Nate Stanley Weighs In on Fant Usage

[#1DieHardHawk]

Stanley:

“As far as people saying, ‘oh, you should throw it to him more,’ the defense ultimately tells us where to throw the ball,” Stanley said. “You can game plan as much as you want. You can try to isolate on a certain person.

“But when the ball is snapped, whatever the defense does, we have to react to it. Sometimes they can take away a certain person or sometimes they do something to give someone else a better opportunity to make a play...

"We have a lot of guys out there that are weapons and (Fant is) right there at the top of the list,” Stanley said. “Maybe defenses based off of certain coverages they run against one our route concepts are able to take him away more so than a different person.

“Again, it just comes back down to what the defense does and the play that we have against that certain defense.”

This basically supports what I posted last week. The issue is not some conspiracy on the part of the coaching staff. It's multifactorial, but, part of it is that Stanley is so focused on Xs and Os that he doesn't factor in who is where, and how we can take advantage of mismatches. To him, Fant is just another "X" when the ball is snapped. It's on the coaches to help him read what the defense is doing, but also how to factor in "who" is on the field and how personnel may dictate where the ball needs to go, and not just blind formational adjustments.

 

[tksirius]

Stanley:

“As far as people saying, ‘oh, you should throw it to him more,’ the defense ultimately tells us where to throw the ball,” Stanley said. “You can game plan as much as you want. You can try to isolate on a certain person.

“But when the ball is snapped, whatever the defense does, we have to react to it. Sometimes they can take away a certain person or sometimes they do something to give someone else a better opportunity to make a play...

"We have a lot of guys out there that are weapons and (Fant is) right there at the top of the list,” Stanley said. “Maybe defenses based off of certain coverages they run against one our route concepts are able to take him away more so than a different person.

“Again, it just comes back down to what the defense does and the play that we have against that certain defense.”

This basically supports what I posted last week. The issue is not some conspiracy on the part of the coaching staff. It's multifactorial, but, part of it is that Stanley is so focused on Xs and Os that he doesn't factor in who is where, and how we can take advantage of mismatches. To him, Fant is just another "X" when the ball is snapped. It's on the coaches to help him read what the defense is doing, but also how to factor in "who" is on the field and how personnel may dictate where the ball needs to go, and not just blind formational adjustments.

Yeah, that totally explains why Fant is on the sidelines on 3rd down or any down for that matter...

 

[hwk23]

Stanley:

“As far as people saying, ‘oh, you should throw it to him more,’ the defense ultimately tells us where to throw the ball,” Stanley said. “You can game plan as much as you want. You can try to isolate on a certain person.

“But when the ball is snapped, whatever the defense does, we have to react to it. Sometimes they can take away a certain person or sometimes they do something to give someone else a better opportunity to make a play...

"We have a lot of guys out there that are weapons and (Fant is) right there at the top of the list,” Stanley said. “Maybe defenses based off of certain coverages they run against one our route concepts are able to take him away more so than a different person.

“Again, it just comes back down to what the defense does and the play that we have against that certain defense.”

This basically supports what I posted last week. The issue is not some conspiracy on the part of the coaching staff. It's multifactorial, but, part of it is that Stanley is so focused on Xs and Os that he doesn't factor in who is where, and how we can take advantage of mismatches. To him, Fant is just another "X" when the ball is snapped. It's on the coaches to help him read what the defense is doing, but also how to factor in "who" is on the field and how personnel may dictate where the ball needs to go, and not just blind formational adjustments.

Fant was only in 15 of 63 plays against NW apparently. Stanley has nothing to do with that. He did factor in who was in the game and that's why he checked down all game. I've posted this before but we are a bad team without Fant, Hockenson and B Smith in the game. Our WRs are below average and physically over-matched. They only look OK when Fant and Hockenson are drawing all of the attention.

 

[#1DieHardHawk]

Yeah, that totally explains why Fant is on the sidelines on 3rd down or any down for that matter...

Fant was only in 15 of 63 plays against NW apparently. Stanley has nothing to do with that. He did factor in who was in the game and that's why he checked down all game. I've posted this before but we are a bad team without Fant, Hockenson and B Smith in the game. Our WRs are below average and physically over-matched. They only look OK when Fant and Hockenson are drawing all of the attention.

Don't get me wrong. I agree, that's why I stated it's a multifactorial issue. Fant not being in there is perplexing to say the least. My guess is that the staff is stubbornly sticking to sets, and view Hock as the #1 TE. When they run "11 package" only one TE is on the field.

The question we've all been asking for years is why this staff refuses to adjust its sets to take advantage of the talent we have on the roster? There is no good reason why we haven't seen more multiple TE sets with Fant and Hock....none. Why didn't we scheme to get Wadley in space more? When in the red zone, why haven't we split Beyer (when healthy) out, and on and on.

What I was referring to is when Fant is on the field. There have been several games this year where the announcers themselves questioned why the ball wasn't going his way. I just think Stanley doesn't think along those lines, and his statements support that. The "Xs and Os" have been so drilled into him, that his natural competitive instincts are stifled.

 

[SpiderRico]

In the lead up to the season, BF said his plan for the offense was to:

1. Be aggressive
2. Take advantage of mismatches

“Taking what the defense gives you” is not being aggressive in the least. An aggressive offense dictates to the defense and forces the defense to react to you.

Keeping Fant out of the game destroys any chance at #2.

So once again....what the f*ck is going on here?!

 

[pekurhawk]

The defensive

Look, at this point Fant is a first round pick. Part of it could be him going into knee or head protection mode and he might not be giving it all for the team. We saw something kind of similar with Clayborn as Iowa started losing games in 2010. Clowney did the same at South Carolina. It's pretty common nowadays and we can piss and moan about Ferentz, but we have no idea what is going on in practice and what the coaches see that maybe we don't. Ferentz wants to win games, I can't imagine him thinking "this guy is the best TE I've had in a decade and I'm not gonna play him." There's gotta be something else going on.

The defensive line quit in 2010 because of the dickhead defensive line coach that was fired abruptly before the bowl game, acoording to a lineman from that team.

 

[hwk23]

In the lead up to the season, BF said his plan for the offense was to:

1. Be aggressive
2. Take advantage of mismatches

“Taking what the defense gives you” is not being aggressive in the least. An aggressive offense dictates to the defense and forces the defense to react to you.

Keeping Fant out of the game destroys any chance at #2.

So once again....what the f*ck is going on here?!

If Fant draws too much attention, that creates a weakness somewhere else, and that’s a good thing. I would hope KF understands this but sometimes it doesn’t seem like it.

 

[DJI9424]

Stanley states the offense's plan is to react to what the defense gives them. Okay, that's about as trite a response as what KF normally provides. However, a coaching staff that is on the ball will look for tendencies in the opponent's defensive scheme and decoy or mask certain formations and routes to exploit their tendencies, looking for certain routes to open up once the defense has "bit".

But just as importantly, Stanley has to do a better job of looking away from his primary target. For example, if the TE is running a delay/drag route across the middle of the field after the linebackers have committed, he cannot just be staring at his TE until his route is fully developed, he must look elsewhere so that the linebackers will bite. Unfortunately, I see little to no evidence of Stanley doing any such thing.

I'm not saying QB is an easy job to perform well, it is not by any stretch. However, we should be seeing more evidence that Stanley is actually growing into his position, for example how he masks his own tendencies so that the defense cannot key on certain things, like the ubiquitous check down to running to the short side of the field. It's far from rocket science to figure out Iowa's tendencies, it's too bad the coaching staff does not realize that by now.

 

[DDThompson]

Fant was only in 15 of 63 plays against NW apparently. Stanley has nothing to do with that. He did factor in who was in the game and that's why he checked down all game. I've posted this before but we are a bad team without Fant, Hockenson and B Smith in the game. Our WRs are below average and physically over-matched. They only look OK when Fant and Hockenson are drawing all of the attention.

15 of 63 is absolutely mind-blowing and mind-numbling dumb.

As quickly as Stanley checked down and all the horizontal passing — that was the game plan. PLUS, NW was down two or three DBs. Compare that to Purdue’s gameplan if attacking Iowa’s backup/freshman CBs.

Stupid coaching. Stupid game plan.

 

[PlatypusMessiah]

Well... gee... If it’s an X’s and O’s thing, you’d always want an all-American TE against a Northwestern team playing 3 backups in the secondary. I know our WRs aren’t stellar, but I refuse to believe Iowa’s WR and TE are at a competitive disadvantage against the Northwestern second string defensive backs.