Miller: A Revealing Loss in Ames

The B1G is at a cross-roads in my opinion.
Either do whatever it takes to get better & win or continue to fall further & further behind.

This conference lost to Rice, ISU, NMSt today. That doesn't happen 10yrs ago.
Throw in the bowl performances over the past several years there is no debate, this league is not even on the same planet with the SEC.
 
CJSHawk said:
We all knew our defense would be a work in progress. I just didn't think we'd be this bad. ISU punted once today. The overall lack of talent on defense is alarming.
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What we lacked in punts (we had 2) we made up for in turnovers. Can't imagine you'd be unhappy with the fumbles we handed you
 
Jon is right - Vandy went total Chrissy (Jim) Everett. That nickname came because he would bail from phantom pressure, even going down for a sack with no defenders around. This also affected his throws.
 
Give this man a freaking AMEN! It's so darn simple, I would work but no we have coaches that not only can't adapt, but Ferentz is the biggest coward I have ever seen when it comes to late game heroics. How many times must we go thru this to not even try and take a chance down field. The winners look for those opportunities. That was our chance to win it and Ferentz killed his teams confidence once again. We will never have a team under Ferentz with the kind of attitude or confidence to be a real elite team. I'm absolutely done with him.


tweeterhawk said:
Iowa has some talent in the passing game. They have a good offensive line. They had several one one one opportunities today but they kept running the ball into eight man fronts. They will continue to see those eight man fronts this year, and aggressive defensive calls.That will happen until they torch defenses through the air and make them pay for that approach, and even then it may not back off totally because teams are not going to fear Iowa�s defense this year. For the first time in a long time, teams will see that they can score on Iowa, so if they take more chances on defense and get burnt occasionally, it�s not going to hurt as much as it has in recent years against the Hawkeyes.This. When the run stopped working, I don't know why KOK and KF didn't go to a pass-first oriented offense. Make the Clone defense pay big time. We have the QB who can toss it and the receivers who by and large can beat man coverage; why not exploit that?Baffling.
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There are a lot of flaws with this team. The special teams are still VERY poor, in coverage anyway. The defense clearly struggled, as they were utterly unable to generate pressure with a 4-man rush, which is key for our scheme. And the offense was not what I was hoping for today, either.

Coker is not Shonn Greene. And he never will be. He's a very good back, and he's going to be a very important player for us for the next 3 years. But he'll never be Greene. One play in particular really stood out to me that demonstrates this.

It was in the 4th quarter, and Coker got a handoff up the middle. There was a cutback lane for him to the left where he could have picked up more yards (he got like 5 or 6 on the play), and he didn't take it. But even if he had, he wouldn't have scored. Greene would have. Coker just doesn't accelerate the way Greene could. Greene was not a burner in the sense that Chris Johnson is a burner, but he EXPLODED through the hole, and hit top speed very quickly. Coker needs a head of steam.

Again, he is going to be a very good player for us. But he's not the complete package as a runner like Greene was, and he's not going to be. McCall has/had that explosiveness. Coker doesn't. The two of them will complement each other very well in the future, though.
 
I'm sorry Jon but I can't read replies longer then 3 lines. So here's my take. At the end of the day today Kirk made about $308,000 :) all the way to the bank. Pretty good days pay..
 
Problem areas are QB, RB, DL, LB, DB and kickoff coverage. Other than that, we will be fine. Those that said Vandenberg is better than Stanzi are smoking lefty luckies.
 
The article mentions the lack of dline size, and thought I heard on sound off, that the dline weighs about 30lbs less than the line we had last year? Paraphrasing the article, that the size issue can only be addressed with off season work outs.

We had what, 2 years of Clayborn, Klug, Ballard starting. Couldn't the staff have worked on the bulking up process with the backups during that time? It strikes me as really lacking foresight if you have an undersized DL after 2 years of time to grow them into the appropriate size.

Or is it a case where the staff doesn't exactly know who's going to fill those slots so they can't go off in that direction with certain team members?

Again, not talking talent or practice at all. Just have a hard time understanding why we apparently have an undersized DL if they've had 2 years to get up to size.
 
Appreciate the article Jon.

I'm not sure I would agree that the offense was the bigger "culprit" in today's loss. There were certainly a lot of miscues on both sides of the ball and plenty of blame to go around. But this offense put up over 40 points and scored all three times in OT. Historically that's enough points to win (I'm guessing) over 90% of our games in the last 5 years.

The Achilles heel of Iowa's defense has always been stopping QB's that can run effectively. Additionally, they made no stops in OT. Inside their 20 is when the Iowa defense supposed to be the most effective. The "philosophy" has always been prevent the big play and hold the other team to nothing more than a field goal.

ISU had their way with this defense (especially in OT).
 
How much affect (if any) does Norm sitting up in the coaches box instead of being on the field have on the defense?
 
I think Coker is a really great kid and hope he turns into what we want him to be....but he really looks slow when he has to move laterally while he is waiting for a hole. He doens't have lightning speed when he has a hole, but when he is moving side to side he really looks big and bulky and not quick. I do like how he always fell forward today when he had a tackler on him and he ran strong and hit people. His ability to find holes is concerning to me.
 
HawkeyeMHA said:
I think Coker is a really great kid and hope he turns into what we want him to be....but he really looks slow when he has to move laterally while he is waiting for a hole. He doens't have lightning speed when he has a hole, but when he is moving side to side he really looks big and bulky and not quick. I do like how he always fell forward today when he had a tackler on him and he ran strong and hit people. His ability to find holes is concerning to me.
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Right??? He was so smooth last year. Transitioning all over those next levels. Didn't need super speed cause he hit things right. Glad he fell forward like you said. Wnat to see many more YAC...
 
rwin03 said:
this
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Nah, I don't think we suck. We have good players and they play hard, we just don't have the studs where we need them (DLine) and what we are used to having. I think teams will by physically better than us and deeper than us, we will have to make a lot of big plays to win games. I dont think we will do it like we have in the past, i.e. locking down teams on D.
 
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