Quarterback Analysis

This offense doesn’t need a qb to spread the field. They need a good Oline, run the ball and have a qb that can move a lil, put the ball in the right spot quickly and not turn the ball over.

I would add strong tight ends. That is when we have been our best.
 
“Poise” is a nice way of saying he held onto the ball too long
Yes, true to a point. Poise can also buy you a few more seconds, provided you are seeing the whole field, a la Mahomes, Rodgers, and to a smaller extent, Brock Purdy. Brock shows very good vision and understanding of plays, and his looking off or his quick fakes can buy him just enough time to make a play. Brock is pretty accurate too. We were lucky to have him.

In this sense, I hope our QB has just enough poise to make some things happen, keep the defense guessing. Part of that is play calling too. We can only hope it is less predictable this year. That will help a ton, by itself.
 
Yes, true to a point. Poise can also buy you a few more seconds, provided you are seeing the whole field, a la Mahomes, Rodgers, and to a smaller extent, Brock Purdy. Brock shows very good vision and understanding of plays, and his looking off or his quick fakes can buy him just enough time to make a play. Brock is pretty accurate too. We were lucky to have him.

In this sense, I hope our QB has just enough poise to make some things happen, keep the defense guessing. Part of that is play calling too. We can only hope it is less predictable this year. That will help a ton, by itself.

Seeing the field is also something that happens before the snap and holding onto it possibly suggests that anticipation didn't happen.
 
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Everyone will probably take this the wrong way but I'll say it anyway - our defense was really bad at getting turnovers last year. They were lights out at shutting teams down, but really never gave the offense short fields to work with.

We were 116th in TO Margin (15 takeaways vs 22 giveaways), and 98th in punt return average per the official NCAA stats. So we were always starting a long way from our endzone. And with an offense that wasn't explosive, we had to be more consistent than we were capable of.

I AM NOT BLAMING THE DEFENSE. THE DEFENSE LAST YEAR WAS EXCEPTIONAL. But the specific circumstances we saw last year made our offensive issues worse.
I think you are right here. I remember one positive TD, that long drive and game winner against Iowa, what was it? 98 yards or there abouts? Iowa wasn't counting on that.

But how often were we able to do that? Not too, after that game.
 
And fwiw Dekkers may have been holding on too long but he may have also just been trying to find SOMETHING since open guys and time were hard to find.

Outside of X, he didn’t really have anyone that got separation though, as well his o-line was crap last year.

Yeah I added the above later. It was a perfect mix of bad things.
 
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Which is an extra bad shame... Finally have a QB with the arm to stretch a defense and don't have the receivers to do it.

I don't see Rocco as that kind of guy, but Kohl should be able to and I hope we adjust talent wise to have that consistent deep threat in the WR room moving forward. Rookie interviews were interesting with Beni Ngoyi claiming he ran a 4.38 40.
If Noel doesn’t play better in non conference, I’m actually in favor of Ngoyi or Gaines playing more ahead of him. Have to shuffle the deck to find gamers sometimes
 
Everyone will probably take this the wrong way but I'll say it anyway - our defense was really bad at getting turnovers last year. They were lights out at shutting teams down, but really never gave the offense short fields to work with.

We were 116th in TO Margin (15 takeaways vs 22 giveaways), and 98th in punt return average per the official NCAA stats. So we were always starting a long way from our endzone. And with an offense that wasn't explosive, we had to be more consistent than we were capable of.

I AM NOT BLAMING THE DEFENSE. THE DEFENSE LAST YEAR WAS EXCEPTIONAL. But the specific circumstances we saw last year made our offensive issues worse.
Rushing 3 will hurt the turnovers department on D in my opinion. I wish we would blitz more
 
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Outside of X, he didn’t really have anyone that got separation though, as well his o-line was crap last year.

I think this is a HUGE factor... our WRs never get separation. Almost every attempted pass... our WR's have defenders draped all over them. Our WR coaching has either been terrible over the years, or the WR's ability has just not been that good? I think it's a combination of things... probably poor plays being drawn up too.
 
I think this is a HUGE factor... our WRs never get separation. Almost every attempted pass... our WR's have defenders draped all over them. Our WR coaching has either been terrible over the years, or the WR's ability has just not been that good? I think it's a combination of things... probably poor plays being drawn up too.
This is an issue Jay identified/has reviewed in his pod’s the last two years (even Bruns to an extent). Jay attributes the lack of separation and lack of open WR’s to our route tree’s; multiple routes are run to the same level, effectively shrinking the field for the defense. A single defender is able to cover two routes down the field (routes are not putting the secondary into any conflict regarding coverage).

We were successful with these WR route trees when we had multiple TE’s as pass threats and safeties/db’s had to account for Kolar/Allen/Soehner on the field at the same time. The TE’s operated underneath against and generally won those matchups. Unfortunately last season, we didn’t have any threats at TE and our scheme didn’t change. Very easy to defend, especially when Brock went down and we weren’t a threat to run the ball.
 
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This is an issue Jay identified/has reviewed in his pod’s the last two years (even Bruns to an extent). Jay attributes the lack of separation and lack of open WR’s to our route tree’s; multiple routes are run to the same level, effectively shrinking the field for the defense. A single defender is able to cover two routes down the field (routes are not putting the secondary into any conflict regarding coverage).

We were successful with these WR route trees when we had multiple TE’s as pass threats and safeties/db’s had to account for Kolar/Allen/Soehner as pass threats. The TE’s operated underneath against linebackers and generally won those matchups. Unfortunately last season, we didn’t have any threats at TE and our scheme didn’t change. Very easy to defend, especially when Brock went down and we weren’t a threat to run the ball.
There's also very little threat of us throwing down field. We are dink and dunk to the max.
 
Really, I think so long we are able to have an average running game, the QBs should be ok, which ever one is used. I don't remember well, but I didn't think pass blocking by the OL was bad; the problem was that because we couldn't run the ball, defenses were able to sit back in coverage. Thus making it harder for our QB.
I felt like our pass blocking was as bad as I can remember seeing it.
 
Hot Take: Log me in as off the Dekkers bandwagon. Dudes got all the physical gifts a QB could ever need to be successful and the mind of a potato that has been sitting at the back of your cupboard forgotten for 8 months.

Cant read a defense. Zeros in on 1 target and doesn't often progress beyond that 1 target. sure he has a 60 something odd percent completion rate, but 4/6 passes he throws are behind the LOS or within 2 yards of it. Not impressed. Hopefully his mental game has taken a huge leap forward coming into this season. I don't know that I am sold on any of the QB's... really hope the O-line play takes a huge step forward and the run game gets established because I am not convinced that QB play can carry our offense as it stands this year.
Exactly. Yes, we must have better OL play, and we have to wait to see improvement. all QB speculation is a mildly interesting exercise in futility without improving the OL to an average group that can pass block. Having said that, my best guess is that Dekkers showed that despite his physical tools he lacks the winning intangibles, mental presence, etc, that an ISU QB must have with below average to average OL and RB play. Give him one or two games before he is benched.
 
I felt like our pass blocking was as bad as I can remember seeing it.
It really wasn’t much different than the past few years. Dekkers just didn’t have that sixth sense for finding lanes between pass rushers that Brock did.

And it didn’t help that the running game petered out with all of the injuries at RB.
 
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