Kent State post game thread...

[CYVADER]

Re: My Take

I have loved Meyer his career, but the man simply cannot scramble. He gets caught everytime he has a hole. That's fine, I don't expect him to run for huge gains, but I'm sick of having huge holes and getting one yard out of them because someone grabs Meyer's leg and he doesn't break the tackle. Either way, I'msure the the coaches will figure something out for UNI!

can't say for sure cuz i just got to listen to the game on radio, but meyer sounded bad. wouldn't be surprised to see a change. i know what everyones thinking-he has the most career passing yards of any senior in the country, they won't bench him. that's the problem. i don't care if he has thrown for a million yards. if he is playing like crap and making these kind of decisions as a 4th year starter, it might be time to let these younger guys take some snaps and see what they can do.

 

[CyBobby]

Shaggy misses Field Goals... Now that is OLD NEWS...I canNOT remember the last time Shaggy has ever made a pressure kick or a field goal when the team needed it the most.


Even Larry Cotlar is ragging on old Shaggy this morning on his show.

Old & Proud Of IT

 

[mj4cy]

Re: My Take

Meyer showed flashes of his usual great self, but it was too inconsistent. The biggest thing was he wasn't a leader. He wasn't pushing guys to hustle when time was running down. He was not setting his feet before throwing and he was throwing tough passes when he should have taken the sack or thrown it out of bounds. Our D was resilient many times to stop them in the red zone, but you can only hold a flood back so many times before the dam breaks.

 

[Jerry1982]

Re: My Take

The biggest thing was he wasn't a leader.

Xs and Os aren't the problem. The staff has to find our leader and bring him out.

 

[cyclonenum1]

I know, I know, its the new system. (Florida has went 22-4 with a National Championship in Urban Meyer's 2 years at Florida, teaching them a new system.)

One big difference...Ron Zook was a fabulous recruiter (just not a very good game day coach) and he left the cupboard absolutely loaded for Urban.

Chizik came into a situation where the cupboard was bare of any new recruits and the existing players could best be termed chickenshit.

No excuses though, this is Chizik's team. However, it is going to take more than one game for him to work his magic and change the chickenshit into chickensalad.

Our team speed (position by position) is really a problem. I am confident that Chizik will correct this and get us some players that can run with the big boys (since we do play in a big boy conference).

 

[ISUCLONES15]

O-line did well in the first half (well, better than I expected anyway), D-Line got straight whooped all night, DB's got burnt a few times. All in all a half-hearted effort in the second half by the offense. I am really disappointed in Meyer. It just always seems to me that he is not looking at all of his receivers. I like Bret, but kind of wanted to see how Austen would have done. Overall, I was disappointed in the offense and surprised by the defense. I think they did exceptionally well for as long as they were on the field as the offense didn't give them much time to breathe.

I completely agree with everything said above. O-line did better then I expected. D-line was the biggest disappointment of the team. Absolutely no pass rush and the Kent State O-line was creating running lanes all night. Meyer made a couple bad decisions, but was OK overall. JJ Bass is a complete stud!

 

[Nedrick]

My 2¢...

Glad to see JJ Bass live up to the hype. (Curious about Alexander starting -- did Scales play at all?) Bass may be able to run for 1K yards this season.

Meyer seems to instinctively go back to his habit of locking in receivers. I'd hoped the new staff would have coached that out of him.

Like someone said, the 'Clones may look similar to last year's Buffs in that they might be overthinking their play. It's tough to play with instinct/reaction when you're trying to implement a brand new system. (Esp. for the juniors & seniors who've been ingrained with one system their whole career)

The D looked great the 1st couple of series, but once they were put in difficult positions because of TOs or 3-&-outs, they started melting down a bit. Had a heck of a time tackling their waterbug RBs & elusive QB. Hopefully can improve that quite a bit over the next few weeks.

I'm grateful they have a couple of extra days to prepare for UNI. I'm sure Chiz & co. will run the team through the ringer to clean up mistakes.

The UNI game could be interesting...

 

[bellzisu]

Well... I hope UNI won't be tougher.... They had their hands full last night with Mn St. That too was a very close game through 3 qrts. Didn't see what the final was.

By the way... Mn St is located in Mankato and I dont think they are a scholie team.

Ok... 20-14 through three quarters. Uni pulls away late because probably more depth and players.

 

[cycloneworld]

Cycloneworld's take of Week 1

Hmmm. Where do I start? I purposely didn't post last night for 2 reasons...1. I was already hung over at 12 when I actually got back to Des Moines) and 2. To give myself some time to think about what happened. For some reason, I took last night's loss pretty hard. I was pissed and disappointed but in the back of my mind, I knew a loss last night was a distinct possibility heading into the game. Emotions aside, here are my thoughts on the game:

DEFENSE
I thought the defense did a very nice job. They vastly outperformed the offense IMO. They just wore down at the end. I thought Singleton had the best game.

OFFENSE
I, like many others, expected MUCH more. Kent State may be a good team but if their D-line ate up our line that bad last night, things are only going to get worse.

JJ Bass was obviously the bright spot. I think he could be a really special back with more blocking. He has a very nice little burst of speed in him. Why didn't Scales get a carry or 2? So much for "seeing what we've got".

Meyer was a big disappointment. ISUFan's "Bret Meyer" thread is almost exactly how I feel. The tournovers hurt. Bad. Those are mistakes a senior QB just can't make.

SPECIAL TEAMS
Pretty bad all around. Culbertson proved again that he can't make a big kick. That one he donked off the post would have cut the lead to 6 and we would have had some good momentum on our side. I'm tired of people making excuses for him, he has shown over and over he can't be counted on in big spots.

Kick coverage was pretty bad but I don't think a lot of people understand the impact of moving kickoffs back to the 30...you will see a lot of teams struggle with kick coverage.

Punting was very good. Punt returns were obviously pretty bad. Sandvig's muffs could have been costly but he at least recovered the ball. We didn't get to see anything from him because their punter sucked pretty bad.

OVERALL
For other people to call out fellow cyclone fans for calling this loss "unacceptable"...what do you call it? A bright spot? That its ok because we are rebuilding? That game was absolutely HUGE last night. Some people are now mailing in the season. All of that hope...all of that excitement....all of that hype of a "new era" was lost because we lost that game. And to me THAT is unacceptable not the actual loss to a decent Kent State.

No one expected us to be world beaters but no one thought we'd lose to Kent State either.

Great crowd last night. I hope people give it another shot next week.

 

[dunar]

A couple things stuck out to me (that I haven't seen covered already):

With time running down (the possession around 10:30 in the 4th), it seemed like it was taking far too long to get plays off. Not looking for a hurry-up game at that point, but it almost seemed like the plays weren't getting in to Meyer and there was no enthusiasm going into or coming out of the huddle. Understood, it's a new play book, but it felt like the drive/desire was gone at that point.

Disappointed in the clearing stands starting around 9:00 left in the game. Outlook at that point was not great, but no reason to leave. I cut the "early-exit" fans a little slack, being a Thursday night game. Of course, over the years, I've determined that at football games there is the ever hopeful, die hard 'Clone and the one that is accustomed to losing and content with it...

Not-so-game related: the change in programs was not good. Rosters in the middle (harder to find for a quick player stats lookup), smaller print/pictures, 66% price increase.

 

[jakemcilroy]

Thoughts anyone?

My thoughts from last night...before I rampaged by the "die-hards" of the message boards universe for not having enough street cred, or "posts" let me quantify.

30 year old. Graduated from Iowa St. This is 30th year my parents have had season tickets. I've been to every home game since 1989 except 4. Been to all but one bowl game, etc, etc.

My thoughts...

--Whether we won would won by 21, 1, or lost by 9, the coaching change at the end of last year was necessary.
--Gene Chizik was a great hire.
--Jamie Pollard is a dynamic, proactive, smart A.D.
--The crowd was AMAZING last night given a MAC opponent and team coming off 4-8 record.
--JJ Bass was really good. Hits hole hard, makes quick move, then goes after it.
--Gold pants look just like another poster put, "Hey, look at us, we have new pants. They DON'T match anything in the uniform. Next year's will b/c of the helmet and strip down the side.
--No matter whether you are a optimist or pessimist, last nights game was a huge NEGATIVE for this athletic department. We don't have to be good all year in Gene's first year, but we lost more than a football game last night. We had a tremendous opportunity to energize a new breed of ISU fan. I was so proud to see the size of the crowd at the beginning and end of the game, but I can't blame new season ticket holders if they left thinking, "what did I just spend my hard earned money on?"
--Remember I said it was time for a coaching change, but do you wonder if Mac is in Tampa on the beach right now smiling as he coaches his top 25 team? Everyone thinks his exit was so first class on both sides, and it looked so on the perimeter...but I promise you, it wasn't as cordial as everyone wants to think.
--There is no set amount of wins that we need to achieve for the excitement to remain as we head into the future years...but, 0-12 is not acceptable at any level. IMy grandma could coach the team to 0-12 and that is a complete fact.

 

[cmoneyr]

The defense was ineffective almost the entire night. Aside from the turnovers they forced, they played poorly. The D-Line got manhandled time and time again, people not staying home on counters and misdirections, poor pass rushes that gave the quarterback plenty of time to throw or huge lanes to run through. The poor tackling fundamentals really surprised me, I don't know how many times the first player to hit the ball carrier missed a tackle, too many arm tackles, over pursuing runs, bad form all around. I really wish we would have blitzed more, there were numerous situations where I wished we would've brought pressure in the second half and we just never did.

As everyone has said, J.J. Bass was excellent, his running style is really a joy to watch after living through Stevie for so long. Hitting holes hard, breaking tackles, speed to hit the corners, this kid could do great things.

The thing that bothered me most on offense, besides the turnovers, was watching Blythe half-*** it on blocks and plays that didn't directly involve him. I understand he catches touchdowns, but if he wants to be a football player someone needs to tell him he has to do other things that just catch passes, it's the little things that make players great.

Special teams was kind of all over the place. Obviously Shaggy is bad, and has been bad for some time. Our kickoffs were routinely short, (even given that we kick from the 30 now), and poorly covered for the most part. Punting was decent, although he didn't really have much chance to really boot one. And our return game seemed to be in sync, at least as far as kick returns go. Sandvig gets a pass for now, seeing as it's his first college game and he didn't lose any of the muffed returns, I'd like to be able to see him actually return one.

I'm disappointed, but we're not out yet. I left shortly after Shaggy doinked one off the upright, you could tell our Defense was out of gas by that point. A disappointing start for sure, not what I was hoping for, and unfortunately the schedule doesn't get any easier from here.

 

[cmoore_23]

putting my after game thoughts over here

ok.. so last nite we struggled to say the least, and kent state seemed to want it more.. and was more then likely the better team at this point..but here are some things that i noticed:


(ps i know i cant spell worth a damn so give me a break on that)


+ JJ Bass was awesome, he hit the holes and seems like he could be the real deal

+ With that said, the o line was actually making pretty big holes, and doing a decent time protecting meyer, but at the same time, they need to be a little bit more consistant, but from what i could tell, the only time meyer was pressured was when he was rolling out and there was some type of blitz from kent state

- Lack of consistantsy, to many times there were broke down offensive plays and good defense for 2 straight plays then alowing a 3rd down conversion

- dline and lb's need to get more pressure on the qb and when facing a qb like we did last nite they need to stay home!!!

- we did an ok job getting the ball to blythe, but i think we need to try and hit rj on some of those short passes and hit him long on another, because the guy can create big plays and is very very fast

+ kick off returns, i dont know if this has really been mentioned, but a few times it looked like we were going to take a few to the house

- kick off.. need to stay in our lanes and not ge pushed around

- punt return, sanvig just need more practice and im sure nerves got to him, the way i see it give him another game, look at past returners, each and every one of them dropped punts, its going to happen, and at least he was smart enough to jump right on the ball after he dropped it

? Bates.. i really do not have any comment and im a little confused.. so ya

+ punts Brandtner did and outstanding job, and even nailed one inside the 5


overal, the positives were great, and the negatives are very fixable, and the next game is perfect to work out the kinks, give chizik and the guys some time, we all knew we were not going to get results right away

 

[borc4cy]

I talked to my brother after the game and he said that we turned the ball over alot and looked really sloppy. Did they do that CheerLeader thing at the beginning with a guy at midfield?? What was are intro like, and did we come out to Jock Jams or was it somehthing new?

 

[83Clone]

A day later, and off the ledge

Most of what I feel about last night has already been hashed and re-hashed, but a couple things that disappointed me the most were the mental mistakes, which I thought would be reduced immediately, and Meyer's seemingly regression back to his happy feet days. I still think we can be a decent offensive team, but Meyer has got to get back to where he was his first two years. I think his leash is pretty short right now, with Arnaud nipping at his heels.

My biggest disappointment by far was how our DLine got blown up and couldn't get any pressure on their QB. We would get good coverage then he would scramble for 10 yards-unacceptable.

I expect a more disciplined, more physical team on the field next Saturday, and Chizek won't be afraid to make changes in who plays if necessary

But on a positive note, JJ Bass is a bad @$$ mother-at least once that I remember he made 10 yards out of absolutely nothing. We commented in our section we haven't seen a back like him since Ennis. He's going to be fun to watch