Vanilla defense becoming more flavorful?





Yeah, if we had just played that all out blitz, multiple defense Richrod used at Michigan, we might have enjoyed some success. Poor old Norm, just never offered much once he left the SEC.
 


Boy, that's quite a straw man you've put up there.

There isn't a happy medium between being fundamentally sound and playing assignment football and not allowing your opponents to know exactly what you are going to do huh?
 


BTW my post was not an indictment of Norm's system. I, for the most part, have been fairly happy with how things on defense have been over the years. What I think this article illustrates is that Norm is not going to try to fit a square peg into a round hole. If he feels the players he has don't fit into his traditional 4-3 set he is more than willing to look into alternatives.
 


Hawkfromnorwalk said:
Iowa might mix up flavors on defense - Big Ten Blog - ESPN

Good article from Rittenberg on ESPN. He highlights the obstacles our defense is going to have to face this year and the potential solutions to overcome them. Looks like we may see a few more 3-4 lineups this year.
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Iowa's ability to go beyond "vanilla" has ALWAYS been based on personnel. When Iowa has had the personnel ... Iowa has frequently "mixed it up" when they've had to. The issue is that most of the time, the Iowa D has held enough advantages out of their base D that they haven't been forced to "mix it up."

Of course, given how mediocre the O was in '09, the D was forced to "mix it up" a bit more than usual. Fortunately Iowa also had the personnel to mix it up ... and it obviously reaped plenty of rewards (including an Orange Bowl victory).

However, one thing that undermines our ability to be more multiple on D in '11 is the fact that we still have plenty of INEXPERIENCED youth on the squad. In fact, the inexperience at LB might be a big reason why we end up using more mutli-DB packages than 3-4 formations. Of course, that also assumes that Miller and Lowery get up to game-speed pretty quickly.
 


Honestly some people just wont ever get it.....more happens than they are seemingly capable of seeing.

Chad
 




I don't think Iowa has ever played a vanilla defense. We have a system. We blitz on occasion, when it makes sense. The problem last year was the absence of our D coordinator for most of the season!

Talk to ANYONE who knows anything about football, and they will tell you that the Iowa defense is sound. Year after year.

By the way, did anyone actually watch the Missouri game? Late blitzes by Iowa played a huge role in that game.

A decade late? WTF????
 


ChosenChildren said:
I don't think Iowa has ever played a vanilla defense. We have a system. We blitz on occasion, when it makes sense. The problem last year was the absence of our D coordinator for most of the season!

Talk to ANYONE who knows anything about football, and they will tell you that the Iowa defense is sound. Year after year.

By the way, did anyone actually watch the Missouri game? Late blitzes by Iowa played a huge role in that game.

A decade late? WTF????
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I feel your pain and again I must say........some people just wont ever get it.....more happens than they are seemingly capable of seeing.

Chad
 
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ICHawk24 said:
BSpringsteen, I have an honest question. Are you a Hawkeye fan? Or just a *****?
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Fan and alum.

I'm a Norm fan fwiw. I don't think the defense has ever been the reason we've lost the game. Eben NW last year, we ought to be able to score more points against that defense...

I am perpetually frustrated by teams who are disciplined enough to adjust to us and we seemingly don't make the adjustment back.
 


cmhawks99 said:
I feel your pain and again I must say........some people just wont ever get it.....more happens than they are seemingly capable of seeing.

Chad
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So why don't you enlighten us to what happened in Evanston last year in the 4th Quarter, Belichick.

Again, did the defense lose us the game? Hell, no. Our offense did. Our defense just couldn't win it, because we got picked apart.
 


BSpringsteen said:
So why don't you enlighten us to what happened in Evanston last year in the 4th Quarter, Belichick.

Again, did the defense lose us the game? Hell, no. Our offense did. Our defense just couldn't win it, because we got picked apart.
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Belichick huh….well you might note there are many reasonable posters who have pointed out alot of things happening that don't seem to get picked up on by others.

Obviously the offense was very shoddy and the momentum change with the poorly thrown ball and even poorer effort by DJK was very telling. But if you want to critique the D lets start by the blitzes that Persa calmly and without much effort dropped over the head of our blitzers. In fact the ONLY blitz that worked in that game was the one where Morris came and then the very next play Persa scrambled away from pressure and completed a 2nd and 20 pass for a first down. In between the sfty & Lber if memory serves so we had guys there and they did NOT make the play….not scheme, not design, not poor matchup’s, just flat poor execution.


Yet most fans, maybe your one maybe you aren’t, seem oblivious to the fact that we blitzed several times in that game, albeit ineffectively. Everyone needs it to be something the coaches should have fixed, when in reality it was just poor execution by our 9th, 10th and 11th Lbers among others. Sometimes, dare I say most times, things are really pretty simple?!

We aren’t losing games because we are mysteriously predictable….

Chad
 
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I don't think for one minute that our blitzing or lack their of is what makes our defense predictable, I think it is the lack of coverages. The soft zone we play in pass coverage works great against certain teams. Against N'Western, a team that is cerebral enough to understand that they can move the ball at will, if they accept 4-6 yard passes, it destroys us.

Michigan State isn't disciplined enough to do this. If they beat us, they beat us because they make plays or are more athletic for a game. But against a Fitz with smart players or against Tressel who is just stubborn enough to do this for an entire game, it is the death toll.

We don't give up a lot of points because you have to stay on the field for a long sustained drive in order to have us give you a TD. But that also caused problems for us in 4th qtr fatigue.

So when we lose the exact same way to the same teams over and over, yes I look at an offense that couldn't score 24 points against a horrible defense, but I also look at a defense that allowed the same team to do the same thing yet again.
 


I attended the NW game. If DJK doesn't run a horrible route and Stanzi doesn't throw the interception in the 4th quarter, we win the game. Period. End of story.

The defense didn't lose that damn game....Stanzi and DJK did.

And, by the way, I will not miss DJK one bit. A total bum in my book
 


ChosenChildren said:
I attended the NW game. If DJK doesn't run a horrible route and Stanzi doesn't throw the interception in the 4th quarter, we win the game. Period. End of story.

The defense didn't lose that damn game....Stanzi and DJK did.

And, by the way, I will not miss DJK one bit. A total bum in my book
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Actually, Mcnutt was open underneath for about a 15-20 yd. gain. Stanzi just made a bad read. Jon was/is right on this Stanzi was determined to get the ball to DJK no matter what.
 


homerHAWKeye777 said:
Iowa's ability to go beyond "vanilla" has ALWAYS been based on personnel. When Iowa has had the personnel ... Iowa has frequently "mixed it up" when they've had to. The issue is that most of the time, the Iowa D has held enough advantages out of their base D that they haven't been forced to "mix it up."

Of course, given how mediocre the O was in '09, the D was forced to "mix it up" a bit more than usual. Fortunately Iowa also had the personnel to mix it up ... and it obviously reaped plenty of rewards (including an Orange Bowl victory).

However, one thing that undermines our ability to be more multiple on D in '11 is the fact that we still have plenty of INEXPERIENCED youth on the squad. In fact, the inexperience at LB might be a big reason why we end up using more mutli-DB packages than 3-4 formations. Of course, that also assumes that Miller and Lowery get up to game-speed pretty quickly.
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This.

personnel, personnel, personnel........
 


trj said:
Actually, Mcnutt was open underneath for about a 15-20 yd. gain. Stanzi just made a bad read. Jon was/is right on this Stanzi was determined to get the ball to DJK no matter what.
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Stanzi definitely forced a bad ball there then. That pass still irritates me to this day. And, I'm a big Stanzi advocate too ... of course, I'm sure that he's not very happy about that pass either.
 


BSpringsteen said:
I don't think for one minute that our blitzing or lack their of is what makes our defense predictable, I think it is the lack of coverages. The soft zone we play in pass coverage works great against certain teams. Against N'Western, a team that is cerebral enough to understand that they can move the ball at will, if they accept 4-6 yard passes, it destroys us.

Michigan State isn't disciplined enough to do this. If they beat us, they beat us because they make plays or are more athletic for a game. But against a Fitz with smart players or against Tressel who is just stubborn enough to do this for an entire game, it is the death toll.

We don't give up a lot of points because you have to stay on the field for a long sustained drive in order to have us give you a TD. But that also caused problems for us in 4th qtr fatigue.

So when we lose the exact same way to the same teams over and over, yes I look at an offense that couldn't score 24 points against a horrible defense, but I also look at a defense that allowed the same team to do the same thing yet again.
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This. Against a guy like Persa, blitzing is not the answer, IMO. 1. He can effectively read the blitz, and 2. He is just a snake, very elusive, which helps negate the effect of the blitz. I've wanted to see us play more press coverage against Northwestern's receivers. Their entire passing attack is built around those 5-12 yard passes. Make them EARN those yards, don't just give it to them.

Michigan State has the talent to beat us. But as you said, they aren't disciplined enough. And neither are the vast majority of teams that we play. They just aren't that patient, and their offenses are more predicated on stretching the field vertically anyway. Which is why the way we do things is so effective. It's just that we haven't seemed to make the adjustments to our Achilles' heel.
 


BSpringsteen said:
So why don't you enlighten us to what happened in Evanston last year in the 4th Quarter, Belichick.

Again, did the defense lose us the game? Hell, no. Our offense did. Our defense just couldn't win it, because we got picked apart.
Click to expand...

I can venture a guess. Its not hard to figure out why the defense looked tired and winded, considering the number of marijuana arrests that surfaced.
The 4th qtr is where fresh lungs might come in handy. JMO.
 


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