Ricky took a lot of heat for 2min drill performance, was it fair?

DuffMan

DuffMan

Well-Known Member
Ricky took a lot of heat from some for his perceived lack of performance in the 2 min offense last year. Was it fair? Some say yes some say no. Here is something I gleaned from the Mike Hlas article regarding our wide receivers. About 1/2 down the page Advanced NFL Stats: The Two-Minute Drill you will find two graphs. These graphs display the odds of a successful two minute drill based upon points needed and starting point of the drive.

I found the numbers shockingly low. For instance a team down by 3 or less who gets the ball at their own 45 yard line with 2 min left in the game only scores about 50% of the time. Move it back to the 35 yard line and they only score about 40%, taking inside the 30 and your chances are reduced to around 30%.

For teams needing a TD those numbers are even more daunting and difficult to overcome. Your team is down 6 points, and they get the ball with 2 min left at mid field you are in great position to win right? According to this you are only going to score a TD around 40% of the time. Again move it back to the 35 and you are only going to score 30% of the time. Once you get to around the 20 yard line your chances quickly fall to under 20%.

What can we glean from this? For starters we can say scoring with your back against the wall is hard. That seems common sense but maybe it’s not. Just the other day I saw some yahoo claim in the “Stanzi Projected as Elite NFL QB?â€￾ that the stats lied in Ricky’s case, that he wasn’t a good QB because of his failures in the 2 min drill this season. That poster went on to say that they thought Ricky should have been able to score in at least 3 or 4 of those 5 opportunities. Clearly we can say that kind of expectation is unreasonable.

Due to differences between the NFL and the college game it’s difficult to compare two minute drill stats between the two. We can however look at Stanzi’s overall performance in the clutch, which for my purposes included any game in which we got the ball with 4 min to play or less and we needed a score to win or tie. In those games our team record is 3-5 which strikes me as pretty darn good. Here is the breakdown by year.

2008
NW- Loss
PSU-Win

2009
MSU- Win

2010
AZ- Loss
Wisk- Loss
NW- Loss
OSU- Loss
Ind- Win
 
Its not so much that he wasn't successful he didn't know how to run it , and looked horrible trying to do so. Couldn't audible couldn't call quick plays didn't throw ball away etc. etc. etc.
 
The first thing we can glean from this is I would imagine the odds of scoring are greater in college than the NFL. I won't put the losses solely on Stanzi, but he did lay an egg more times than not. They wouldn't have to rely on him to pull something out in the 2-minute offense had they all played better for the 58 previous minutes. There are a myriad of reasons why those games resulted in losses, and Stanzi is as much to blame as every other guy on the team.
 
I said many times this fall that I think Iowa fans' perspectives are skewed when it comes to the 2-minute offense. It's really difficult to score, especially in college football, especially when you have 70+ yards to go, and especially when there are less than two minutes (didn't one of our two-minute drills start with 59 seconds?).

Couple that with an offense that was basically average in terms of putting up points all year, doesn't run the spread, and relies on a run/pass mix that is basically impossible in end-of-game situations, and I don't think it's shocking that we we struggled in those situations, Ricky included.

When you get used to seeing Tom Brady and Peyton Manning march down the field like it's nothing, it's easy to forget how difficult it is to score at the end of games. To me the bigger issue was that our defense made Scott Tolzein and Dan Persa look like John Elway during "The Drive" and that our offense wasn't able to make first downs before the two-minute mark that would have put games away.
 
Stanzi definitely deserves some of the blame when it comes to the woes of our O in the latter part of the season. That's simply the territory that comes with being a starting QB at a major program.

I'm primarily struck by the terrible pick that he threw against Northwestern that pretty much served as the turning point of that game. After that ... he also seemed to play a bit more tentatively too.

However, Stanzi also deserves a lot of praise. He also deserves the benefit of the doubt ... fans also have to be able to put things in context too. In the latter part of the season he was stuck having to deal with the following bit of adversity ....

- Gettis and MacMillan out at the RG spot ... that mattered on many levels
- Ferentz playing dinged during the latter part of the season. Usually this isn't necessarily a bit issue ... however, it got amplified because Gettis/MacMillan were out.
- ARob's concussions/issues not only made our RB be a little less of a diversified threat on O ... but it also hurt the consistency of the pass-pro.
- This is pure speculation ... however, what's the bet that DJK's continued "antics" were perhaps a bit of a distraction.
 
It is not ricky's fault. Kok is clueless during a 2 min drill as it tkes forever to get a play in. They should just let the qb call those plays in the huddle or at line
HawkPhreek said:
Its not so much that he wasn't successful he didn't know how to run it , and looked horrible trying to do so. Couldn't audible couldn't call quick plays didn't throw ball away etc. etc. etc.
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Him taking sacks and checking down to Robinson for a 5 yard gain when we dont have any timeouts left is why I think the heat was deserved
 
bkim24 said:
Him taking sacks and checking down to Robinson for a 5 yard gain when we dont have any timeouts left is why I think the heat was deserved
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Burning the last timeout instead of spiking the ball is what cost Iowa a realistic chance of winning the Wisconsin game. The was a coaching snafu, pure and simple.

Iowa never really got over losing that game.
 
Ricky deserves some of the blame, but the majority of the criticism goes to the coaching staff.
The "deer-in-the-headlights" response to crunch time is becoming more obvious each year. This staff is very bad at 2 minutes drills and clock management.
 
homes said:
Burning the last timeout instead of spiking the ball is what cost Iowa a realistic chance of winning the Wisconsin game. The was a coaching snafu, pure and simple.

Iowa never really got over losing that game.
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Ricky and KF were pretty clear about that ... it was largely a miscalculation. The prior play took off less time than they expected. They didn't expect that they'd have enough time. Obviously, part of their job concerns managing the game in-game deal with how you handle those moments where you have to do things on the fly. When you're caught in those moments it's very easy to get things wrong. As it so happens, the Iowa staff are great at teaching, great at strategizing, and are pretty darn good at making in-game adjustments. However, when it comes to making timely decisions ... particularly when it comes to clock management ... the Iowa coaches tend to not be very good.

It may be frustrating for fans to watch sometimes ... however, the fact that they're so good at the other elements of their respective jobs is why I wouldn't trade in our staff for any other.
 
I think most Hawk fans placed too much blame on Ricky. He deserves some, but not all. I think NFL teams will have a more measured response. They will acknowledge his struggles with it, but realize he has also had success in the past. I don't think it will be a huge factor either way in his draft stock, his other attributes will determine where he goes.
 
hawkdrummer1 said:
Ricky deserves some of the blame, but the majority of the criticism goes to the coaching staff.
The "deer-in-the-headlights" response to crunch time is becoming more obvious each year. This staff is very bad at 2 minutes drills and clock management.
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The 2-minute drill isn't so bad. It's the clock management that is bad. Of course, clock management really constrains what you can do during the 2-minute drill.
 
I don't expect us to score every time we run the two minute drill, but I do want us to look like we at least practice it. We ran some of the most poorly executed two minute offense I've ever seen last year. The offense, Stanzi, the coaching staff all seemed like they were just completely panicked each time we were faced with that situation.
 
ICHawk24 said:
I think most Hawk fans placed too much blame on Ricky. He deserves some, but not all. I think NFL teams will have a more measured response. They will acknowledge his struggles with it, but realize he has also had success in the past. I don't think it will be a huge factor either way in his draft stock, his other attributes will determine where he goes.
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NFL teams are going to notice Ricky's work ethic, his ability, and his knowledge of the game. Furthermore, they're really going to appreciate him on an individual level. Lastly, a pretty glowing recommendation from Ferentz will definitely not hurt.
 
I think sometimes you have to look at the big picture rather than just the 2-minute drill at the end of regulation. How about at the end of the first half? What about responding after an opponent score? I know you are referring to just the last 2-4 min of the game and being behind, but there are plenty of other factors that come into play IMO. How about his 50 yd throw that got intercepted when we were up (7?) against NW late in the game? Again, I understand what you were getting at, but when taking the whole picture into consideration, I still come back to 'he wasn't very clutch last year'.
 
I think the most frustrating thing is that, stats be damned, if we're the ones with the lead and need to prevent a 2 minute drill score, we rarely come through and we blow it. I think that's why we constantly assume that we should be able to score at the end of a game, because nobody seems to have any trouble doing it against us.
 
homerHAWKeye777 said:
The 2-minute drill isn't so bad. It's the clock management that is bad. Of course, clock management really constrains what you can do during the 2-minute drill.
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Clock managent is an integral component of your 2-minute offense. If your clock management is bad, then by definition... your 2-minute drill has a serious weakness.

I don't buy any of the excuses for the end of the Wiscy game. How can thousands of rube fans see plain as day what to do. (while it's happening, not after the fact) Yet an experienced coaching staff completely chokes on it. No explanation.
 
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