What’s ailing the Iowa passing game?

[JonDMiller]

What is wrong with the Iowa passing game? Is it the scheme, the players, execution or a little of a lot of things? HawkeyeGameFilm breaks it down.

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[BLKNGOLD48]

I really enjoy reading HGF articles and breakdowns.

 

[hawkfan33]

Jon - Kurt covered this in his presser, we just need to work on our pass blocking, route running, throwing and catching. Pretty simple.

 

[AHawk1]

The players are having a hard time learning this new East to West Offense. It's just something they have never seen before(nor has anyone else).

 

[NCHawker]

Maybe Soup doesn't understand GD's offense and as a result his direction to WRs is not a crisp and on target as it needs to be.

 

[AHawk1]

Maybe Soup doesn't understand GD's offense and as a result his direction to WRs is not a crisp and on target as it needs to be.

He's not the only guy that doesn't understand what is happening when we have the ball. I'm not going to go out on a limb and call it offense.

 

[kmurp]

Jon - Kurt covered this in his presser, we just need to work on our pass blocking, route running, throwing and catching. Pretty simple.

You forgot play calling!

 

[bcl20]

Throwing the ball and than proceeding to catch it for positive yardage seems to be a glaring portion of our failure.

 

[1977Hawkeye]

We keep hearing that Iowa just needs to "execute better". Problem is, Iowa has been failing to execute on offense for years and years. I don't know football enough to get into X's and O'x, but at some point, you have to stop laying the blame on the players not executing, and consider whether it's either A) ineffective coaching or B) poor recruiting at the skill positions. Or a combination of both.

As has been stated before, Iowa didn't do anything fancy in 2002, but they led the Big Ten in scoring. That team's offense was absolutely stacked, though. I don't think we can say the same about this year's team. In 2008, we had Ricky Stanzi and Shonn Greene - and that too was one of the better offensive units that we've seen under KF.

Iowa could be a little more innovate on offense to be sure, but it's the Jimmy's and the Joes that matter, IMO. Talented players make plays. We don't seem to have many guys making plays these days.

 

[HawkeyeHypnosis]

If we were to execute, we would be talking about a different season so far. There have been missed reads, wide open WRs deep and plays that would go big but get tipped at the line. If we were to execute on half of these we would probably be undefeated or only 1 loss.

 

[OUTofTOWNHAWK]

Kirk already answered this. Diesel you should be careful or kirk may give you the banhammer.

 

[OUTofTOWNHAWK]

If we were to execute, we would be talking about a different season so far. There have been missed reads, wide open WRs deep and plays that would go big but get tipped at the line. If we were to execute on half of these we would probably be undefeated or only 1 loss.

You dont say. So Iowa just needed to score more points? Man Kirk is soo close to greatness.

 

[Clark]

Gamefilm, the percentages in your 2012 column don't add up.

72.3 + 16.9 + 6.2 = 95.4

Is Vandenberg playing so bad that 4.6% of his passes can't even be charted?

 

[hawkeyegamefilm]

Gamefilm, the percentages in your 2012 column don't add up.

72.3 + 16.9 + 6.2 = 95.4

Is Vandenberg playing so bad that 4.6% of his passes can't even be charted?

Throw aways account for the other 4.6%

For the 2011 numbers I only had the total number of throwaways, so i removed them from equation. Not a perfect comparison but still valid.

Edit: I removed the throw-aways from the 2012 numbers. It makes a more straight on comparison.

 

[SirJamaLot]

Lack of playmakers! I'm not sold on the offensive schemes either, but this is not a very talented offensive team, like Michael Irvin used to say you win with PLAYMAKERS! need to recruit better

 

[HawkPrdatr40]

Conclusions
Looking across the issues we just covered there is definitely plenty of contributing factors to the passing game’s unprecedented struggles. There is no question in my mind James Vandenberg’s poor play has been front and center, but there have been other significant contributing factors. The lack of a consistent deep passing attack, communication issues, system complexity, lack of constraint plays, and predictable formations all add up to a very ineffective passing game. The only real change I would implement at this point is to attack down the field more often and see if it opens things up underneath. As has been said by everyone; it can’t be any worse. An interesting note is that two of Vandenberg’s worst games last year were against Penn St and Michigan St. One of his best games last season was against Northwestern and with their injuries in the secondary it may finally provide the passing game an opportunity to get off the ground. It can’t get any worse, can it?


These Iowa coaches do watch tape don't they???


I actually wouldn't be ****** if Iowa came out and threw nothing but bombs the entire 1st quarter. That is all...

With all the heat on KF this week if we don't see any changes with how this offense is playing than this season is over. KF has to be in the mindset of we have to open this game plan up. If JVB is to have the game it will be this week..

 

[NCHawker]

Interesting combination of poor execution coupled with a lack of variety.

We'll I guess that rules out the notion that the players are trying to learn too many plays and formations.

Maybe they're bored from running the same play so many times every evening in practice - it aint fun any more?

Maybe the oposition has a pretty good idea about what's coming and no level of execution can fix that (but coaches don't believe that is possible).

Anyone remember Green Acres? They had a voluntary fire department band made up of the local towns people. No matter what song the conductor told them to play, they always played the same tune. Wish I could find a youtube of it for those who have never seen it. It provides a great analogy.

 

[Hawkers86]

Oh goody back to the execution talk. You cant execute in an offense that is loaded full of reads when you have no chemistry or talent. Gina Davis should have scraped this offense before the season because there is no way they were successful accomplishing anything in spring/summer camp. If you want to sit around and wait for people to execute something that has no definitive scheme and is all based on reads great, put in a young QB and let him build the chemistry needed for long term success. This entire season is a joke and proves Krut has completely lost touch with the game and were not going to magically get better in 1-3 years.

 

[hawkeyegamefilm]

Maybe the oposition has a pretty good idea about what's coming and no level of execution can fix that (but coaches don't believe that is possible).
.

Game-planning and play-calling are an extremely delicate balance of matching up what you do well with what the defense will struggle to match. It's a game of probabilities and percentages and when you get predictable you are forcing your players into significantly lower % plays. On a given running play you need all 5 lineman to execute their blocks, The TE/TEs to execute their block as well as the WRs. By becoming predictable you lower each offensive players % of winning their individual match-up. Ferentz's risk-averse, conservative philosophy stacks the odds against the Iowa offense in some games. In their worst game, it looks like they're fighting uphill the whole way, even against inferior competition.

 

[kicker22]

Conclusions
Looking across the issues we just covered there is definitely plenty of contributing factors to the passing game’s unprecedented struggles. There is no question in my mind James Vandenberg’s poor play has been front and center, but there have been other significant contributing factors. The lack of a consistent deep passing attack, communication issues, system complexity, lack of constraint plays, and predictable formations all add up to a very ineffective passing game. The only real change I would implement at this point is to attack down the field more often and see if it opens things up underneath. ...

I think he meant to say "lack of any deep passing attack". Correct me if I'm wrong but doesn't something have to be attempted multiple times in order for it to be deemed conistent.