I'm glad you brought up Indiana. While iowa hasn't lost to them as much, they cause iowa as many fits as NW because they paly the same dink and dunk, keep away, field position game. They both have OC's that are very, very patient.
Jon Miller
- Thread starter iowast8cyclone
- Start date
I tend to disagree. If you keep the opposing offense on the sideline your defense also sits on the sideline. The offense can't get into a rythm and starts to force things which leads to mistakes. Your defense stays fresher and can capitalize on mistakes. Throw in NW getting the lead out of the gate and that adds to the pressure on the offense and allows NW to be more agressive on defense. In other cases, NW is content playing the field position battle which allows them to be aggressive on defense as well.
Can you deny the fact that if Iowa doesn't turn the ball over in those games, they win?
I agree that if all things equal, time of possession is a big factor. But in this situation all things weren't equal. Also, in two of the three games the offense had at least 4 turnovers. You think that might have an affect on time of possession?
This isn't a situation where the turnover differential is close, so you look for other explanations.
- Turnovers are part of the game and the fact that NW does a good job forcing them means it isn't a fluke.
- I was just saying that time of possession/field position could have something to do with forcing turnovers. Heck, that is iowa's defensive philosophy. control field position, make the team dink and dunk and use more plays, and sooner or later they will make a mistake. NW understands this better than most teams. They dink and dunk and play field position. They stay patient and they wait for iowa to make mistakes. Once they get iowa pinned back, they get very, very aggressive and when they do they make plays.
- Go back and look at iowa's starting field position. I only had time to look at the past two years but the best position iowa has ever had is their own 38 and that was following a turnover. That shows you that NW's offense was content moving the ball, punting and making iowa's offense go they length of the field. If you can make the other team continue to go the length of the field, they will make mistakes and when they do, you can capitalize.
Just to add to this a little: not only do you put pressure on the offense by forcing them to move the length of the field, but against Northwestern, MUCH more is riding on each possession, because you don't get as many of them. And that increases the need to take chances, which leads to turnovers.
Exactly! In the end, NW beats iowa at their own game. A prime example, is the sack and fumble in the endzone. Why pass there? Run the ball three times and give Donahue some space to punt. The guy can change field position by himself.
It's pretty well known that the way to beat iowa is to be PATIENT on offense. They're not going to give up the big plays in the pass game and rushing yards are tough to come by. BUT, if you run the spread well and are patient, you can beat them. ISU did not do either of those two things well the past few years. AA was pretty much the opposite of patient.
Fixed it for you.
That's why Iowa's defensive philosophy is VERY effective against the majority of the teams we play. The few teams with offenses and quarterbacks who are patient are the ones that give us trouble.
I don't think that you fixed anything. I said exactly what I meant to say. Sage Rosenfels, Seneca Wallace and Bret Meyer were ALL patient enough to beat iowa. AA was not and neither was his OC. When Minnesota beats your team with a lame duck coach, it's not the iron curtain we're talking about here.
I was just saying that it's not like Arnaud and Herman are some kind of boneheaded anomaly in college football. Most teams aren't patient enough to take what our defense gives them, and stick with it. Arnaud is just like probably at least 80% of all college quarterbacks in that regard.
In all fairness, we played a much different defense than Minnesota played. iowa's LB corp wa decimated aginst Minny and all they had to do was look for JOhnson and throw his way
Plus it seemed the whole team had lost interest...except for one person, who will remain unmentioned.....:twitcy:
I remember a quote from a player, I think it was Klug but I may be wrong he said, "we lost our desire to win".
No fire, no energy...I'm not saying they didn't WANT to win...but they definitely didn't show it in their play.
Don't act like you don't know what I am talking about. You can tell when a team is truly working hard on the field...they didn't seem like they were. "we lost because we didn't care" was not what I was saying and you know it. Losing takes a toll on a team, and it really seemed to show at the end of last year.
You Clone fans should know what losing does to a team.
biggrin:Yep, like ISU vs Iowa the past two years. It was treated like the Super Bowl for Iowa, but to ISU it was just another game.
Loser mentality and an excuse for losing. We here it every time iowa loses. They never evr give the other team credit. Either the other team got lucky or iowa "just didn't show up." iowa lost because their depleted LB corp couldn't cover a receiver. It was a talent/lack of depth issue not a effort issue.
Yep, ISU got ***** slapped by Utah and OU then went on to beat Texas at Texas. I would think that a coach that gets paid $3.8 million could get his players to rebound after some losses. Guess not.No fire, no energy...I'm not saying they didn't WANT to win...but they definitely didn't show it in their play.
Don't act like you don't know what I am talking about. You can tell when a team is truly working hard on the field...they didn't seem like they were. "we lost because we didn't care" was not what I was saying and you know it. Losing takes a toll on a team, and it really seemed to show at the end of last year.
You Clone fans should know what losing does to a team.