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Coker

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laytonz

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Feb 16, 2009
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Question for the football minds greater than mine. I was thinking today about how confident Iowa and Iowa State fans are that Coker is a stud. What has he done to justify this? I watched the Missouri game and he was impressive, but I also watched the Minnesota and Michigan State games and came away unimpressed. So what makes Coker so outstanding?

I am of the belief that Iowa's Oline will be fantastic and thus will result in Coker having a good year, but I'm not sold that he is outstanding. If Dutch and boys can hold their own against Iowa's line I think we take them this year.
 
I think the justification is that Coker ran all over a defense that shut us out, and before you talk about the lack of Arnaud and what not, shutting out any team is impressive. But you're right that stopping the run starts up front.

By the way, am I the only one that thinks it's funny that Iowa's starting running back was kicked off the team for drug reasons, then they replaced him with a guy named Coker? :spinny:
 
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Because he's iowas feature running back. And he rushed for over 200 yards in their bowl game. He sure looked good.
 
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I think Coker will be a solid back for Iowa; however, I think his accolades at this point are a little inflated. He's a different back than what we have. He's not overly explosive like SJ appears to be, but he's a strong kid. The one thing I noticed when watching him run last year is that he runs awful high. Unless that changes, I expect a lot of "down" time for him the next three years. It would be interesting to see if both SJ and Coker were on the same team who would get more carries. I really believe in our style of offense SJ would, and Coker would in Iowa's style. With that being said, I would love to have both kids here at ISU.

The one thing I like is that we have more depth at RB than Iowa does. Not many teams get through the season with 1 back getting 90% of the snaps.
 
Istate said:
I think Coker will be a solid back for Iowa; however, I think his accolades at this point are a little inflated. He's a different back than what we have. He's not overly explosive like SJ appears to be, but he's a strong kid. The one thing I noticed when watching him run last year is that he runs awful high. Unless that changes, I expect a lot of "down" time for him the next three years. It would be interesting to see if both SJ and Coker were on the same team who would get more carries. I really believe in our style of offense SJ would, and Coker would in Iowa's style. With that being said, I would love to have both kids here at ISU.

The one thing I like is that we have more depth at RB than Iowa does. Not many teams get through the season with 1 back getting 90% of the snaps.
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They know that and have been working on it the whole off-season.

We recruit different styles of backs (for the most part), so that makes sense.

Yeah, we have a "main" back, but we have plenty of capable backups. I think the past has proven that Iowa has been able to plug new backs into the lineup and be pretty successful. McCall, Johnson, and White are all capable of playing.
 
Hawkeye11en1 said:
He also did some damage against OSU and others. Averaged close to 6 ypc last year, methinks.
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Yeah, he will look great until his standing straight up running style gets him knocked out for the season 5-7 games in. He will be carrying the load this year, and unless his center of gravity improves dramatically, he will be taking way too much punishment.
 
Hawkeye11en1 said:
They know that and have been working on it the whole off-season.

We recruit different styles of backs (for the most part), so that makes sense.

Yeah, we have a "main" back, but we have plenty of capable backups. I think the past has proven that Iowa has been able to plug new backs into the lineup and be pretty successful. McCall, Johnson, and White are all capable of playing.
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While the past shows that many can have success, there is not a single back on that team behind Coker other than Rogers, a FB, who has a college carry.
 
I think ISU and Iowa are in very similar situations at RB, both have true sophs stepping into featured back roles, and a bunch of inexperienced but talented back ups. I'd give coker a slight edge over SJ right now just because he got more playing time last year and is more proven. I'd give ISU the edge on the backups however.

Coker - 114 carries, 622 yards, 5.5 ypc.. had ups and downs. absolutely TORCHED mizzou, was non-existent against michigan state. put up good numbers against indiana, was rather unimpressive vs a BAD minnesota team.

SJ - only 35 carries, 218 yards, 6.2 ypc.. only game he had 10+ carries was against Texas Tech (12 carries, 102 yards, 1 TD). other than that he never really had a chance to get into any game much, but in that one game he showed up big and we all remember his NASTY juke against KU.

..both look to have the potential to be very quality backs. Coker is the bruiser who gets you 5 yards a pop, but had just one run for 30+ yards in 114 carries. SJ is much more explosive with 3 carries for 30+ yards in just 35 carries, but needs to work on grinding yards out rather than going for the home run because if you take out those 3 big runs he had 32 carries for 86 yards, just a 2.7 ypc average. Will be fun to watch both of them!
 
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brett108 said:
Yeah, he will look great until his standing straight up running style gets him knocked out for the season 5-7 games in. He will be carrying the load this year, and unless his center of gravity improves dramatically, he will be taking way too much punishment.
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Shonn Greene ran with a high pad level as a true freshman, too. I'm not saying that Coker is the Second Coming (though he is a similar back), but Greene ran with a VERY low pad level in 2008. It can be fixed.

brett108 said:
While the past shows that many can have success, there is not a single back on that team behind Coker other than Rogers, a FB, who has a college carry.
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In 2009, not a single back besides Paki O'Meara had a college carry entering the season (post-ACL for Hampton). I feel alright about our RB situation. DeAndre Johnson was a guy that if it weren't for his knee injury in high school, he would have been a much more touted recruit (according to people from the area). He also looked really good this spring.
 
dualthreat said:
Because he's iowas feature running back. And he rushed for over 200 yards in their bowl game. He sure looked good.
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How many yards did their bowl opponent give up to Nebraska? Helu set the single game rushing record in that game pretty good considering the backs that have been through Nebraska. My buddies out in Lincoln said Helu can thank Mizzous defense for being drafted. Coker may be good but so was Robinson Wegher Hamtpon and so on. Put him as the feature back and see what he can do oh ya and I think I may have a chance to be his backup.
 
It doesn't matter who they line up at tailback of they control the line of scimmage like they dis last year. That was sad. Iowa made us look like rag dolls.

Then we beat Texas. It's awesome to see ISU improve during the yr and not take jumps backward
 
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Good But Not Great

Other than the Mizzou game Coker had 400 yards on 80 carries. The average of 5 YPC is nice and his Mizzou game is reason for optimism.

The key with his size is being able to stay healthy. I discount his Mizzou stats for a couple reason:
  • Iowa had 1 month to prepare for Mizzou. KF does a great job of game planning when given the time to prepare for bowl games.
  • He will need to be productive against Big 10 defenses. Most are built to stop the run game. Conversely, Big 12 defenses are built around speed and stop control passing games.
 
He had a great game against Mizzou, and is probably a little overrated for it, but it was hard not to be impressed with that game.

Now, with the hits they took in the passing game (DJK being the biggest), Iowa's going to have to rely on him more than they relied on anyone in the ground game last year to be successful. We had games where we really struggled even when we knew all the other team could do was run, namely KSU. Now, I don't think Coker is as good as Daniel Thomas, but with a better line blocking for him, we can't have a repeat of last year's KSU game against Iowa and hope of being competitive.
 
Let's not kid ourselves, Coker is really good and he's going to have a monster year IMO.

And for those on here saying he's going to get hurt, he's a LOT bigger than SJ is. Coker can handle a lot more hits than SJ can.

However, with our offense, I'd rather have SJ than Coker. And with Iowa's offense, I'd rather have Coker.

And I'm not so sure any team can say that their backup RBs are any better than the others right now? Woody's a good change of pace back, but James White and Duran Hollis are unproven... as are Nealy and Standard obviously. And most of Iowa's backups are also unproven too. I'd say that's a wash at this point.
 
Coker's about the size of a linebacker at 6' 230 pounds. I still remember the play in the Insight Bowl when he completely leveled that Missouri d-back and picked up an extra 10-15 yards. At his size and speed, and with Iowa's returning offensive line, I could see a Shonn Greene like year out of him.
 
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