Cover3
Well-Known Member
As a little break in my day here, I watched a couple of highlight clips on YouTube from some of Ferentz's better days. I found a few things about them interesting (meant to be Ferentz-neutral, by the way):
2002 @ Michigan: 2002 #14 Iowa at #8 Michigan Highlights - YouTube
1. At the end of Ferentz's halftime interview, he tells Holly Rowe, "we just need to stay aggressive and keep attacking." I wonder if he still holds that mantra with a lead.
2. Bob Davie mentions multiple times in the second half that Iowa is going with a dime defense and man coverage. We used some dime this year, but that was largely absent from Norm's arsenal for the bulk of 2003-2011.
3. John Navarre was really slow, had little desire or ability to break the pocket, and UM used the shotgun very little. This certainly helped our D.
4. Jermelle's last TD came on a pretty conservative playcall (shovel pass), but he made it into a TD. I hate to say it, but chalk one up to execution (and the 'apologists').
2004 Outback Bowl: 2004 Outback Bowl - #12 Iowa vs #17 Florida Highlights - YouTube
1. Our play action was a lot more convincing then. Football is a very 'interwoven' game in that it's harder to pass if you can't run and vice-versa (and many other things like that), but Chandler, for all his other shortcomings sold play fakes very well. So did Banks and Stanzi. JVB did not from what I saw, and I'm not sure about Tate (maybe I should watch more highlight videos???).
2. They open by talking about how Ferentz totally revamped our bowl prep from the 2003 Orange Bowl. This was pretty well-known and openly stated by Kirk himself. Perhaps it's time to shake up the game-week prep now so the guys look a little more fresh on Saturdays, although there is certainly less room for variation over a five-day 'workweek' than over a 30-day or so bowl prep. Long story short, though, Kirk has overhauled aspects of our program before (at least early on).
3. Matt Roth gets a nice shove in on Chris Leak after Leak falls on a bad snap and the whistle blows. No flag, and I think rightfully so. There are two primary justifications for dead-ball fouls: 1) safety, and 2) sportsmanship. If anything, this hit possibly violated principles of sportsmanship, but it wasn't really that much of a taunt or anything. I think today Roth gets flagged for that because of the emphasis on more personal fouls in the name of safety. I'm all in favor of any measures to prevent concussions and the like, but flags on plays like this are now common, and unless it's a shot to the head, I'd like to see a return to when refs would eat the flag unless they saw a pretty egregious cheap shot.
2002 @ Michigan: 2002 #14 Iowa at #8 Michigan Highlights - YouTube
1. At the end of Ferentz's halftime interview, he tells Holly Rowe, "we just need to stay aggressive and keep attacking." I wonder if he still holds that mantra with a lead.
2. Bob Davie mentions multiple times in the second half that Iowa is going with a dime defense and man coverage. We used some dime this year, but that was largely absent from Norm's arsenal for the bulk of 2003-2011.
3. John Navarre was really slow, had little desire or ability to break the pocket, and UM used the shotgun very little. This certainly helped our D.
4. Jermelle's last TD came on a pretty conservative playcall (shovel pass), but he made it into a TD. I hate to say it, but chalk one up to execution (and the 'apologists').
2004 Outback Bowl: 2004 Outback Bowl - #12 Iowa vs #17 Florida Highlights - YouTube
1. Our play action was a lot more convincing then. Football is a very 'interwoven' game in that it's harder to pass if you can't run and vice-versa (and many other things like that), but Chandler, for all his other shortcomings sold play fakes very well. So did Banks and Stanzi. JVB did not from what I saw, and I'm not sure about Tate (maybe I should watch more highlight videos???).
2. They open by talking about how Ferentz totally revamped our bowl prep from the 2003 Orange Bowl. This was pretty well-known and openly stated by Kirk himself. Perhaps it's time to shake up the game-week prep now so the guys look a little more fresh on Saturdays, although there is certainly less room for variation over a five-day 'workweek' than over a 30-day or so bowl prep. Long story short, though, Kirk has overhauled aspects of our program before (at least early on).
3. Matt Roth gets a nice shove in on Chris Leak after Leak falls on a bad snap and the whistle blows. No flag, and I think rightfully so. There are two primary justifications for dead-ball fouls: 1) safety, and 2) sportsmanship. If anything, this hit possibly violated principles of sportsmanship, but it wasn't really that much of a taunt or anything. I think today Roth gets flagged for that because of the emphasis on more personal fouls in the name of safety. I'm all in favor of any measures to prevent concussions and the like, but flags on plays like this are now common, and unless it's a shot to the head, I'd like to see a return to when refs would eat the flag unless they saw a pretty egregious cheap shot.
