The fake punt : Nothing else really matters

Rlesterfan

Well-Known Member
This play bothers me more than any Iowa play in recent memory. Iowa can look at many things in the game, including poor clock management, but nothing really matters except for the fake punt.

This was just such a coaching blunder, how we were not in 'punt safe' at this point in the game make no sense. Instead we have 10 guys turned around worried about a punt return.

Seems everybody was worried about a fake but the coaches, and that is amazing considering the time left in the game, and the fact that WIS had one timeout left.
 
iowa's taking knees if they don't botch the FG and extra point at the end of the game, end of story.
 
I agree with OP. You have to know down and distance in every circumstance and this was flat out **** poor. Wisky has 6 minutes left to go in the game, they are punting in to the wind, Bielema is known for trickery and taking chances, best case scenario for Wisky in this case should they punt it is Iowa getting the ball around our 40 yrd line. Wisky D is horrible at best and a FG puts the game out of reach for Iowa.

NO WAY he kicks the ball to us.

And look at it like this: What does Iowa have to gain by setting up a punt return? We are winning for Christs sake. We don't need to score to win the game, we just need to run out the clock. You go max prevent in this case and maybe not even through a punt returner back there.

Remember - Wind in his face....GD this pisses me off.

I also think that if Norm was there that we are in max prevent in that situation. I really miss that guy.

KOK is brutal. Always has been, always will be.
 
AGREE. Worst coaching by Iowa in recent memory. Every single thing points to them faking it, I even yelled "Watch the fake" before the play, it was that obvious. Does anyone know if Ferentz or anyone has addressed this? I haven't heard any postgame but I almost expect an apology, or at least an explanation. If we had played "punt safe" we'd have gotten the ball back in FG range which means game over.
 
iowa's taking knees if they don't botch the FG and extra point at the end of the game, end of story.

Iowa didn't do those things earlier and because of that faced with a situation where they had a 6-point lead late in the game and the coaching staff fell asleep. I really don't care what happened earlier in the game. That does not excuse that decision.
 
The lack of a punt safe call there was surprising. We run punt safe quite a lot, so not calling it there is puzzling. I agree that this one call may trump the other stuff.
 
I was at the game and it was like the Red Sea parted when they ran the fake. Just terrible reaction time by Iowa.
 
The thing that bothers me the most is that Our punter got tackled for a loss on our FG try and theirs got a first down.

It is really hard to win any football game when you lose the battle of rushing yards between punters.
 
The fake punt was bad, very bad on our part, I sure don't know what the coaching staff was thinking in that situation. Missing an extra point as a Division 1 kicker is pretty much uncalled for. I know it happens and he is probably taking it harder than anyone, but he needs to get it higher than 7 feet off of the ground. Hopefully he keeps his head up and helps us down the road, but that one point and getting a chance in overtime sure looks huge now.
 
The fake punt was bad, very bad on our part, I sure don't know what the coaching staff was thinking in that situation. Missing an extra point as a Division 1 kicker is pretty much uncalled for. I know it happens and he is probably taking it harder than anyone, but he needs to get it higher than 7 feet off of the ground. Hopefully he keeps his head up and helps us down the road, but that one point and getting a chance in overtime sure looks huge now.
The DE was in his face it wasn't on him.
 
How about the false-start penalty when we had a 3rd and 1 at the Wisky 10 yard line?

The game could have been determined by WAY MORE than just 1 play.
 
The DE was in his face it wasn't on him.

I agree the DE was in there way too far, especially for an XP, but he would have cleared the DE if he would have gotten the proper air under it. Looking at it from the side view they showed, it didn't really have a chance.
 
How about the false-start penalty when we had a 3rd and 1 at the Wisky 10 yard line?

The game could have been determined by WAY MORE than just 1 play.

Not to mention the illegal formation penalty after the false start. Or the offsides on the kickoff that led to Wisconsin getting the ball at midfield. That may as well have been a 30 yard penalty.
 
I would have to say that missing an extra point mattered. In my mind, missing an EP is much worse than falling for a fake punt.

let's just make sure we're not talking about MISSING the extra point rather than the fact that the Wisconsin defender could have tackled Meyer in the backfield- how do you not block an extra point properly?
 
let's just make sure we're not talking about MISSING the extra point rather than the fact that the Wisconsin defender could have tackled Meyer in the backfield- how do you not block an extra point properly?

Special teams have been a problem since week 1; there isn't any reason to think they're going to get any better by seasons end. Figure out a way to overcome it.

The good news (for next year) is that there are NINE freshman on that unit.
 
Special teams have been a problem since week 1; there isn't any reason to think they're going to get any better by seasons end. Figure out a way to overcome it.

The good news (for next year) is that there are NINE freshman on that unit.

I'm pretty sure I agree with you- hope we're not arguing here... lol
 
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