Can we lay off Hunter Dekkers.

[c.y.c.l.o.n.e.s]

If I remember right we outgained everyone we played except for the two teams playing in the Conference Championship Game... and those games were fairly close (yardage wise).

A ton of the credit goes to the defense for their ability to shut other people down. Our offense moved the ball well enough to win games - they just didn't execute when they moved into "scoring position". Some of that is on Dekkers - untimely sacks when he should have just thrown the ball away, interceptions in the end zone, etc. but a lot of it is just poor execution by the entire offense. I know they keep red zone stats but I wonder if there is a stat out there for points scored after crossing the opposition's 40 yard line. If so, we'd have to be way low on the list.

 

[bbillings]

Man, I saw this title and thought people were saying we should "lay him off"...I mean some kinda are, but I'm definitely thinking WAAAY too much about work out here

 

[CoachTretired]

Let us not forget that a lot of those interceptions fall on poor WR play. 4 on tips out of 2 handed touches. 2 out of 1 handed touches, 1 wrestled out of a clear catch, 2 out of route mistakes. If you review tape it is obvious that speed is a real issue. Lack of separation has been a huge problem all year.

 

[Lineup]

Will be better without Manning calling plays

 

[CoKane]

Dekkers scored 19 touchdowns passing while our offense had 10 total rushing touchdowns, two of those were Hunter himself. The rushing attack posed little threat to opposing teams. That meant that as we got into the red zone, opposing defenses could use the short field for tighter coverage in the passing game, and not worry about the run. We also didn't have that consistent guy to go win a jump ball in the endzone like Charlie was for the last 3 years.

Right. Like I said its not all on him. Everything was an issue on offense this year.

But at the end of the day he still tossed 14 ints and only 19 TDs. Thats bad. Im not sure why we feel like we need to make excuses for Dekkers constantly. Good QBs find ways

 

[drmwevr08]

Another layoff around the holidays. You people are animals.

 

[cyclones12321]

Manning is part of his problem sure but his qb awareness is not good at all and that’s what frustrated me the most. The sacks he took instead of throwing away or running the damn ball was demoralizing to our momentum on offense countless times. Run the damn ball dekkers

 

[drmwevr08]

Right. Like I said its not all on him. Everything was an issue on offense this year.

But at the end of the day he still tossed 14 ints and only 19 TDs. Thats bad. Im not sure why we feel like we need to make excuses for Dekkers constantly. Good QBs find ways

Serious question, how bad is that for an ok college qb? The good ones I'm sure aren't close with the INTs but seems like the rest might be in this 50-50 or 40-60 range.

 

[LAClone]

The hatred Dekkers has gotten is completely undeserved. Once he's overseen by competent coaches who let him leave the pocket, run the ball, call audibles, etc., he's going to look like an entirely different QB. Assuming, of course, that he isn't shell-shocked from being forced to stand in the pocket for this entire season, waiting for the inevitable sack or pressured throw.

 

[CoKane]

Manning is part of his problem sure but his qb awareness is not good at all and that’s what frustrated me the most. The sacks he took instead of throwing away or running the damn ball was demoralizing to our momentum on offense countless times. Run the damn ball dekkers

People certainly forgot about the KU game quick. One sack in that game came after he dodged a different defender and then just stood there looking downfield again

 

[cyclones12321]

People certainly forgot about the KU game quick. One sack in that game came after he dodged a different defender and then just stood there looking downfield again

That’s what I mean. Taking a sack, ok but he would go about 15 yards back the we had a 3rd and really long and as we all know that means the best we’re going to get is about 2 yards in front of the chains

 

[cyclones12321]

The hatred Dekkers has gotten is completely undeserved. Once he's overseen by competent coaches who let him leave the pocket, run the ball, call audibles, etc., he's going to look like an entirely different QB. Assuming, of course, that he isn't shell-shocked from being forced to stand in the pocket for this entire season, waiting for the inevitable sack or pressured throw.

I’m not fully disagreeing on what you’re saying but dekkers should be running if he has nothing downfield, that’s on him

 

[Mississippi Clone]

The hatred Dekkers has gotten is completely undeserved. Once he's overseen by competent coaches who let him leave the pocket, run the ball, call audibles, etc., he's going to look like an entirely different QB. Assuming, of course, that he isn't shell-shocked from being forced to stand in the pocket for this entire season, waiting for the inevitable sack or pressured throw.

I am not being negative or critical, just trying to understand. I get perhaps the offensive scheme was not ideal and it seemed too often he just dropped straight back and the O line did not give him great protection so maybe that is what you mean. But it also sounds kind of like you are suggesting when stuff broke down the coaches had told him to not take off and run. I think when the pocket falls apart your QB has to make a quick decision on whether to run, step up in the pocket, or just do whatever the situation is. I think Dekkers can be good, much the issue was likely due to poor play calls and poor O line blocking, but I also think some of it was due to poor decision making on his part. I know that is a tough situation to be in, but he probably could improve on his decision making when shhh goes bad.

 

[ZRF]

The biggest gripe I had with Dekkers is that he seems to mentally "quit" on occasion. You saw it when he'd scramble, be close to a first down, and refuse to take a hit to get 2 extra yards. You'd also see it in the pocket, when things weren't going well (protection or otherwise) and he'd throw an ill-advised pass that felt like a "**** this I'm just going to get rid of it" kind of play. I think he needs to show more "toughness" in that regard.

With that said we had an offensive coordinator and a head coach that put him in a position to fail. The oline was atrocious, in both run blocking and pass protection. Despite both being issues the entire season, the staff did little in the way of making adjustments to help with either. Rarely did we have TEs and backs stick around to give chips being going into their routes. Our offense did little in the way of throwing quick slants or vertical hitches, instead opting for the ridiculous WR screens when they wanted Dekkers to unload quickly. Too often our receivers weren't out of their breaks when Dekkers needed to throw and they were often on the same vertical level of the field, making our WRs easier to defend.

It's a wonder Dekkers wasn't completely ruined with the ******** we were running. Get someone in here that can rebuild the trust/relationship and revamp our blocking schemes and offensive design. Utilize more designed rollouts and misdirection, show the ability and willingness to run plays under center, and give help (blocking) when and where it is needed. I think if we do that Dekkers has the tools to play well. He just wasn't given much of a chance this seaon.

 

[awd4cy]

If you think dekkers is the problem then your football knowledge lacks.

He’s not “the” problem, he’s “a” problem

 

[Dannynoonan]

I really think Dekkers will be very good in the future. I don’t know who his coach is but there are definite things he must work on- being able to make a check down to a rb, field vision etc- but I think things were overly complicated for some reason. Just the crazy amount of shifting and motions was absurd- I can’t imagine what his reads were and he forced a lot of throws maybe because of this.
Again, I think he’ll be very good, but this season didn’t seem to help him grow.

 

[CoachHines3]

give me dekkers with a new ol coach and play caller and ill make my judgement after that on him.

 

[LAClone]

I am not being negative or critical, just trying to understand. I get perhaps the offensive scheme was not ideal and it seemed too often he just dropped straight back and the O line did not give him great protection so maybe that is what you mean. But it also sounds kind of like you are suggesting when stuff broke down the coaches had told him to not take off and run. I think when the pocket falls apart your QB has to make a quick decision on whether to run, step up in the pocket, or just do whatever the situation is. I think Dekkers can be good, much the issue was likely due to poor play calls and poor O line blocking, but I also think some of it was due to poor decision making on his part. I know that is a tough situation to be in, but he probably could improve on his decision making when shhh goes bad.

My suspicion from watching the games this season is that Dekkers was coached to not run. Any person's natural instinct is to avoid being tackled by 300+-lbs at all costs, which means running. The fact that he wasn't doing that indicates to me that he was he was being coached against that natural instinct.

 

[cyclonehomer]

My suspicion from watching the games this season is that Dekkers was coached to not run. Any person's natural instinct is to avoid being tackled by 300+-lbs at all costs, which means running. The fact that he wasn't doing that indicates to me that he was he was being coached against that natural instinct.

Isn't it basically a known fact that Purdy was asked/coached not to run as much? IIRC they wanted him in the pocket to avoid hits, so it wouldn't shock me if Dekkers had a similar thing. Regardless, getting better with pocket awareness and presence is a big key for his improvement.

I'm pretty sure I've read that QBs get injured more often staying in the pocket anyway, funny enough. Far more likely to get rolled up on, etc.

 

[IceCyIce]

We won quite a few close games with Purdy. Sure when he was asked for some late game heroics it didn’t always work I’ll give you that. He basically didn’t lose at home to big 12 teams in his time here though.

Under CMC one crazy stat that came across the ticker, 4 or 5 and 27 in one score games. YIKES not good. Often times it was a special teams disaster that lost those games.