IowaLawWasRight
Well-Known Member
1. Play Calling: For the first time in ages, I was really happy with the play calling in the first half. We had a nice mix of well timed short passes, deep balls to keep the defense honest, and misdirection runs. We seemed to throw more deep balls in the first half than all of CJ Beathard's senior year. But the second half was another story. We had around 270 yards of offense in the first half, and 70 yards in the second. It's no coincidence. Good coaching staffs make halftime adjustments to exploit weaknesses in the second half. Brian, on the other hand, dials up a run up the middle on 2nd and 17, then follows that blunder up with a Stanley QB sneak on 3rd and 15. They call that playing not to lose rather than playing to win.
2. Punt Returns: I'm sorry but we're more than halfway through the season and a change still NEEDS to be made at punt returner. Jackson is just not the guy. He continues to let almost every ball land and roll, and the ones he does catch, he fair catches, whether we are on our own 4 yardline or whether there are any defenders in front of him or not. Jackson has a great career ahead of him at Iowa, but it's not at PR. Remember the difference it made last year to have King or McCarron back there? We had a homerun threat every punt who averaged 10 yards a return and had the smarts to know when to let a ball go and when to make a fair catch. This year, we are getting less than nothing from the position. Give someone else a shot immediately.
3. Mental Mistakes: I can't remember a year where Iowa has had so many dumb mental mistake penalties. Delay of games, blocks in the back, holding all the time. What is going on here?
4. Punting Upgrades: I give the special teams credit for going against the Ferentz era grain by pulling the union card from an underperforming senior and replacing him with a more talented underclassmen. What does Gersonde do when given a chance? He only comes in and punts 5 times for a 53 yard per punt average. Those are Ryan Donahue his senior year kind of numbers, and it was great to see. My only question is, why did it take this long for Gersonde to play?
5. True Freshmen WRs: I remember prior to the season starting, fans were giving far too much hype to a group of true freshmen WRs that were supposed to upgrade our WR play. Well this week, the true freshmen had a combined 1 catch for 5 yards. Last week, they had a combined 1 catch for 7 yards. Let's face it...this is the type of production an objective fan should expect out of 2 star true freshmen recruits. The problem is with our WR recruiting, not the kids. How many Big 10 teams are led by a 5'9 walkon at WR? 1.
6. Poor use of RBs: A long standing symptom of the Ferentz era is his stubbornness and refusal to play quality backups. Despite almost ever press conference having a coach say that we need to limit Wadley's carries to keep him fresh, and we need to find a way to get our super talented freshmen RBs in the game, this week marks another week where the score was Wadley 26 carries (way too many) and the rest of our 5 scholarship running backs combined with 2 carries (not nearly enough). I am probably higher on Wadley than any other Hawk fan, but having him run it between the tackles 26 times is not a recipe for success, and anyone who watches football knows this.
2. Punt Returns: I'm sorry but we're more than halfway through the season and a change still NEEDS to be made at punt returner. Jackson is just not the guy. He continues to let almost every ball land and roll, and the ones he does catch, he fair catches, whether we are on our own 4 yardline or whether there are any defenders in front of him or not. Jackson has a great career ahead of him at Iowa, but it's not at PR. Remember the difference it made last year to have King or McCarron back there? We had a homerun threat every punt who averaged 10 yards a return and had the smarts to know when to let a ball go and when to make a fair catch. This year, we are getting less than nothing from the position. Give someone else a shot immediately.
3. Mental Mistakes: I can't remember a year where Iowa has had so many dumb mental mistake penalties. Delay of games, blocks in the back, holding all the time. What is going on here?
4. Punting Upgrades: I give the special teams credit for going against the Ferentz era grain by pulling the union card from an underperforming senior and replacing him with a more talented underclassmen. What does Gersonde do when given a chance? He only comes in and punts 5 times for a 53 yard per punt average. Those are Ryan Donahue his senior year kind of numbers, and it was great to see. My only question is, why did it take this long for Gersonde to play?
5. True Freshmen WRs: I remember prior to the season starting, fans were giving far too much hype to a group of true freshmen WRs that were supposed to upgrade our WR play. Well this week, the true freshmen had a combined 1 catch for 5 yards. Last week, they had a combined 1 catch for 7 yards. Let's face it...this is the type of production an objective fan should expect out of 2 star true freshmen recruits. The problem is with our WR recruiting, not the kids. How many Big 10 teams are led by a 5'9 walkon at WR? 1.
6. Poor use of RBs: A long standing symptom of the Ferentz era is his stubbornness and refusal to play quality backups. Despite almost ever press conference having a coach say that we need to limit Wadley's carries to keep him fresh, and we need to find a way to get our super talented freshmen RBs in the game, this week marks another week where the score was Wadley 26 carries (way too many) and the rest of our 5 scholarship running backs combined with 2 carries (not nearly enough). I am probably higher on Wadley than any other Hawk fan, but having him run it between the tackles 26 times is not a recipe for success, and anyone who watches football knows this.
