On paper, the two deep...

W

WinOneThisCentury

Well-Known Member
actually looks a little scary. I'm certainly glad you get to play the games. A couple of observations:

1) Two new tackles and two guards that the coaches have admitted, have been very inconsistent. The offensive line could be a serious adventure as we all know.
2) The interior of the defense could be downright porous. You have 4 DT's with limited experience and a guy who hasn't played the middle LB in a college football game.

Those two things alone should make for a long season against the good teams we play.

Now the good news...there really are only 3 good teams on our schedule and I use the term "good" pretty liberally to describe Wisky, Nebraska, and Minnesota. All of those teams have issues too...abeit slightly less than Iowa.

Knowing this, and if Iowa can put it together and win 9 games with an inexperienced, inconsistent offensive line coming into the season and inexperience up the middle on defense, would that mean Kirk Ferentz is actually a good coach and we are lucky to have him? That he has the ability to coach up his weak areas and deliver a successful season?
 
WinOneThisCentury said:
actually looks a little scary. I'm certainly glad you get to play the games. A couple of observations:

1) Two new tackles and two guards that the coaches have admitted, have been very inconsistent. The offensive line could be a serious adventure as we all know.
2) The interior of the defense could be downright porous. You have 4 DT's with limited experience and a guy who hasn't played the middle LB in a college football game.

Those two things alone should make for a long season against the good teams we play.

Now the good news...there really are only 3 good teams on our schedule and I use the term "good" pretty liberally to describe Wisky, Nebraska, and Minnesota. All of those teams have issues too...abeit slightly less than Iowa.

Knowing this, and if Iowa can put it together and win 9 games with an inexperienced, inconsistent offensive line coming into the season and inexperience up the middle on defense, would that mean Kirk Ferentz is actually a good coach and we are lucky to have him? That he has the ability to coach up his weak areas and deliver a successful season?
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Been down this road a lot the past 5 years. KF has used up all his past equity with me, I do not think he is capable of taking advantage of the schedule. The non-con schedule sets up for a 4-0 start.....24 points a game would be enough in each game to win all the non-conference games......I just think they can't do it. The O is gonna struggle at minimum til early October.
 
The DTs may not have starting experience, but they have certainly seen playing time. But it is tough to believe they will be as good as Davis & LTP early on
 
Everyone thinks the defense is going to be good...I'm just saying I haven't seen many good defenses that weren't really strong up the middle...and controlled that part of the field. I'm anxious to see how Jaleel and Bazata do in controlling the interior. At least they aren't really young players...but until they do it against Pittsburgh, for example, with a good running game...I'm concerned. That game will provide the measuring stick in our run defense.
 
I'm happy Bower lost his spot. It's not a given that a player improves the next year. But it's a certainty that the position will be better when a player replaces a guy who started the previous year.
 
WinOneThisCentury said:
Everyone thinks the defense is going to be good...I'm just saying I haven't seen many good defenses that weren't really strong up the middle...and controlled that part of the field. I'm anxious to see how Jaleel and Bazata do in controlling the interior. At least they aren't really young players...but until they do it against Pittsburgh, for example, with a good running game...I'm concerned. That game will provide the measuring stick in our run defense.
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The years Iowa has a really good defense, there are usually at least two studs at each level. I just ain't seeing it this year. Gonna be a lot of mediocre QBs who have time to throw and that is a disastrous recipe when you look at our LBs and secondary and picture them running 10 yards behind guys in space. This is the kind of defense that makes a guy like Dan Persa look like John Elway.
 
WinOneThisCentury said:
Everyone thinks the defense is going to be good...I'm just saying I haven't seen many good defenses that weren't really strong up the middle...and controlled that part of the field. I'm anxious to see how Jaleel and Bazata do in controlling the interior. At least they aren't really young players...but until they do it against Pittsburgh, for example, with a good running game...I'm concerned. That game will provide the measuring stick in our run defense.
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I'm in the same boat as you. I don't know why so many people keep saying our d is gonna be so good? We have returning lbs who weren't good most of last year and pretty much unproven dtackles. I think the secondary will be above average. The Pittsburgh game scares me, I believe they will run at will against our defense.
 
Maybe it is wishful thinking on my part I expect the fundamentals, the tackling by the back 7 to be better. The fundamentals were as bad as I have ever seen under KF. Guys were simply out of position to make tackles, to make plays. I think it has been a point of emphasis for PP and the defensive staff to clean a lot of that up.

Crossing my fingers that Meier can do a better job of containing the edge. He is bigger, stronger and more experienced he should at least be able to impose his will more, get upfield quicker, have a better ability to funnel things to the linebackers.

Once again it comes down to the schedule, this doesn't have to be the '09 defense. They clean up a couple of things from last year and if the O do their part you are probably talking about an 8 or 9 win season.
 
I really like the defence. They have shown great ability in all the scrimmages. At tackle Johnson is a great athlete. There will be little to no drop off with him. I have also thought highly of Bazata ever since he came to campus. MLB is better suited for Jewell. He will be a great leader and tackle machine. I see a lot of Morris and Angerer when I see the play style. This year the linebackers are being put in better spots. I do believe that this defense can hold up on his to under 20 points per game average.
 
Kennyfromminne said:
I'm in the same boat as you. I don't know why so many people keep saying our d is gonna be so good? We have returning lbs who weren't good most of last year and pretty much unproven dtackles. I think the secondary will be above average. The Pittsburgh game scares me, I believe they will run at will against our defense.
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One could counter-argue that losing Spearman was addition-by-subtraction. And they'd have a strong, valid argument.
 
Hawknick said:
I really like the defence. They have shown great ability in all the scrimmages. At tackle Johnson is a great athlete. There will be little to no drop off with him. I have also thought highly of Bazata ever since he came to campus. MLB is better suited for Jewell. He will be a great leader and tackle machine. I see a lot of Morris and Angerer when I see the play style. This year the linebackers are being put in better spots. I do believe that this defense can hold up on his to under 20 points per game average.
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Unless we have all world LBs like Hodge and Greenway, our LBs are not good until October or November of their junior year. It takes years of getting torched for them to become good. Look at the last few rounds of turnover. The '06 and '07 LBs were just not that good (though they had their games with Klink and Humpal making contributions). By late in '08, when Edds and Angerer had been torched a bunch, they figured it out. '09 was amazing. Then, they turned over and we didn't see consistently good LB play until 2013 when we had 3 seniors and then the LB play was fantastic. Last year was a tire fire. This year probably will be, too. They will probably be decent in a year, but I suggest you temper your expectations. I'm just glad Coleman, Abdullah and Gordon are in the NFL.
 
hawkeyebob62 said:
The DTs may not have starting experience, but they have certainly seen playing time. But it is tough to believe they will be as good as Davis & LTP early on
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Agreed. Porous? Not even close. There is some big bodies and decent talent there, which means with the right rotation, they could be pretty darn good in the middle of the D-Line too.
 
bitmap said:
I agree but, IIRC, wasn't Pittsburgh effective running it to the outside last year?
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Pitt ran it inside and out. They did about whatever they wanted to with their running game in the first half of that game.

Iowa's got to run the ball better this year. If they can do that it'll open up everything else. If it's 2nd & 3rd and long a lot.... I almost think it's just that simple
 
On paper we look extremely average to below average. With a very easy schedule. On the field we will play like crazy to be average.
 
I think the DL may actually be a strength of the defense this year. Johnson has a very good chance to be at least as good as Davis in the middle and DE Drew Ott could be All Big 10. Meir should be improved with more experience and Bazata is an up and comer.
It's the LBs I still worry about. Agree that the changes at least give us hope of improvement. When Iowa has had great defenses they have had great seasons. The defense must improve for any chance of a memorable season.
 
DT isn’t the position to be concerned about. There will be a dropoff from a year ago, but Jaleel looks like the real deal, and him and Ekaktie were highly touted recruits in their 4th year in the program. Not to mention Bazata has a lot of experience too. You should be concerned about the OT’s and LB’s though. I’d rather get gashed up the middle on every play then watch another jet sweep clinic.
 
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