so nobody's going to make a thread about the defense?

hawkinn3 said:
Not looking forward to Gordon and Abdullah running all over us, thankfully both teams have terrible QBs.
Click to expand...
False. I've seen Armstrong burn enough people with long throws to wide open receivers to be adequately concerned about. He's not great, but not terrible either.
 
okeefe4prez said:
Meh, it is what it is. Mabin was on his guy and he was gonna cover him no matter what. Heckuva play by Indiana and great acting job by the receiver. It was better than a block because it took Mabin completely out of the play. Kid's young, but he'll learn. Getting torched like we did today is going to be good for this defense in the long run. Indiana only had one sustained drive and we only face two more good RBs all year.
Click to expand...
Gordon and Abdullah..God help us.
 
QuadCityHawkeye said:
Today was odd. Iowa bottled up Coleman for the most part outside his three TD runs. They did about everything wrong you can thing of on those plays. Didn't get off the ball fast, did not shed blocks, were out of position, took bad angle, and did not wrap up.

Lowermilk did not have a good game and neither did Alston. King played really well and so did Lomax.

Hopefully this is just one of those weird occasions where some mental errors burned them short term. Iowa has faced some good RB's this year and Coleman was really the only one to put up video game numbers and they were based off 3 plays.

I won't get too down on the defense. They didn't play well overall today but over the course of the season they have played very well.
Click to expand...

Aisde from his 3 TDs, Coleman went 12 for 27. Not exactly lighting it up. But those 3 TDs were just excruciatingly painful to watch.
 
hawkeyebob62 said:
Aisde from his 3 TDs, Coleman went 12 for 27. Not exactly lighting it up. But those 3 TDs were just excruciatingly painful to watch.
Click to expand...

Agreed. 75% of Indiana's offense came on 4 or 5 plays. Although giving up the big plays and the poor tackling/out of postion/bad angles is troubling, I'm putting it into perspective with how the rest if the game went. Additionally, the D has preformed fairly well throughout the season.
 
Tiptontiger said:
Gordon and Abdullah..God help us.
Click to expand...

Northwestern gave up 4 long runs to Gordon, but managed to catch him on each run and otherwise bottled him up. Gordon is very good, but Wisconsin's o-line is not as good as we have come to expect. Our d-line will maul them and it's just a matter of the LBs tightening up some things, getting into a rhythm and executing.
 
Eda said:
Agreed. 75% of Indiana's offense came on 4 or 5 plays. Although giving up the big plays and the poor tackling/out of postion/bad angles is troubling, I'm putting it into perspective with how the rest if the game went. Additionally, the D has preformed fairly well throughout the season.
Click to expand...

Yep, it is nice having young LBs and not seeing us getting dinked to death in 7 minute drives.
 
okeefe4prez said:
Northwestern gave up 4 long runs to Gordon, but managed to catch him on each run and otherwise bottled him up. Gordon is very good, but Wisconsin's o-line is not as good as we have come to expect. Our d-line will maul them and it's just a matter of the LBs tightening up some things, getting into a rhythm and executing.
Click to expand...

We really did a pretty good job of bottling him up last year. It was more so White that hurt us.
 
Eda said:
We really did a pretty good job of bottling him up last year. It was more so White that hurt us.
Click to expand...

Our defense did a fantastic job of bottling up Wisconsin for about 50 minutes last year, IIRC. The problem was that our offense was completely ineffective and the defense was on the field all day and they just collapsed in the last few minutes. The most surprising aspect of the modern iteration of Wisconsin I noticed at the NU-Wisconsin game was that when the 4th quarter came around, Wisconsin's line hadn't worn out Northwestern's front four and Wisconsin didn't have those drives where they ran the ball for 6-12 yards every single play. I also don't know how many carries Gordon can take in a cold weather Big Ten game against a really tough defense. He sure hasn't been tested in that manner to date, but will get pounded by Nebraska and then have to come to IC in back to back weeks. It will be the most challenging stretch of his career.
 
okeefe4prez said:
Our defense did a fantastic job of bottling up Wisconsin for about 50 minutes last year, IIRC. The problem was that our offense was completely ineffective and the defense was on the field all day and they just collapsed in the last few minutes. The most surprising aspect of the modern iteration of Wisconsin I noticed at the NU-Wisconsin game was that when the 4th quarter came around, Wisconsin's line hadn't worn out Northwestern's front four and Wisconsin didn't have those drives where they ran the ball for 6-12 yards every single play. I also don't know how many carries Gordon can take in a cold weather Big Ten game against a really tough defense. He sure hasn't been tested in that manner to date, but will get pounded by Nebraska and then have to come to IC in back to back weeks. It will be the most challenging stretch of his career.
Click to expand...


You're right about last year. I'll add that half of White's yds last year came on one big run late in the 4th.

I also question the durability of Gordon. It appears coach Anderson is gonna slap the saddle on him and ride him the rest of the season (albeit, not a bad horse to have to ride). There is definitely a drop off after Gordon (to Clement?).
 
Something funny about Coleman's runs...no one seemed to touch him on any of those? He didn't really have to work to break it.
Maybe a function of the spread IU runs? I'm willing to give a pass to the Hawks D this week but better not happen again...
 
desihawk said:
Sure Coleman was terrific but I find it hard to believe the Iowa safeties suddenly and comprehensively forgot how to play. Was Indiana doing something truly innovative elsewhere to freeze Lo and Lo away from the play? I will look for Gamefilm's analysis keenly this week.

Aside: On one of Coleman's TDs, it was weird seeing him approach the endzone after a 50-60 yard run and Lomax (I think) who was in the vicinity continued trailing a receiver...not sure what that was about.
Click to expand...


I think the run you're talking about is the one where Lomax was in coverage and the Ind WR ran his route out and when Coleman was getting close to them, he held his hands out like he was catching a pass. Lomax got triple deked and the announcers mentioned it on air. Credit to the Ind WR for running out the play but you would think that with crowd noise and teammates, Lomax would have realized it was a run play.
 
Lowdermilk was quoted on HawkCentral as saying he should have been benched. A pretty forthright admission.

He and Lomax at least need to get their arms around these guys to let the pursuit catch up and make a tackle.
 
uihawk82 said:
Lowdermilk was quoted on HawkCentral as saying he should have been benched. A pretty forthright admission.

He and Lomax at least need to get their arms around these guys to let the pursuit catch up and make a tackle.
Click to expand...

I agree with him.
 
You have to wonder if some of it was a concentration thing too. The Hawks were finally rolling up 21-0, maybe subconsciously they took a play or 2 off. Who knows, but I have faith they will get it corrected.
 
IMO, and I'm not saying this is a legitimate excuse by any means, but it looked to me like a unit that had been carrying the team all season long lost focus when the offense finally showed up. I hope to see them bouncing back next week.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Latest posts

Share this page

Top