The mysterious Iowa offense

B

BirdsOfPrey

Well-Known Member
The Hawkeyes ended 2013 on a high note. LSU was probably the most talented team in the country last year until they lost their quarterback. The Hawks played them tough even though our QB was hurt. We had tons of young talent. What did we lose from that team? A tight end who everybody complained had bad hands & was easily tackled and a solid right tackle. Everyone else on offense was coming back a year older, stronger, faster. Plus, we were adding some talented and speedy receivers. At the end of 2013, young guys like Tavian Smith, Hillyer, Powell, Vandeberg, Duzey, Hamilton, Canzeri and a few others had began to show their potential as playmakers. If you had polled Iowa fans (the rational ones without an agenda) about the offense and it's potential for 2014, the results would have been unanimously favorable. Spring practice highlighted the new receivers and that added to the positive vibe. Fall camp reviews from the Big Ten travel show were glowingly positive. Fast forward three games into the 2014 season and the wackos & fanatics are out in force again. Iowa sucks, the Hawks won't win another game this year, we always suck, no/never/can't/won't.... blah blah blah blah.

So, what changed between the bowl game & now? Mistakes? Injuries? Schedule? Defenses? Refereeing? The players and their
coaches who provided last year's excitement, results and future optimism are still here. Early signs are that the exciting youth appears to have progressed. This team looks faster and potentially more explosive. After watching the first three games, it feels like the offense has had too few opportunities. The hurry up game feels much slower. Are we running the 70-75 plays a game they were shooting for? Jake got crunched last weekend on an off-side play and noone ran to his defense or helped him up. Do we have a team chemistry problem, aka QB controversy? One could imagine that the team might rally behind the more dynamic player. Consider this scenario - Rudock always plays it safe and consciously chooses the short passing game. He is the game manager. The result would be that Iowa consumes massive time on every drive, Jake throws very few interceptions, he has a high completion percentage and the games will likely be close in scoring. Rudock would have the opportunity to save a few games with last minute heroics too. Coaches would have trouble finding fault with his play and Beathard would get very little playing time in close games - no upstaging Jake. Beathard is younger, bigger, faster, has a stronger arm and surely must be catching Jake as now he's had a year to learn the playbook/offense. Rudock looked ****** the one series Beathard got in the Ball State game. That's not the picture of a team player who's confident he's the team leader. Entitlement is still a strong characteristic of today's youth. Maybe that's a stretch, but Jake's play seems different so far this season. There is an unknown factor behind the Hawks offensive struggles. If its just execution, I'd expect to see a 100% turnaround starting this week. We match up well with Pitt & I am expecting the Hawks to win!
 
Coaching staff happened, just like from 2009 to 2010. Talent was there but they were never able to pull it together.
 
We are very average talent wise, although we do have some talent on our lines. Our skill position talent is very average to below average, not near as good as some people like to think. This combined with a terrible offensive strategy and you take what could have been a year to really rack up the wins, and what it will see is another very average record. Welcome to 8-4 or 7-5 when a good hawk team would roll this schedule and actually put us back on the map.
 
Not just looking at the talent level of the offense but how easy it is for opposing teams to successfully prepare and develop a game plan against a transparent and predictable offense that still IMO looks like it's in slow motion because of this.
 
HawkeyeMHA said:
We are very average talent wise, although we do have some talent on our lines. Our skill position talent is very average to below average, not near as good as some people like to think. This combined with a terrible offensive strategy and you take what could have been a year to really rack up the wins, and what it will see is another very average record. Welcome to 8-4 or 7-5 when a good hawk team would roll this schedule and actually put us back on the map.
Click to expand...

We put up 62 combined points against Michigan and Nebraska to end the year. The offense seemed to be clicking pretty good to end the year and we brought virtually our entire offense back with another year under their belt with the new offensive staff from 2012. EVERY SINGLE thing that would indicate a positive offensive year was there....returning QB, 4 of 5 returning OL, 3 of 4 returning TEs and all RBs and WRs of importance. There are no injuries thru the 1st three games either that should indicate a drop-off of this magnitude.

So we're left with only a few options.....1)there are injuries that are bad enough to hamper certain players' production, but not serious enough to not suit up and play, 2)there is a chemistry/leadership issue or vacuum within the team right now, 3) there has been a continuing philosophy change offensively that hasn't been worked out among the coaching staff

Other than that, it makes no sense. There is only 1 year of precedence in 16 years under Ferentz that a unit that has returned this much talent wasn't better and that was the "Fat Cat" year of 2006....take from that what you will.....
 
The Iowa offense is like the Yeti. Lots of fairy tales about it but nobody has proof that it actually exists.
 
"We put up 62 combined points against Michigan and Nebraska to end the year. The offense seemed to be clicking pretty good to end the year and we brought virtually our entire offense back with another year under their belt with the new offensive staff from 2012. EVERY SINGLE thing that would indicate a positive offensive year was there....returning QB, 4 of 5 returning OL, 3 of 4 returning TEs and all RBs and WRs of importance. There are no injuries thru the 1st three games either that should indicate a drop-off of this magnitude.

So we're left with only a few options.....1)there are injuries that are bad enough to hamper certain players' production, but not serious enough to not suit up and play, 2)there is a chemistry/leadership issue or vacuum within the team right now, 3) there has been a continuing philosophy change offensively that hasn't been worked out among the coaching staff

Other than that, it makes no sense. There is only 1 year of precedence in 16 years under Ferentz that a unit that has returned this much talent wasn't better and that was the "Fat Cat" year of 2006....take from that what you will..... "


That's exactly what I was trying to point out. The Hawks finished last year strong. The entire offense returned. Several promising new additions like Willes. Powell with a year in the program would know the playbook. In the first three games this year, T. Smith has made a bunch of awesome catches & runs. Vandeberg has looked very good as a punt returner. The defenses the Hawks have faced so far are not superior to what we faced last year. I don't know what's up, but there's a reason for everything. We are playing at Pittsburg this week. Deja vue?
 
HawkeyeMHA said:
We are very average talent wise, although we do have some talent on our lines. Our skill position talent is very average to below average, not near as good as some people like to think. This combined with a terrible offensive strategy and you take what could have been a year to really rack up the wins, and what it will see is another very average record. Welcome to 8-4 or 7-5 when a good hawk team would roll this schedule and actually put us back on the map.
Click to expand...

Wether or not this is true, which it's impossible to know, is irrelevant given the level of competition.

Give me Bethard at QB, Canzeri, Smith, Willies, Powell and Duzey at TE spread the field out and any good coordinator should be able to put plenty of points on the board. Or at the very least considerably more than what Iowa is currently doing.

Imo there is no way to even tell what we have with this ridiculous offense of Rudock playing catch with Damon Bullock.
 
RocknRollface said:
Wether or not this is true, which it's impossible to know, is irrelevant given the level of competition.

Give me Bethard at QB, Canzeri, Smith, Willies, Powell and Duzey at TE spread the field out and any good coordinator should be able to put plenty of points on the board. Or at the very least considerably more than what Iowa is currently doing.

Imo there is no way to even tell what we have with this ridiculous offense of Rudock playing catch with Damon Bullock.
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Well put.
 
With all the returning talent there is absolutely no reason this offense should be struggling. It should not be a matter of player execution with everyone back. It is either game planning or chemistry or both. Chemistry could be shaky because of game planning. Players know who should be playing and what game plans give them best chance of winning. That leads to maximum mind on task and effort.

It would not surprise me to see great effort and an upset of Pitt. Emotional KF following the game and team saying they wanted to give KF a win in PA. Hopes are rebuilt. The season is pulled back frlm the brink and talk about division title within grasp...

And then follow with a 4-4 season losing to purdue but beating Nebby. It's the KF history.
 
They can't get the running game going and it destroys everything else Iowa tries to do. Either teams are loading up on the run (most likely) and don't care about the pass at all, or something else is wrong with the Iowa running game.

I have no idea why WR's would come to Iowa with GD as the OC. If I was Willies I'd be really PO'd right now as they keep running vandeburg out there to drop balls with no speed. Smith gets beyond 15 yards and they cant even attempt to get him the ball.

it doesnt make sense. why not give CJB a chance to fling it if Rudock is too scared to throw it?
 
mopkins said:
They can't get the running game going and it destroys everything else Iowa tries to do. Either teams are loading up on the run (most likely) and don't care about the pass at all, or something else is wrong with the Iowa running game.

I have no idea why WR's would come to Iowa with GD as the OC. If I was Willies I'd be really PO'd right now as they keep running vandeburg out there to drop balls with no speed. Smith gets beyond 15 yards and they cant even attempt to get him the ball.

it doesnt make sense. why not give CJB a chance to fling it if Rudock is too scared to throw it?
Click to expand...

Just gotta execute
 
DDThompson said:
With all the returning talent there is absolutely no reason this offense should be struggling. It should not be a matter of player execution with everyone back. It is either game planning or chemistry or both. Chemistry could be shaky because of game planning. Players know who should be playing and what game plans give them best chance of winning. That leads to maximum mind on task and effort.

It would not surprise me to see great effort and an upset of Pitt. Emotional KF following the game and team saying they wanted to give KF a win in PA. Hopes are rebuilt. The season is pulled back frlm the brink and talk about division title within grasp...

And then follow with a 4-4 season losing to purdue but beating Nebby. It's the KF history.
Click to expand...

This x100000

I could see us winning at Pitt 17-14, still have the same inept offense, same issues on defense and special teams....but we win and everyone will talk about KF righting the ship and division championship here we come.

And as the poster predicted, we'd shoot ourselves in the foot against a Purdue or MN to totally take us out of the running.

Guess that's why they play the game, but to think we're going to come out and open things up? Just don't see it. Even if CJB plays the entire game, he has so little experience, and odds are, he's probably gotten very few reps with the first team.

I expect to see Jake take 95% of the snaps, and we'll see CJB in for the zone read/option package for two series.
 
The issue is not execution, the issue is the system and play calling does not put the players in places to succeed. Running against a loaded box when you have established you will not even try to go over the top will yield poor results. Running patterns short of the first down on 3rd down will rarely yield a first down. We execute quite well, Jake has a high completion % and we have low turnovers. The offense just doesn't work. I could see how it may be more effective if we had great athletes who could cut back and take shorts passes and zip up field for huge gains, but we don't. This system and play calling are garbage and puts a low ceiling on the offense.

Finally, I won't be surprised to see the Hawks win this weekend. However, itll be because we take on a team that plays into our strengths and wont attack our weaknesses. I hardly consider that " a 100% turnaround", its just a good match up. We need those because Kirk wont change, he keeps beating his head against a wall and hopes it turns into a pillow.
 
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