Weak running game today and for 2019

[#1DieHardHawk]

Hard to blame the running backs for this one. There was nowhere to go 90% of the running plays. Part of that was an extremely stellar MSU front seven, and part of it was marginal play by our line.

I will say this, the line started to look better towards the end of the season, but, I still maintain that Polasek has done nothing to show that he is a good OL coach.

We need the returning interior guys to really step up this offseason. Kirk and Polasek can scream technique all they want, but, at the end of the day, you still need to be able to move people off the LOS. Doyle needs to develop some power with the interior of the line.

And, I agree with some of the posts above, that we'd be better off throwing in some power-scheme wrinkles, as opposed to stubbornly adhering to the zone scheme. Opponents have figured out that all you have to do is attack the gaps at the snap to disrupt the play.

 

[BVHawk95]

But how do yo feel about our talent? You have hardly mentioned that this year.

Caddy is just pissed we won so now he looks like a dumbass for spewing all his bullshit the past few weeks.

 

[Ree4]

If you take away all of our offensive plays, we had 0 yards. Just pathetic.

 

[uihawk82]

Yep. The RBs need to see the lane and make the cut. That was not their problem today. There was no way to see the cutback lane when you are getting tackled behind your LOS. The OL just got whipped today. No point in trying to sugar coat it. Their pass blocking did get better as the game went on.

Our Oline is not very explosive off the ball, MSU was pushing the LOS 2 yards back into the hawk backfield on many running plays just like Stanford did in the Rose Bowl.

The zone blocking scheme maybe takes away from just firing straight out with explosive power.

 

[4thngoal]

Our ol did get dominated.
We were facing an exceptional d front 7.
We do have work to do.
We overcame and won!!!
It wouldn't have mattered who we had as a rb, they were all over the run game. We were facing the #9 ranked run defense ( 9 spots above Alabama).
Was it a combo of ol and rb? Maybe. But again Bama only put up 142 rushing yards on them. (Adjusted for the -24 their qb had).
So would it of been nice to run for 100? Yup.
But again, we overcame!!!
Yes we have work to do on the ol and rb, but let's not kid ourselves, we we're not going to run for 200, when as I said, the likely national champs couldn't break a buck fifty.

 

[haydensly]

Our offense of line has not been able to get movement all year even though the pass blocking has been good. I happened to switch over to the end of the Kentucky-Penn State game. Kentucky got the ball back up by three with about four minutes left in the game. Everybody in the stadium knew they were going to run the ball. And they ran it for two straight first downs to essentially end the game. I bring this up because I wish we had the ability to block and run like that when we absolutely need to.

 

[HawksMN]

The stretch zone crap we run is for finesse blockers. Need some straight up men who can maul, need more lead in their balls.

Our backs are a little below avg too. Too easy to take down, can't see cutbacks, step slow.

This all has to change next year.

 

[dirtwrap]

To me, this is just a product of who we are. We are predicated on a traditional pro-style offense, which means that the counter or win condition for the running game is play action. We have always been a play action team. I would believe the philosophy is that even though we don't have an NFL offensive line or running backs, it still takes very sound team assignment defensive techniques to stop the zone blocking scheme. The zone scheme is easily countered, but takes everyone doing their part or else there are big plays. So we live and die by the big play with regards to exploiting missed defensive assignments in the running game, or with play action, like we did today. This has been true throughout Kirk's tenure and Hayden's as well. I strongly believe the thought process has always been that we exploit this once per quarter, we have a chance to score 28 points. And on the defensive side we all know that we dare the offense play fundamentally for 10+ plays to score on us, and chances are they can't do that.

That is who we are. And from what I see in college football, the options are limited:

1. You can try to be a team that out-executes the other team. This is us. The thought here is that this is something you can teach through repetition and discipline. You can win a lot of games this way, and be consistent, but will need something special, or luck, or favorable mismatches to be great.
2. You can exploit physical mismatches. This is not us because we just don't have enough guys to do that at each position. There are many teams across the college football landscape that have had players or groups of players that were big time mismatches and have won national titles, but as a program that is not sustainable unless you can get those guys regularly like an Alabama or Clemson.

Right now, running the pro style offense, our limiting factor hands down is Stanley. We go as he goes and honestly he is an average quarterback. He has the physical gifts but the average if not below average in execution and I don't think he can read defenses or go through progressions very well. He is just average. And he can't do anything else that would mask his deficiencies. He can't run or hold a defensive line with the RPO. So we have to execute on the few opportunities that we create with play action. Now of course, if we don't have receivers that even remotely keep a defense honest we are mostly doomed.

You all see what we are doing now though right? To me it is obvious that we are trying to mimic the Patriots. Above average offensive line play, average but smart receivers, elite tight ends, average running backs and elite quarterback, coupled with an opportunistic defense. Take Brady off the Pats and replace him with pretty much anyone outside of Brees, Rodgers and Rivers, and the Pats are average at best. We will be as good as our QB takes us.

 

[DDThompson]

The stretch zone crap we run is for finesse blockers. Need some straight up men who can maul, need more lead in their balls.

Our backs are a little below avg too. Too easy to take down, can't see cutbacks, step slow.

This all has to change next year.

we have two huge tackles. past time to use them as maulers.

 

[HawksMN]

To me, this is just a product of who we are. We are predicated on a traditional pro-style offense, which means that the counter or win condition for the running game is play action. We have always been a play action team. I would believe the philosophy is that even though we don't have an NFL offensive line or running backs, it still takes very sound team assignment defensive techniques to stop the zone blocking scheme. The zone scheme is easily countered, but takes everyone doing their part or else there are big plays. So we live and die by the big play with regards to exploiting missed defensive assignments in the running game, or with play action, like we did today. This has been true throughout Kirk's tenure and Hayden's as well. I strongly believe the thought process has always been that we exploit this once per quarter, we have a chance to score 28 points. And on the defensive side we all know that we dare the offense play fundamentally for 10+ plays to score on us, and chances are they can't do that.

That is who we are. And from what I see in college football, the options are limited:

1. You can try to be a team that out-executes the other team. This is us. The thought here is that this is something you can teach through repetition and discipline. You can win a lot of games this way, and be consistent, but will need something special, or luck, or favorable mismatches to be great.
2. You can exploit physical mismatches. This is not us because we just don't have enough guys to do that at each position. There are many teams across the college football landscape that have had players or groups of players that were big time mismatches and have won national titles, but as a program that is not sustainable unless you can get those guys regularly like an Alabama or Clemson.

Right now, running the pro style offense, our limiting factor hands down is Stanley. We go as he goes and honestly he is an average quarterback. He has the physical gifts but the average if not below average in execution and I don't think he can read defenses or go through progressions very well. He is just average. And he can't do anything else that would mask his deficiencies. He can't run or hold a defensive line with the RPO. So we have to execute on the few opportunities that we create with play action. Now of course, if we don't have receivers that even remotely keep a defense honest we are mostly doomed.

You all see what we are doing now though right? To me it is obvious that we are trying to mimic the Patriots. Above average offensive line play, average but smart receivers, elite tight ends, average running backs and elite quarterback, coupled with an opportunistic defense. Take Brady off the Pats and replace him with pretty much anyone outside of Brees, Rodgers and Rivers, and the Pats are average at best. We will be as good as our QB takes us.

As per your last line...I am already bummed for next season.

 

[HawkPrdatr40]

It’s funny to me that some here get this and others don’t.

Brian sadly It just Shows the intelligence level isn’t very high on this forum, because People would rather complain.. that was one hell of a victory today by Iowa. That’s a fact!

 

[lightning1]

Our ol did get dominated.
We were facing an exceptional d front 7.
We do have work to do.
We overcame and won!!!
It wouldn't have mattered who we had as a rb, they were all over the run game. We were facing the #9 ranked run defense ( 9 spots above Alabama).
Was it a combo of ol and rb? Maybe. But again Bama only put up 142 rushing yards on them. (Adjusted for the -24 their qb had).
So would it of been nice to run for 100? Yup.
But again, we overcame!!!
Yes we have work to do on the ol and rb, but let's not kid ourselves, we we're not going to run for 200, when as I said, the likely national champs couldn't break a buck fifty.

Who won the game again????

 

[ottoman89]

Quite frankly, it’s not hard to know that we’re going to run to the strong side about 90% of the time. The playbook lacks creativity not only in the passing game, but also running game.

 

[westender]

Some of what we do is obviously setting stuff up for a play action also. The long play to Easley was such a case.

The Iowa offense is like Rope A Dope. Just suck the other team in close and grind it out and hopefully land the blow at the end that wins it.

One of the things for the life or me I didn't quite get this year is how #6 is not open a lot more? Look at the speed and change of direction on kick returns he is capable of. How is that not translating more when at WR?

Trevor Bollers was laughing with Lew Montgomery on post game show on WMT that c'mon can't we at least get a couple of yards, just fall forward.

 

[NikeHawk21]

with IKM in and more reps, I expect the running game to return to about average or better... efficient is good enough for me

From what I’ve seen IKM is not the answer. The guy has zero vision or patience, and no his injuries do not effect those abilities.

 

[NikeHawk21]

I really don't understand why the OL is having trouble in this area. Kirk and Brian Ferentz are OL gurus. What gives?

OL recruiting has been down in recent years in my opinion. Paulsen’s didn’t really pan out so that didn’t help. The last few classes have been much better though.

 

[GotTimDodge]

Is it coaching or lack of talent on o line?

I don't think it's that Iowa's O line is not talented or good,
but it's more that opposing D lines are just getting that much bigger, faster, and stronger.

Iowa's O line is not evolving, I guess would would be the term, at the same rate opposing teams D lines are.

And also, not many O lines in the country are gonna stop MSU D line, our 5 O line can't block 8 guys, and why do we run to the short side of the field? Someone had a reason once.

 

[NikeHawk21]

Iowa sits at 88th nationally in yards per carry (3.9) and 95th nationally in rushing yards per game (143.5). It wasn’t just yesterday, we couldn’t run the ball all year.

 

[GotTimDodge]

To me, this is just a product of who we are. We are predicated on a traditional pro-style offense, which means that the counter or win condition for the running game is play action. We have always been a play action team. I would believe the philosophy is that even though we don't have an NFL offensive line or running backs, it still takes very sound team assignment defensive techniques to stop the zone blocking scheme. The zone scheme is easily countered, but takes everyone doing their part or else there are big plays. So we live and die by the big play with regards to exploiting missed defensive assignments in the running game, or with play action, like we did today. This has been true throughout Kirk's tenure and Hayden's as well. I strongly believe the thought process has always been that we exploit this once per quarter, we have a chance to score 28 points. And on the defensive side we all know that we dare the offense play fundamentally for 10+ plays to score on us, and chances are they can't do that.

That is who we are. And from what I see in college football, the options are limited:

1. You can try to be a team that out-executes the other team. This is us. The thought here is that this is something you can teach through repetition and discipline. You can win a lot of games this way, and be consistent, but will need something special, or luck, or favorable mismatches to be great.
2. You can exploit physical mismatches. This is not us because we just don't have enough guys to do that at each position. There are many teams across the college football landscape that have had players or groups of players that were big time mismatches and have won national titles, but as a program that is not sustainable unless you can get those guys regularly like an Alabama or Clemson.

Right now, running the pro style offense, our limiting factor hands down is Stanley. We go as he goes and honestly he is an average quarterback. He has the physical gifts but the average if not below average in execution and I don't think he can read defenses or go through progressions very well. He is just average. And he can't do anything else that would mask his deficiencies. He can't run or hold a defensive line with the RPO. So we have to execute on the few opportunities that we create with play action. Now of course, if we don't have receivers that even remotely keep a defense honest we are mostly doomed.

You all see what we are doing now though right? To me it is obvious that we are trying to mimic the Patriots. Above average offensive line play, average but smart receivers, elite tight ends, average running backs and elite quarterback, coupled with an opportunistic defense. Take Brady off the Pats and replace him with pretty much anyone outside of Brees, Rodgers and Rivers, and the Pats are average at best. We will be as good as our QB takes us.

Spot on with everything here, except I'm not sure I see the Patriots comparison as well.

 

[JoeyLabasForPresident]

Iowa sits at 88th nationally in yards per carry (3.9) and 95th nationally in rushing yards per game (143.5). It wasn’t just yesterday, we couldn’t run the ball all year.

It was a whole lot worse yesterday. We averaged 143.5 the rest of the season. We had -15 yesterday.