How concerned should we be about the offense?

[burn587]

I'm more concerned about the kicking game right now. Owens has missed some bunnies as of late and has yet to attempt a long field goal (could be wrong on that). The one he missed was set up poorly by a run to the right hash (as the above poster mentioned). That's something the coaches need to talk to Montgomery about, not trying to bust outside in that situation, he would've been better off just centering the ball.

Downing has been (by his standards) below average the last two games. There were at least 3 times against tech where he could've pinned them inside their own 20 and instead sailed it into the end zone. Last week a drop in average was to be expected to prevent Turpin from getting a return, but he really shanked a couple of those punts. The last one Campbell seemed pretty livid at the special teams coach on the sideline.

 

[ZB4CY]

I expected this. Once teams got film on Kempt and what we are trying to do, they will slow us.

 

[rholtgraves]

One thing that concerns me is Meeker going down. They haven't been great at run blocking this year but I don't think they need to do anything different right now. The offense just needs to keep doing what it is doing bc the defense is playing at such a high level.

 

[Judoka]

Not sure why everybody is shitting on the OP so much, it is a fair question. Yeah TCU is an elite defense, but Tech isn't even a top 100 defense and they still shut us down in the second half. It isn't time to ring any alarm bells but it is time to start wondering about it. WVU is 97th in scoring defense compared to 8th for TCU so if we can move and score on them then it is a non issue. But if they do to us what Tech did to us in the second half in Lubbock then you have to start to worry how long we can totally rely on the defense playing lights out.

 

[CyInDFW]

With just a little blocking DM should get 150 yards against WVU. I've watched a couple of the highlights from their games and they are not very good at tackling. Passing game could stand to be a little better too. Offense is a concern considering we all thought that was going to be the strength of this team.

Kansas rushed for over 300 yds vs WVU in September. I'm hoping Montgomery has a career day.

Our offense isn't going to be as explosive as it was early in the season. Park had the arm to go deep, Kempt is a game manager. This team is going to rely on running the ball, short passing and play action on offense the rest of the year. People need to start getting used to it. ISU will rely on their defense to hold field position.

 

[Stewo]

I'm curious if the OP would feel better if we averaged 650 yards a game, but were 4-4 on the season. Personally, I don't care if we average 100 yards a game as long as we're winning. Our defense is legit and will (and already has) win us games.

 

[jsb]

Not sure why everybody is shitting on the OP so much, it is a fair question. Yeah TCU is an elite defense, but Tech isn't even a top 100 defense and they still shut us down in the second half. It isn't time to ring any alarm bells but it is time to start wondering about it. WVU is 97th in scoring defense compared to 8th for TCU so if we can move and score on them then it is a non issue. But if they do to us what Tech did to us in the second half in Lubbock then you have to start to worry how long we can totally rely on the defense playing lights out.

Frankly, people are “shitting” on the original poster because we are 6-2 and just finished the best month we’ve ever had. And I’ll be damned if I am not going to enjoy the hell out of it.

The coaches are aware of the points and yards we’ve put up. It’s not like they are satisfied.

I sense a lot of angst among our fans after Saturday. I’m guessing it is because we can almost touch s championship game. My advice is to forget about it. All will not be lost if we lose on Saturday. Personally, I’m not changing my expectations for the season. I can do that because I don’t play on the team.

 

[ca4cy]

We could put up more yards and probably more points if we slung it all over the field, but we'd would also have more turnovers, and would put our defense in more difficult situations. I'd love to breath easier with a bunch of points on the board but for once in my Cyclone fandom life, I trust our defense and get what we're doing. There's no reason for us to get in a track meet when we can control things as well as we can with our front 7. Also, as good as we are at the skill positions, our o-line is a limiting factor so it's not like we're able to do whatever we want on that side of the ball.

If I had one beef from the TCU game it's that maybe we could have used tunnel screens to open up the middle a little for the run game since they've been so successful for us this year. But then I remember that Manning has forgotten more about football this morning than I've ever known so I'll just shut up and let him coach our 6-2 football team while I enjoy the ride.

 

[83cy]

Very happy with how ISU is playing overall. Offense with a few more 1st downs in the second half against TT and TCU would have iced those games a lot earlier. I guess my concern is you can't count on your defense to bail your offense out all the time especially against WVU, WVU is going to score a fair amount of points, our offense needs to move the chains and keep the defense rested. Our defense was gassed towards the end vs TCU, for the life of me I can't figure out why TCU stopped running the ball, we were getting gashed.

 

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

The good news is that in the last two games the offense and defense have been good enough to put us up 24-6 and 14-0 at the half against good football teams. When that happens coaches tend to play ball control offense and ask their defense to keep the scoring margin high for as long as they can.

We did the same thing last year... Got up early by double digits on good teams. Problem was that the defense couldn't hold the margin and the offense couldn't keep them off the field. This year, the defense is basically keeping the margin just high enough to get the coaches to continue to try to control the ball on offense. The offense hasn't been great at scoring while doing that, but it hasn't been a total failure either.

Edit: Oops. Changed the Tech score to 24-6

 

[RedlineSi]

I see this a couple ways. As long as our D is playing like they are, it isn't a huge concern. But I think with the growing pains we've had with the o-line, combined with the lack of the deep ball, Ds have been able to stack the box a bit more.

As others have said, they've seen tape on Kempt and while he's still done very well, I noted a few deep throws Saturday that were very "Payton Manning at the end of his career" like. Kyle is incredible at the short to mid level balls and I think that works just fine for us. Get the ball to the play makers. I'd love to see us run for 200 yards this Saturday though.

 

[coolerifyoudid]

With Tech, we held a 24-6 lead at half and Tech wasn't looking good offensively. Our best offense was to keep their offense off the field so they weren't able to get rolling. It may have been a little conservative, but it worked.

With TCU, they are a solid defensive team and Patterson is one of the best at defensive adjustments. We won the first half, they won the second and we won the game. And honestly, how great was it when we just kept throwing it to Lazard when TCU kept thinking Texada could guard him? It looked like an older brother playing football with his younger brother in the backyard.

Had we aired the ball out and had numerous turnovers in either of those games, people would have wondered what we were thinking. Even unsuccessful 3 and outs where we run the ball and clock give our defense time to rest.

I don't think we're as good as we can be offensively, but the staff is calling a good enough game to win. Lazard even said during an interview that we haven't seen the team at their best yet. They know there is room for improvement and are working towards it.

 

[tejasclone]

Very happy with how ISU is playing overall. Offense with a few more 1st downs in the second half against TT and TCU would have iced those games a lot earlier. I guess my concern is you can't count on your defense to bail your offense out all the time especially against WVU, WVU is going to score a fair amount of points, our offense needs to move the chains and keep the defense rested. Our defense was gassed towards the end vs TCU, for the life of me I can't figure out why TCU stopped running the ball, we were getting gashed.

Came here to say the same thing. We're not going to get back-to-back red zone takeaways in the fourth quarter every week. If the offense had gained even a couple more first downs in the fourth quarter Saturday, or taken advantage of that short field after Peavy's pick, we could have easily iced the game away without putting additional pressure on the defense.

The defense still came up big, the team won, I'm pumped af... but my Cyclone Sense was tingling big time when the offense kept coming up empty down the stretch. Just a couple small details by the offense would have made things less stressful for all involved.

 

[harimad]

I know I've said this probably 100 times here, but I was raised an Alabama fan. My dad is an alum, and I grew up watching Mike Shula and Cornelius Bennett, George Teague and Antonio Langham.

This year's ISU team really reminds me of that 1992 Gene Stallings-coached Alabama team that rope-a-doped at #2 all season, that won with a stifling defense and they were merciless in their pursuit of winning the field position battle. Then came trash-talking #1 Miami in the Sugar Bowl and Bama made them look silly.

With this defense, we don't need the offense to be great. We just need them to hold on to the ball, run some clock, and occasionally put the ball in the end zone. Winning the turnover and field position battles will be enough for us.

 

[cyattack69]

I think our offense is doing a good job...when the play calling is correct. When we get the lead in the game I get the feeling we turn over the play book and turn to the conservative play calling, which yields less points and less yards. This staff plays the field advantage game more and better than any ISU coach ive ever seen. Maybe as ISU fans we are conditioned to feel that no lead is ever big enough because of mental mistakes and defensive miscues of the past.
Obviously, we all need to get over it because this is the new era of ISU football.

I'm sure other people have noticed this, but Iowa State strangles the other team. It's 100% strategy. We get the lead, get stops on D. That takes away the other teams want to run, making them pass and predicting their offensive plays. Kinda of scary/ kinda exciting because this is what good teams do.

 

[CyCloned]

Kansas rushed for over 300 yds vs WVU in September. I'm hoping Montgomery has a career day.

This is what I was thinking. WVU highlights show running plays with lots of missed tackles, and that is what DM does best. It would be nice to get the WR screen game going again, but teams are really starting to use a lot of press coverage on ISU WR because they know Kempt has limited arm strength and the ISU WRs, except for maybe Ryen or Murdoch, are not likely to get behind a defense. It would be great to run for 400 yards and just run away with another win.

 

[troutslayer]

Well, they're averaging 34 pts a game so there's that. Give credit where credit is due though. TCU's defense is tough, tough, tough. There is a reason why they were ranked #4

 

[Cardinal and Gold]

Why does it seem we rarely run wide or around the end?

I would love to see the Lan-Ram package come out and run the option straight at the DE. Force the DE to make a choice, lose containment, pitch it to DM for the TD. Set it up with a few QB keeps between the Tackles. Boom, first down or TD. It would also keep defenses honest for that package in the future.

 

[browns4cy]

I wasn't worried my prediction before game was 10 to 7 us. I was more worried as kempt actually got hit a few times and seemed to be missing some throws in the 2nd half that he has been making. Hopefully he will get back into rythem against wvu

 

[SCarolinaCy]

While I'm certainly loving the results the team has been having is the success sustainable with how little output the offensive side of the ball is producing? Only averaged 335 yards per game during conference play.

Special teams are a concern. KO are no longer going in the end zone. Not sure we have pooch capability or on sides for when it's needed. Certainly do not understand our running 5-7 defensive players into the back field on an opposing punt and allowing the punt team to rush the receiver downfield unblocked.