Oh to have a QB who can run

SwirlinLingerie said:
Goddammit, you guys are just firing me up again about those last couple years under Brian when Iowa was elite in two of its three teams.

For the life of me, I'll never understand why they didn't at least try one of their more mobile QBs (Lainez, Labas) for a handful of series every game to see if some designed runs (or even panicked scrambles) could help move the ball in order to get a few first downs. Or some series with Cooper (by the time they started that it was too late). Or even wildcat to someone else. Anything.

Speaking of Labas, that one never made sense. Not a single snap that season despite average high school QB play on the field (and immobile at that). Labas proved to be a starting MAC QB. Someday perhaps we find out what Labas said or did to Brian or Kirk.
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No one will ever be able to explain the Deacon Hill experience to me. Not a single person, not a single soul.
 
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Here are some stats. Starts with one cupcake then BT games. Not cherry picked, imho.

Gronk: 5 games
68.54% completion rate. 6.48 yards average completions. 136.8 average yards per game passing.

Career completion rate is 63.3%. Hmm.
Career yards per completion 13.4. Good.

Opinions: Current completion rate is competitive and better than his career stat.
Maybe accuracy was an issue historically?

Average yards per completion is 6.92 yards less than his career average. Why?

Longer throws have been overthrown. Why? Fear of INT’s? Receivers issue?

Consider number of drops. iNT early vs PSU was receiver, not delivery. Other examples?

Consider Gronk’s movement in the pocket. Consider his run threat capability.
My take: Big + compared to recent past.

Consider run game. Last season 1-2 in BT. 2025, 7 games, #3 BT, about 200.
Lester = Big Plus.

Less reliance on passing game? OK with me.

1 loss in BT. Whisker away from undefeated.

I am having a great time. 1 at a time.
 


dagdaj said:
Breathe easy and explain it away.

Yes, the passing QBs didn't work out. But I also think that was a stretch where we saw some of the most uncharacteristically so-so to underachieving offensive lines in a very long time, followed by a very young offensive line that took a couple years to get it's feet under it. It would have just been different quarterbacks in a cast.

That's what I'm going with.
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Agreed. Some of the O-lines were not good. Injuries and just poor play. An athletic quarterback can make an O-line even look better. He can buy time and move the pocket too. Guys like Deacon Hill and Spencer Petras were statues. That didn't help.

With a mobile quarterback, it forces the hand of defenses to add a spy or at minimum leaves a threat for a run. And in the case with Gronk, he can actually call his number to do some from the get go. This I hope allows for more RPO, play action and so forth.

I think there has been so much focus on passing and the lack of it, we forget that we are still moving the ball. What we see is KF's strategy as we have seen for decades. It just has a Tim Lester wrinkle to it. We are using what we have. I still do believe we will find the passing game eventually.
 




trj said:
No one will ever be able to explain the Deacon Hill experience to me. Not a single person, not a single soul.
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It was because Iowa had never had a Pillsbury Throwboy before. We've had guys who can run like Banks, great ones who could throw like Chuck, and some who could do both like Drew/Ricky/CJ. Even had a guy who made the QB sneak Hall of Fame.

But we had never had the one-ton dually QB and now we have. That's the explanation.
 






ICHawk24 said:
Iowa breaks out rushing gains and losses at:

Gronowski has been sacked 9 times for 50 yards. He has gained 339 yards on his 58 other carries. That is 5.8 yards per carry. He has 10 TD(!!), most of which have gone for short yardage and brought his average down. He is doing great on the ground.
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That's what I was too lazy too look at. The rushing yards when you remove sacks.

There's 3 games where he did not do quite so well rushing.
UMASS (12), Wisconsin (9), Indiana (7)
All three, the number of attempts were well below average attempts.
UMASS ? They scored 47 points. Obviously, other parts of the offense were working (including a decent-ish 170 passing yards).
Wisconsin? Again, the runningbacks could do whatever they wanted.

Again, the outlier here is Indiana.
Yes, so they were trailing at times. At times they were ahead. I don't know that trailing was the biggest reason for changing the way they play. Or if they did change the gameplan.

In the competitive games.....he's run. A lot.
Albany*: 11 attempts for 39 yards
ISU: 16 for 37
UMASS (moot)
Rutgers: 13 for 55
Wisconsin: (moot)
PSU: 9 for 130

* I assume that first game is scripted to incorporate a wide variety of what they intend to do on offense as it's the first game, so I'm counting it as a "competitive game".

Indiana: 8 for 7 (one of those was a sack, but I think it was for only 1 yard or less).
Maybe he would have had more if he played those last few minutes? I guess he wasn't far off from his average in terms of carries. He missed what, two possessions? Or 3? If it was three. I'm stupid and this is probably meaningless. And also more than possible they could/would have won.

It just feels like maybe they called that wrong. Or maybe, possibly, it was clear that Indiana had sussed it out? Obviously, it wasn't working with just one sack and less than a 1 yard average. I don't know enough about football to know if either is the case.
 


trj said:
No one will ever be able to explain the Deacon Hill experience to me. Not a single person, not a single soul.
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Exactly. Deacon Hill over Joey Labas, without Labas even getting a single snap, is the most dumbfounding aspect of the entire Ferentz tenure. Hill was an inaccurate passer who couldn't move and was also turnover prone. At the very, very least, Labas was at least somewhat mobile.
 


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