Why not reach out to the uni line coach. They have a first round LT and had a RT drafted last year in the third round whos playing already for The Bills.
UNI always gives us fits too
UNI always gives us fits too
The Answer…
- Thread starter cyclone4L
- Start date
Having a former UNI assistant in basketball is paying off so far. I could get behind this.
Besides O-Line coach what else do you guys think gets changed in the offseason this year?
Not saying Manning has to go but this run up the gut on almost every first down no matter if it works or not has to stop.
Not saying Manning has to go but this run up the gut on almost every first down no matter if it works or not has to stop.
I see Manning taking back the Oline. (Not saying that is what should happen) what I see one of the changes being. The development was considered to be stronger under him than now. Plus, when the OC coaches the line, he sees where the issues may be a little better and can adjust play calling there.
I'd love Matt to talk about the off season plan being faster starts. Winning September and not getting 2+ scores down to far inferior opponents isn't something new to this team. We are a DOMINANT second half team. If we can clean up the first half miscues.. especially on the road.. Watch out
Honestly I think this is all fixed with an improved offensive line in the run game. I'd love to know our record when we average 4+ YPC in a first half or win the time of possession battle in the first half.
No one is asking for perfection.. But we cannot be an average to below average offensive line year after year and expect to break the 10 win barrier. Even in a lesser Big 12.
I think Matt has done a really nice job addressing our weaknesses in the WR room. He has started to recruit WR's who can separate with twitch. Noel is a great WR in the screen game and short passing game. As he gets more comfortable with college route trees. He will be dang good.
Xavier Townsend, Greg Gaines, Jason Essex and Quaron Adams are all dudes who are great in space or have that extra gear to separate. Trying to find Lazard or Butler clones is near impossible. Most tall can't separate and have to make contested catches constantly.
It will also be interesting to see the changes made this off season to the passing game. Dekkers has a cannon and can really get the ball down field. Decent pass protection could lead to some huge throws
Xavier Townsend, Greg Gaines, Jason Essex and Quaron Adams are all dudes who are great in space or have that extra gear to separate. Trying to find Lazard or Butler clones is near impossible. Most tall can't separate and have to make contested catches constantly.
It will also be interesting to see the changes made this off season to the passing game. Dekkers has a cannon and can really get the ball down field. Decent pass protection could lead to some huge throws
I just hope that there are some changes in the staff - standing pat with the current staff is denying reality.
Matt Campbell isn't one to stand pat when something is off. That being said, we're not inside the walls (as much as many think they are). Just like the special teams issues we're having, I have faith that not only does he know the problems better than we all do, he also at the least has plans on how to fix it. Will those plans always be successful? no. Will those plans include a coaching change? maybe... but that goes to what the problem actually is and the truth is, we will never know exactly what the problems are.
Does Manning get all the blame, but none of the credit?
Was Breece's first play of the game TD in spite of Manning? Plenty of plays from Saturday that should've hit, but players also need to execute. And at least two off the top of my head were timing that was thrown off by defensive bumping.
Still baffled that some think the coaches really were "playing not to lose" and willingly decided "no we wouldn't rather score a TD on the closing drive"
Also, you can’t fix every problem, or at least not at once you can’t. Many times you have to pick and choose which easy fixes you will address and/or the big problems that have to painstakingly be fought and worked on. I think we have a couple big ones that need cleaning and a few quick fixes have been addressed with next years recruits. It is a process, fixing one thing means something else may not get attention and falter or a different problem arises when one gets fixed that it was kinda masking.
Just out of curriosity, why do we think the OL gets changed? I'm not saying it doesn't need to be but I don't know also that its the issue.
Personally our play calling needs to change. We have got to incorproate more stuff on the outside, include draws, screens, traps, something. Right now our offensive line is asked to physically man handle people and play in a 10 yard box. Are they good enough? No. Do we do anything to help them? No. Because bringing Chase Allen into the box does what? Brings another defender into the box with him.
And when everyone and their grandma knows we're going to run Breece right up the middle 98% of the time we run him... and that we're never going to roll the pocket, or really anything.
I don't care who the offensive line coach is and who is playing offensive line. That is NOT going to work against anyone whose living and has a pulse. Not to mention there was something said once about slight changes to the blocking scheme - if that is indeed true - that takes a long time to truly master. It sounds incredibly simple but its not.
I'm not against the OL coach leaving or being let go. What essentially I am saying is that unless Manning or whoever is calling plays develops a way to help an offensive line out and we don't ask them to be crash dummies over and over again - its NOT GOING TO MATTER.
The offensive line has struggled at times - at times not - we are 15th nationally in fewest sacks allowed. Amazingly we're 4th nationally in red zone offense. Middle of the road in yards per game rushing. We're tied for 29th in tackles for loss allowed.
Now my eyes tell me we have really struggled at times and I'm sure we have. But at the same time my point stands... unless we change things in terms of forcing defenses to get their extra defenders out of the frigging box and do things to help offensive linemen when the DL is just teeing off on them... it will not matter if all we do is get a different OL coach. We need to adapt and adjust how we help the big boys, not just look for the easy fix of blaming their coach
To me, the issues that need addressing:
- Getting faster in identifying team identity, strengths to start the season.
- Cleaning up play call efficiency, ability to go tempo when a play hits and play clock management.
- Discipline in timely penalties. Overall, the team plays clean, but the false starts that do hit, come at very inopportune times.
I agree with much of that. I would add to the first, along with identifying the team identity, to then adjust to the strengths. We can kinda do a, we like round pegs and hate square holes and will fight shaving the edges of that peg so it fits until necessary.
I cringe inside everytime I see us on 1st and 10 motion 2 tight ends and a fullback into essentially a goal line formation with Xavier the only wide out.
But Golesh was Campbell's right hand man so it might as well been a direct connection.
I’d like to see Heacock get more aggressive with the pass rush early in the game. It seems like he plays very vanilla in the first half to feel out the opponent then gets much more aggressive in the 2nd half. The problem is that we often let inexperienced or struggling QBs gain confidence and then have a hard time putting the genie back in the bottle. See Doege from WVU and TT’s RS freshman making his first start. On that 3rd and 6 in TT’s first series I wished we’d brought a 4th or 5th rusher from the 2nd level. Instead we brought the 3 down linemen and got a push up the middle, but he easily rolled away from it and completed a pass for the first down. If we force a 3 and out to start the game then drive down and score it might have been a whole different game.
On offense we should throw screens and more swing passes to the RB. The play where Breece caught a pass near the sideline then made a run to the middle to score was amazing. Do anything to get our playmakers the ball in space. Does not have to be a handoff between the tackles.
On offense we should throw screens and more swing passes to the RB. The play where Breece caught a pass near the sideline then made a run to the middle to score was amazing. Do anything to get our playmakers the ball in space. Does not have to be a handoff between the tackles.
Well, our staff does seem very consistent in that they appear to use early Sept games and then 1st halves to go vanilla and then sort things out after that. Overall, Campbell's approach to games appears to be one of being very conservative and then adjusting from there. Will be interesting to see if/how he modifies his style over time. It seems to be a very successful approach to use for an underdog, but I'd suggest it needs adapting for where he now has the program -- and, kudos to him for improving the ISU FB program that much!
Going forward, a few changes I sure hope he has on the list:
- Actually treat ST like they matter -- put a coach in charge of it & try to gain margins (or even edges/wins!)... it still blows my mind that CMC has apparently treated ST as a necessary evil with hopes of simply not hurting us too badly on this front... a team that needs to win in the margins has to excel at ST.
- Get some creativity on O, even early in games -- e.g., Does nearly every drive have to start w/ a dive by Hall (lots of them, sure, but nearly all?!)? How can other teams regularly blanket our WRs? Why do we only seem to care about throwing the ball to a couple WR/TEs each game? What about some misdirection/reverses/... to keep the D honest?
- Find some CBs who can cover and not just play 10 yards off
Maybe some coaches need to change. I'm not close enough to it to really know. On O, I share this group's frustration w/ the play-calling -- is it Manning, a function of CMC's conservatism,... both?... does the OL coach need to change, or does the OL recruiting need to improve... or both? ... it does concern me that the play-calling typically seems to operate from the thought that our OL is dominant. It's not.
On D, Heacock has excelled so well, I have no idea how we looked so badly against TT & WV. Mobile QBs do tend to really hurt us... I trust that he'll be studying this up and sort out future improvements.
CMC has done a great job and is a great leader. I'm hoping that being a relatively young coach, that he'll grow and keep the program on the way up.
Btw, I know he attributes much of his success to his time at Mt. Union. Does anyone know their O & ST philosophy at that time? Did they have a dominant OL?...Did they care about ST?...
A lot of ppl on here turning down near 7 digit salaries giving away their playcalling expertise for free. Gotta play to win guys. Follow your dreams!