that can happen throughout the year. They look better and more confident than they did one year ago and it’s also good to see we are gaining depth.
While we aren’t where we were back in the Big Ten championship years, the backup tight end can roll in and make a difference. Receivers you haven’t heard of before are catching balls and making blocks, some young defensive linemen are giving guys a break and not just being a body and overall we are seeing young players play well. LeShun Daniels looks like a beast in waiting for the years to come. We are building things slowly and steadily and this weekend is a big one. It will be rocking in Ames and Hawkeye Nation needs to show up.
