Also why didn't we promote Mess for the bowl game to get him some experience? Sounds like we missed on 2-3 OC prior to hiring him...curious who they were because it's stupid to not promote him when our OC at the time had a foot out the door
MESS named OC
- Thread starter Mycology
- Start date
A couple of things I noticed from watching the replay of the game on CZ;
1. JB was off in the passing game but the decisions were not bad. He missed on 2 throws (Lenz on the delay cross and Mibey on the hitch). Darks runs a crappy route on another and he acknowledges it right after the play but doing the "my bad" pat on his chest while going back to the LOS, and Money had single press coverage quit running on the go route, he took a hit anyway.
2. The 2-back set was killing them, don't know why we got away from it. (Midline read was a great play)
3. Zone read would have killed too if our WR's learn how to block. They were sending the DE to the RB and blitzing the CB to the QB. A simple adjustment is get the CB blocked and the QB has a chance to make big plays. Our WR's never block a blitzing CB all night.
4. On JB's fumble, it wasn't a zone blitz, the center and both guards blocked 2 guys so HH's guy came in untouched, JW and CB whiffed on their blocks. He don't have a chance to get his feet set. Gary was just coming open on a crossing route.
5. Coverage was too loose. Too much cushion.
6. No adjustment to the bubble screen to counteract the middle blitz
7. No adjustment to sprint out to counter the middle blitz.
8. No max-protect to counter the middle blitz.
9.No personnel change (Replace the TE with a more speedy guy to get into routes quicker) to counter the blitz.
10. STAY IN THE 2- BACK and pound the football!!! We were winning the game!!
11. Just plain ******* vanilla!!
1. JB was off in the passing game but the decisions were not bad. He missed on 2 throws (Lenz on the delay cross and Mibey on the hitch). Darks runs a crappy route on another and he acknowledges it right after the play but doing the "my bad" pat on his chest while going back to the LOS, and Money had single press coverage quit running on the go route, he took a hit anyway.
2. The 2-back set was killing them, don't know why we got away from it. (Midline read was a great play)
3. Zone read would have killed too if our WR's learn how to block. They were sending the DE to the RB and blitzing the CB to the QB. A simple adjustment is get the CB blocked and the QB has a chance to make big plays. Our WR's never block a blitzing CB all night.
4. On JB's fumble, it wasn't a zone blitz, the center and both guards blocked 2 guys so HH's guy came in untouched, JW and CB whiffed on their blocks. He don't have a chance to get his feet set. Gary was just coming open on a crossing route.
5. Coverage was too loose. Too much cushion.
6. No adjustment to the bubble screen to counteract the middle blitz
7. No adjustment to sprint out to counter the middle blitz.
8. No max-protect to counter the middle blitz.
9.No personnel change (Replace the TE with a more speedy guy to get into routes quicker) to counter the blitz.
10. STAY IN THE 2- BACK and pound the football!!! We were winning the game!!
11. Just plain ******* vanilla!!
I felt the same way watching the game (not nearly as in depth of an analysis though). It seemed that TH wanted to run a certain game plan regardless of what was happening on the field. Not saying I would make a great coach nor would anyone who was watching the game with me but we all couldn't believe that the simplest easiest adjustments weren't made that could have neutralized the blitzing.
And yes lack of blocking by WR's has killed us at times throughout the whole year.
That requires far to much intellectual ability for many of the posters on this web site. It is hard to rationalize with the crowd that thinks it should only take a little pixie dust to fix the problem.
Doesnt matter, Herman got paid to make the adjustments. He didnt end of story. You cant whine about a team not doing what you expected, you have to figure out how to make them pay for what they are doing, we didnt do that.
True, games can be won apart from big plays. That is really the essence of the question. What were the more ordinary, mundate, game plan types of things that should have been done? For instance, I think Rutgers did this by following the Baylor offensive gameplan in which they responded to our great pass coverage by running up the middle effectively.
However, big plays can also win or lose games. It is hard to argue that the TD to Coleman wasn't a gamechanger. And I know that players can't be expected to make every play. Reeves (and the others) showed what they could do. I think they played a great game in terms of pass coverage. We stopped this play to Coleman two earlier times. And we could have on that play, but just didn't. Of the examples I listed with regard to execution, this was the one that probably had the best execution, but it just didn't work. To use a baseball saying since the game was at Yankee Stadium, football is a game of inches. It wasn't Reeves inches of height that made the difference because he won all day long. It was just a matter of pulling off one more great play that he missed by inches based on the timing of his jump not its height or reach. In no way am I suggesting that he was a goat on the play. When you watch the replay of his coverage, you see how well he covered Coleman and how close he was to being the game's savior. Yet, he did just miss the ball and I don't know what else to call that but a matter of execution.
Actually I would just state that CPR was out coached by Schiano. Badly.
Compounded by the error to put in Jantz.
You lose ALL credibility for your posts for not being able to spell RHOADS correctly. Seriously, it's even worse when you are a Cyclone fan and can't spell our coach's name right...
This is good info if I ever interview for an OC position.
I don't know, you either move up the Short drive ending in a turn over to the top of the list, or throw it out all together. No use putting it on the duty list if you aren't going to do it right.
I doubt that anybody can understand your "illustration", since folks usually give examples that support their assertions rather than counter them.
I agree mostly with your thinking here. What worries me though, is that there really hasn't been any consistent improvement in our offensive production the 3 years that Herman was here. I don't think we necessarily should have been lighting the world on fire by now and I do think lack of an exprienced QB and our starting running back hurt, but at the end of the day, everything seemed the same as it did in year one.
My main problem is with how many 3 and outs we have in the course of a game and the few drives we get going, not finishing. This has been a consistent problem at ISU for longer than just the Herman Era and I expected to see more improvement than what I saw. As I said, I never expect us to start throwing up 50 points a game. I did expect us to sustain more drives though and have more consistency on our offense.
Yes, lack of QB can be a part of that, but I didn't see much difference from last year to this year and last year we had an experienced QB. In colelge, you have to plan on a new QB every 2 or 3 years. Eventually that excuse gets tiresome.
The solution WAS in place... The dropped passes, the numerous over and under throws to WIDE open WRs, inopportune penalties... None of those were part of the gameplan but had we executed on even half (pulling that out of my butt) its a different game and we're in it or win it at the end. Gameplan for Rutgers was fine - our execution was pathetic. Thats players and thats coaching...
Personally, I saw quite a bit more efficiency this year and a lot less head scratching. Particularly when JB got in his groove. Even in some of the losses we still had a chance to win because the offense kept the defense off the field for a at least a little while.
That was with a RSFr QB that will only get better. If he could take his completion % from 50 to 60+, we would have sustained a lot more drives.
Turnovers were really critical on a lot of drives. Also, WR drops were still and issue this year. A lot of that was on the veteran WRs. The younger guys will have to play next year and we will see if they can be more sure handed.
Overall I saw moments this year that I hadn't seen in the previous two at all. The youth and inconsistency are issues that can be corrected with more time and consistency in the coaching staff should help some with that.
Messingham still has to step up. Hopefully he and CPR have a plan. (I'm going to keep saying this until I see the plan.)
The pinkel example makes perfect sense if you don't use the false pretense that Pinkle did well in year 2. Pinkel DID take 5 years to get it going (Actually more like 6 or 7)...his record at mizzu:
2001: 4-7
2002: 5-7
2003: 8-5
2004: 5-6
2005: 7-5
2006: 8-5
2007: 12-2.
Thanks. Now we are getting into analysis that has real depth, not just shallow general opinions.
1. I count 3, maybe 4 bad passes by Barnett on three drives: one in the first drive where Gary had fallen down, next play was high over Darks, next drive bounced one in front of Reynolds, and threw far over Reynolds on third drive.
2. I agree. Not only was this working in terms of gaining yardage, but it added some blitz protection.
3. WR blocking has been an issue all season. However, it is hard to think that this isn't in the practices and gameplans. It is okay to have 1-2 receivers who just run and catch, but guys who play lots of downs need to be able to block. I think we traded receiving ability for blocking ability this season, perhaps because they were seniors with great receiving ability.
4. The more I think about it, the more I wonder if bringing in Jantz wasn't part of the gameplan. Barnett had two drives that started well, but fizzled, so we settled for FGs. Then, he gets sacked in the pocket. I wonder if Herman (or Rhoads) planned to give him a few series and put in Jantz if Barnett struggled largely because it makes sense to think Jantz would have been more agile and crafty in scrambling away from blitzes.
5. We may have been a little loose in the first half, but not the second. The disappearance of Sanu in the second half, one catch by Coleman, and one catch by Jefferson suggests we were doing something right. And there were lots of throws that looked to be intentionally thrown high and uncatchable because of coverage, especially when the receivers were in the endzone in the first half.
6. I would have liked to have seen a few more of these. They could have been big gainers with the quickness of West and Horne, especially if the area was vacated by blitzers.
7. Same as #6.
8. See #2.
9. We did have one very good play by a TE. I would have liked to see Woody take more of this role as a receiver. We talk about his size and strength, but he has some quickness and moves also. I predict we will see much more of him next year.
10. See #2.
11. We got too much yardage for me to call it "vanilla." However, we really limited our options on 3rd down by not doing better on 1st down. I think both teams were 2 for 13 on 3rd down. However, ours were 3rd and long where we didn't execute well. Theirs were 3rd and short where our defense made stops.