The truth about our D, a statistical analysis.

[Herkeynerd]

I'm surprised that nobody has brought this up. Especially in this thread. What does Iowa do on D that has really helped them in the past? Tackle well. In this stretch of bad games for the D, I can't even put a number to how many times our defense has been in position to make a play and then grab air. Not to mention how many times Iowa decided it would be okay to try and take Persa high and knock him silly, he just ducked out of the way. Fundamentals 101. Iowa makes half the tackles they should, we're probably sitting here debating on which BCS at large bid we might receive. Upon reading all of these posts, it became very clear to me.

 

[FromFry2Ferentz]

I just think were going to have to agree that it was a total team loss in each of the 4 instances. Special Teams, Offense, Defense all played their roles in the 4 loses. Good and bad. Its just the way it is.

 

[wally59]

If we had Michigans Offense with our defense banged up as it is would we have lost to Northwestern and Ohio State?

 

[forgottenman]

First off, this year's defense was slightly above average, nothing spectacular but certainly not bad. They were plenty servicable to win games for you if our offense carried their weight, especially in the 2nd half of the season.

Stats can be misleading; because of our offensive and defensive schemes we greatly shorten the games down. I would guess the average plays per game are significantly lower on average in Iowa games.

What I would like to see is a breakdown of our efficiency on 3rd/4th and long and 2nd and 12 plus; this year I would guess it was pretty poor. With our LB corp we just weren't built to be successful in these types of situations playing base defense. This is where I fault the coaches slowness to adjust, it took till week 11 to mix in dime/nickel packages which they abandoned in the 4th quarter inexplicably.

For the next points I realize that this would be far out of character for Ferentz. I respect his desire to call off the dogs and win with class and not run up the score for BCS sakes. However, I think we miss key learning opportunities because of this.

2 things I would really like to see next year on defense:
-- When we get up a good amount on Cupcake U start bringing the house from all different angles on every play with the starters. We have to learn/gain confidence in getting home on blitzes and you can't learn this without game experience.
-- Once again when up practice your nickle then so we aren't using it for the first time in week 6.

2 things I would really like to see next year on offense:
--Once again once up on Cupcake U: Go to no huddle in 2nd half intermittently; Ferentz teams need more game practice with 2 minute drill.
--Once in a blue moon throw in 5 wide on 1st down. Doesn't hurt to surprise teams every now and then...

 

[skinnykilmer17]

My thoughts for what it is worth.

It was a total team collapse in my opinion. KF's philosphy for success is strong defense and conservative offense. This year should have been the year the offense picked up the defense with all of our supposed weapons. But the loss of Wegher and especially Hampton was critical. We lost our homerun threat.

Defensively, the linebackers struggled as well as Hyde in my opinion. Makes sense at those positions: Edds, Angerer and Spievey are on NFL rosters. Not to mention Norm's absence and the disruption surrounding that. KF didn't add a "replacement" coach until several weeks in. (Levar Woods).

Here is the key in my opinion. This staff is so entrenched in their schemes and philosphy, and why not? It has been successful. But when creativity is required this staff showed a total inability to adjust. For instance, why did Coker not play in a Big Ten game until a few weeks in? The staff simply just didn't overcome several challenges that faced them.

Getting back to our tendency to rely on our defense and conservative style to win games. Maybe the Alabama and Ohio St's of the world can get away with it. But we don't get the talent they do to overcome these challenges. Simple fact.