Can Iowa stop the spread?

[RickDeckard]

No way Iowa can stop a spread.

The reason the won the OB was because GT played lousy D. With a half way decent defense, the Yellowjackets would have totally embarrassed the squawks.

 

[tazclone]

This is a question that i've been waiting to hear and not many people have talked about it on here. Can Iowa stop our spread offense? Yes, i think all of us know our offense starts with A-Rob and Iowa may have the best front 4 in the country on defense. In my mind this doesnt make me worry too much at all. If Arob has trouble getting yards(and i think that will be the case)obviously were going to have to go to the passing game. In most games that i have watched of Iowa playing a spread offense, they cannot seem to stop a solid passing attack. Iowa leaves alot and i mean ALOT of holes in their defense of secondary. EIU's QB i believe went 9/13 passing and on those missed passes the WR's were wide open, but he missed them/over threw his man. I have been saying this all week that if Arnaud plays smart he will tear Iowa apart passing the ball. Thats "IF" he plays smart. With all the athletes we have at WR, i cant see Iowa stopping us if they end up making us go to the pass. Arnaud needs to calm himself in the pocket and not bail out when or if our line breaks down a little bit. He needs to stay in the pocket and move up in the pocket, and find the open man down field. If we can execute on the passing game we may see Iowa State pull out a win. This is why i was so exited when we brought in Herman. When the spread offense is working, its the most exciting offense in football to watch.

iowa can and has stopped the spread and they have done it on more than one occasion. It is a myth that they can't handle the spread. They do it by sure tackling and taking advantage of miscues.

 

[Gitwitit]

Every Hawk fan will tell you that a patient, workmanlike short spread passing game can work against Iowa. Its one of the reasons Northwestern has had success against Iowa. I think Iowa will come out looking to stop the run, and will relatively neutralize Alex Robinson. It will come down to Arnaud taking the short plays all game and not making mistakes. And finding a way to turn red zone opportunities into 7 and not 3.

This is exactly right. Northwestern and Purdue are 2 teams that always move the ball on Iowa. They run quick precision routes and their qb's are very accurate. Both schools have had really good qb's the past 5-6 yrs. Both those teams qb's can also run the ball like AA.

If ISU is clicking and Arnaud can make those "precision" passes, I think ISU can make it a good game. Last year AA couldn't make those passes and he sailed a few. I personally don't think AA's strength is the short passing game. He puts too much heat on the ball and makes it difficult on his receivers.

I am nervous for the game, but I am nervous for every game. I think Iowa's offense will be on fire. People only want to talk about ISU's offense and Iowa's defense, but I look for Stanzi and rb by committee to have a good game.

 

[LoewDog]

No way Iowa can stop a spread.

The reason the won the OB was because GT played lousy D. With a half way decent defense, the Yellowjackets would have totally embarrassed the squawks.

So bitter.

I would say the reason the Hawks won the OB was because they completely man-handled a pretty solid offense, and the Hawk OL shut down GT's best defender in Derrik Morgan.

 

[edr247]

The thing is, any disciplined, multi-dimensional offense has a shot at beating Iowa's defense. It's when, say, the run game shuts down and the QB starts trying to do too much that teams start getting in trouble.

 

[tazclone]

Re: Really?

I didn't notice all those spread teams running up 30 points on Iowa last year. ISU had 3. Northwestern had 17 points, with 7 coming when Stanzi fumbled in the end zone and NU recovered for a TD. Indiana scored 24 points (they run the pistol). Michigan had 28 (7 coming on a pick 6). PSU runs out or a spread formation many plays, they scored 10. It's been since October of 2007 since Iowa gave up 30 points in a game (Purdue).

ISU should take a look at what Ohio State did. Spread the field and run the ball. Pass just enough to keep drives alive, but keep running it. And the Bucks got 27 in overtime. Cyclones have the personnel to have some success with this. Shorten the game, don't put your defense in a bad position, and ISU could easily be in a situation where it's even/close in the fourth quarter.

This is what ISU did last year. We had success with it too. Problem was when we did pass, we threw it to the other team. I think 3 out of Arnaud's four INTs were on 3rd down and two of those were 3rd and long. You just can't get in obvious passing downs with Iowa.

 

[mwitt]

People need to stop making comparisons to Georgia Tech. The offensive styles are not even close, and in the event they were, Iowa had over a month to prepare for GT.

We should be able to move the ball at least a little bit. The issues are going to be finishing drives with touchdowns, slowing their offense down, being plus two in turnovers, and not having any 18 yard punts. We haven't shown that we'll be able to do any of those, but we shall see.

 

[tazclone]

This is exactly right. Northwestern and Purdue are 2 teams that always move the ball on Iowa. They run quick precision routes and their qb's are very accurate. Both schools have had really good qb's the past 5-6 yrs. Both those teams qb's can also run the ball like AA.

If ISU is clicking and Arnaud can make those "precision" passes, I think ISU can make it a good game. Last year AA couldn't make those passes and he sailed a few. I personally don't think AA's strength is the short passing game. He puts too much heat on the ball and makes it difficult on his receivers.

I am nervous for the game, but I am nervous for every game. I think Iowa's offense will be on fire. People only want to talk about ISU's offense and Iowa's defense, but I look for Stanzi and rb by committee to have a good game.

It wasn't the short dink and dunk passes that hurt Arnaud and ISU last year. It was the intermediate routes and deep stuff. Every INT was an intermediate to deep throw. I keep hearing it was the short stuff but someon needs to show me where ISU got in trouble throwing the short stuff. Here is the highlights from that game [ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNwbUVjTYvI]YouTube - 2009 Iowa Hawkeyes vs. Iowa State Cyclones[/ame]. I think you will see that every INT was at least 15 yards down field and all but one was 20+.

Arnaud has greatly improved his accuracy, especially on the short timing routes. he showed it against Minny in the bowl game and again last week. I don't know if that will be good enough to beat iowa though.

 

[isuno1fan]

AA did not play well against Mn and he played acceptable against NIU. Would have been great if it weren't for two boneheaded passes.

He will need to be flawless against Iowa. Will have to be his best game as a Cyclone for us to have a chance IMO.

 

[hawkeyescott]

Don't forget Rick's fumble when he got hurt against Northwestern. The defense only gave up 10 points that game.

Good point, I did forget that, eventually people are going to realize Iowa can contain a spread O, not stop because they will give you everything you want between the 20's then at that point they stop it and make you kick FG's most of the time.

 

[jburke]

This is a true fact in the past Iowa tend to have trouble against 'productive' spread offense, our problem is capturing that productive title. Limit turnover, more efficient passing, it all lines up. We need to show up though....

 

[besserheimerphat]

It wasn't the short dink and dunk passes that hurt Arnaud and ISU last year. It was the intermediate routes and deep stuff. Every INT was an intermediate to deep throw. I keep hearing it was the short stuff but someon needs to show me where ISU got in trouble throwing the short stuff. Here is the highlights from that game YouTube - 2009 Iowa Hawkeyes vs. Iowa State Cyclones. I think you will see that every INT was at least 15 yards down field and all but one was 20+.

Arnaud has greatly improved his accuracy, especially on the short timing routes. he showed it against Minny in the bowl game and again last week. I don't know if that will be good enough to beat iowa though.

Two of those passes were also tipped balls, which could have just as easily fallen to the turf instead. Instead, they literally went right to where Sash was standing.

 

[jahfg]

I don't mean to be a downer, I really don't - but give me some good reasons why we didn't go to get a JUCO QB who could run this offense and make it work NOW. Don't give me the noise about AA as a leader, you come in and win games or darn close and you'll be respected in the locker room. AA cannot perform in this league and we will unfortunately find that out AGAIN tomorrow. I HOPE that I am wrong, but he has yet to prove he is a DI QB - especially in the Big 12. Just look at his INTs, missed placed passes and performance under pressure. He is NOT a running back, his job in THIS offense is to PASS and pass the ball darn efficiently...

Sorry.... just my Humble Opinion!

You realize that only three QB's in ISU history have won a bowl game, right? AA has been erratic, but he has definitely proven he has D1 skills.

 

[Klubber]

Umm, they are one of the top defenses in the nation, and we run more of a "spread option" style offense now than pure spread. When I think spread, I think Mizzou. We are not even same league when it comes to them offensively. They stopped the option last year against GaTech, so they should be able to contain us.

Only way Iowa can't stop the "spread" that we run is if it becomes more short passes leading to the long ball than our run-based series with the spread sets. This requires AA to be supremely accurate and I believe history shows anything but accuracy against Iowa for Arnie...

Still hoping for the best this Saturday that Iowa messes up and we don't so we can pull off this upset.

No, we do not run a "spread option" as you say. We simply run the ball more out of the spread because we have a QB who is mobile and a good runner. Mizzou's QB is more of a drop back passer. The "zone read" is the part of the spread that slightly mimics an option offense, but the blocking schemes are much different so our "O" really isn't similar to Ga Tech's at all.

 

[Cyclonestate78]

People need to stop making comparisons to Georgia Tech. The offensive styles are not even close, and in the event they were, Iowa had over a month to prepare for GT.

We should be able to move the ball at least a little bit. The issues are going to be finishing drives with touchdowns, slowing their offense down, being plus two in turnovers, and not having any 18 yard punts. We haven't shown that we'll be able to do any of those, but we shall see.

The bolded part is what applies the most in my mind. In 2008 we moved the ball down the field with ease between the 20's. The problem was that our spread passing game didn't work inside the 20 when there is a much smaller area for Iowa's defense to cover. When Iowa doesn't have to worry about receivers beating them deep down the field it makes it very difficult to find openings in the passing game. This is the area of the field where it will be time to call on the big boys up front for ISU to dominate the line of scrimmage and allow A-Rob to go to work. This will also be a time for ISU to run WR screens as well as have our RB's sneak out of the backfield for swing passes. In 2009 ISU did a decent job moving the ball between the 20's when they were not turning the ball over. If our boys can execute and avoid making critical penalties when we get the ball in the red zone then we will have a fighting chance. I honestly only worry about Arnaud's decision making when throwing the ball in the red zone. He is going to have to read the defense and be very accurate with his throws. Collin Franklin will be a huge weapon for ISU in the red zone.

 

[AllIowaTeams]

They gave up close to 30 points every spread team they played last year. With the obvious exception to Iowa State.. but lets be real here, it takes time to learn a new offense. Not to mention we didn't have SJ, Darks, or Money at receiver. They are gonna have a hard time stopping us this year.

Do you usually just make things up hoping that no one calls you out? This is beyond incorrect.

Iowa gave up over 20 points only 4 times last season. Only 2 of those teams, Indiana and Michigan, run the spread. And one of Michigan's touchdowns was a defensive touchdown.

Northwestern's offense scored 10 points. Iowa State's scored 3. Please try again.

 

[tazclone]

AA did not play well against Mn and he played acceptable against NIU. Would have been great if it weren't for two boneheaded passes.

He will need to be flawless against Iowa. Will have to be his best game as a Cyclone for us to have a chance IMO.

Disagree. The Minny game and the NIU game were similar performances for AA. Against Minny he had 1 TD, 216 yards, had a 73% compl %, and threw two picks. He had a passer efficiency rating of 140. Against NIU, no TDs, he threw for 265 yards, 75% compl%, two pick and a 125 efficency rating. So he actually had lower rating agaisnt NIU.
Really the only difference between the NIU and Minny games was the fumble and the long pass for the TD. His accuracy in the Minny game was greatly improved especially on the short stuff.

 

[tazclone]

Good point, I did forget that, eventually people are going to realize Iowa can contain a spread O, not stop because they will give you everything you want between the 20's then at that point they stop it and make you kick FG's most of the time.

Exactly. They give you the short stuff, and keep everything in front of them. They are great tacklers that do not allow a 5 yard slant to turn into a 50 yard TD. ISU needs to be patient between the twenties and then pound in the red zone. Our redzone offense was respectable last year. Problem was we didn't reach the redzone very often.

 

[dbqhawk]

They gave up close to 30 points every spread team they played last year. With the obvious exception to Iowa State.. but lets be real here, it takes time to learn a new offense. Not to mention we didn't have SJ, Darks, or Money at receiver. They are gonna have a hard time stopping us this year.

We gave up three against ISU, 28 against Michigan, 17 against NW, 14 against GT and 24 against Indiana. Does that qualify as "nearly 30 " every game? I do not think so but maybe I am wrong. If we can stop the run and take away the long pass, we will stop it. If not it could be a long day for Iowa.

 

[Steve]

People need to stop making comparisons to Georgia Tech. The offensive styles are not even close, and in the event they were, Iowa had over a month to prepare for GT.

We should be able to move the ball at least a little bit. The issues are going to be finishing drives with touchdowns, slowing their offense down, being plus two in turnovers, and not having any 18 yard punts. We haven't shown that we'll be able to do any of those, but we shall see.

Very good analysis. The key to finishing drives with touchdowns might be to take a shot at a big play after getting inside the 40. Hopefully Herman has a couple of plays designed just for this situation.