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mark82

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Jun 19, 2006
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....if Iowa has such a great defensive scheme (almost invincible judging by the podcasts) doesn't everyone in college football play the same scheme?

I'm no football genius, but I'm tired of hearing that nothing can be done against Iowa's defense. We are just supposed to accept we can hardly score on Iowa. This sounds like excuses to me. Every defense has holes.
 
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When you have the 3x5 card of offensive plays with the number one play being running up the middle from shotgun on 50% of your plays all game, it is a great defensive scheme.

You also don't have to defend more than 10 yards of the field because you know the only pass plays will be short outs and 2–4-yard crossing routes.
 
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mark82 said:
....if Iowa has such a great defensive scheme (almost invincible judging by the podcasts) doesn't everyone in college football play the same scheme?

I'm no football genius, but I'm tired of hearing that nothing can be done against Iowa's defense. We are just supposed to accept we can hardly score on Iowa. This sounds like excuses to me. Every defense has holes.
Click to expand...
Better than the steel curtain or 85 bears. Not really close to be honest.
 
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LtRaczack said:
When you have the 3x5 card of offensive plays with the number one play being running up the middle from shotgun on 50% of your plays all game, it is a great defensive scheme.

You also don't have to defend more than 10 yards of the field because you know the only pass plays will be short outs and 2–4-yard crossing routes.
Click to expand...

Just say you don't watch the games... unless "running up the middle" to you includes anything between the hashes... And we did take a few shots down field, but not sure what you expect from 1) a ball control offense that has 2) a new freshman starting QB against a 3) very good D line.

We've given up zero sacks on the year, part of that is because we don't often leave our freshman QB sitting back there waiting for routes to develop.
 
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It's really not scheme. Iowa is known for being very fundamentally sound and that goes a long ways. Their staff does an exceptional job with it; it seems most staffs are willing to rely on athleticism to get through.

They play real sound to positions and move to the ball very well.

The last offensive play wasn't because Iowa made some amazing read from their scheme; even if the call was bad (it was) and the whole stadium knew what ISU was going to do, Dean didn't get to the spot or get the pad level low to even get in the way.

There was actually a bit of a seam there.
 
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Tailg8er said:
Just say you don't watch the games... unless "running up the middle" to you includes anything between the hashes... And we did take a few shots down field, but not sure what you expect from 1) a ball control offense that has 2) a new freshman starting QB against a 3) very good D line.

We've given up zero sacks on the year, part of that is because we don't often leave our freshman QB sitting back there waiting for routes to develop.
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Don’t waste your time. These guys are all high level football coaches
 
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madguy30 said:
It's really not scheme. Iowa is known for being very fundamentally sound and that goes a long ways. Their staff does an exceptional job with it; it seems most staffs are willing to rely on athleticism to get through.

They play real sound to positions and move to the ball very well.

The last offensive play wasn't because Iowa made some amazing read from their scheme; even if the call was bad (it was) and the whole stadium knew what ISU was going to do, Dean didn't get to the spot or get the pad level low to even get in the way.

There was actually a bit of a seam there.
Click to expand...

Agreed. We couldn’t out athlete them at a lot of positions. Not saying one team is better athletically than the other but more often roughly the same. We have nobody they have to roll coverage too. We aren’t dominant up front. Iowa eats teams alive that are like us currently
 
mark82 said:
....if Iowa has such a great defensive scheme (almost invincible judging by the podcasts) doesn't everyone in college football play the same scheme?

I'm no football genius, but I'm tired of hearing that nothing can be done against Iowa's defense. We are just supposed to accept we can hardly score on Iowa. This sounds like excuses to me. Every defense has holes.
Click to expand...

Iowa has at least a couple pros in the secondary, and the numbers don’t lie from year to year…
https://www.sports-reference.com/cfb/years/2022-team-defense.html
 
mark82 said:
....if Iowa has such a great defensive scheme (almost invincible judging by the podcasts) doesn't everyone in college football play the same scheme?

I'm no football genius, but I'm tired of hearing that nothing can be done against Iowa's defense. We are just supposed to accept we can hardly score on Iowa. This sounds like excuses to me. Every defense has holes.
Click to expand...

You read my mind with this post. Woody said if you don’t have Chris Olave and CJ Stroud there’s nothing you can do against them lol.
 
Beating Iowa’s defense is simple in theory, hard in practice. Good feel for the zone from your skill guys, accurate throws, and staying patient and not getting greedy. Teams that have the discipline to do those things play after play and not get into bad down and distance through penalties beat that defense. Also you have to remember that they are looking in the backfield so you better be able to use your eyes to move the safeties.
 
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ScottyP said:
I’ve heard from people who know a lot more about football than me say that Iowa State’s route tree is not very good.
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It wasn't, particularly on Saturday.

Iowa's D scheme (from what I saw) basically dared us to go deep. All 11 players were within 15 yards, sometimes 10 yards, of the ball at the snap. They never expected the safeties to get challenged much, and generally they were not.

I think (hope) it's mostly because our entire offense is young / inexperienced, especially at QB.

We went into this game with a relatively short play list, and probably the limited few that they felt the players could execute at a high level.

And, it probably would have worked a whole lot better had there been a few better throws and several fewer dropped passes. And a couple keeps by Rocco on the zone-read. Alas, that was not the case.
 
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ScottyP said:
I’ve heard from people who know a lot more about football than me say that Iowa State’s route tree is not very good.
Click to expand...

It's not. We put next to zero pressure on safeties and never put them in conflict. It's not just the outs and crosses, it's that we seem to catch a lot of zone when we are running mesh and that just isn't going to work, especially when you never lift the safeties or hell, even the LBs. I don't know if it's a young QB thing where we don't want to be doing things in the deep or intermediate middle or what but teams do not expect that anything is going to happen there. That's why every once in a blue moon, when we do do something there, it's open. It's also why they are able to devote their resources to what we do do a lot of.
 
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Their offense helps their defense tremendously; just like ours does. Their offense is a heavier run offense which keeps the clock rolling. If you watch the clock as they snap the ball, they go very deep into it, this cuts down on the amount of possessions for them and the other team. Therefore, there are less possessions, there is also less time on the field for the defense so they are more rested. Their offense also has no problem trying to pick up a first down or two and then punting and trying to pin the other team deep into their territory, this forces the other team to be a little more conservative and burn clock.

One thing that has changed for Iowa this year will be their punter, last year people started figuring out that you need to send a couple people at him and force him to kick quicker, this doesn't allow the gunners to get downfield as quickly and allows either fair catches or something of a return. He also shanked a couple against us this last weekend, so it does make a difference.
 
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