I do not post very often, or ever really, but comments on the board and last's night game have me fired up, especially those bitching about playcalling and quarterback play
- Whatever Todd Orlando told the defense after Maryland, please bottle that up and sell it. I could use it for my salespeople.
- Before last nights game, our offense was averaging over 40 points per game
- Iowa State came into the game averaging over 300 yards passing and just 6 sacks, 5 of which were against Akron, so only 1 sack against Iowa and Northern Iowa. What does this mean?
- Jon Heacock (ISU DC) felt he had a good offense given the 40+ points and 500+ yards per game we all heard ad nauseum last night.
- Heacock was gambling that his offense would win time of possession and score points allowing him to play a bend don't break defense
- Even with a patchwork offensive line, he did not have faith in his front seven getting pressure on the QB and was concerned about Texas' playmakers given ISU history of 300+ games. Thus, in the first half, he mostly played 3 down and 8 back.
- In the second half, he started to blitz more but still rolled coverage to playmakers and was helped by Texas' poor field position and OL penalties which put Texas and terrible down and distance situations.
- All of this was different than how ISU had played in previous games and thus coaching had to find adjustments, which they did in the 2nd quarter, but field position and penalties handcuffed them in the second half.
- The issues last night on offense included: lack of passing downfield, lack of running game, perceived bad play calls, terrible field position, and penalties.
- All of these issues are directly related to the inexperienced and patchworked OL, let me explain
- Lack of passing downfield - as mentioned, ISU played a different and unique defensive alignment last night. Rushing 3 and dropping 8 does not give much room to throw when your 5 is covered by their 8. This makes going north/south difficult and east/west the safest option. Having a patchwork OL allowed Heacock to do this and hope to get at least average pressure.
- Lack of running game - just could not open holes. Porter is a one-cut back, which means he needs a hole. Warren is a tank against LB and DB, but he needs a hole to get to that level. Carter is the only back that can create plays when nothing exists and he is still learning and is a liability in some down and distance situations so he cannot play every down. However, we had to stick with the run to keep time of possession and when OL are playing out of position, run blocking is a more instinctual play for an inexperience OL. Also keeps your QB from getting killed. They only had 2 sacks. I know Shane ran some, but it is different when running and expecting a hit, than sitting in the pocket and getting bulldozed.
- Perceived Bad Play Calls - again, defensive alignment forced east-west to some extent, which caused short drives, which caused good field position for ISU, which caused our Defense to have to play at an Elite level and stop ISU, which forced them to punt and keep us pinned back, which limits available play calls. Add in our penalties in the 2nd half, down and distance caused by those, the field position, and the somewhat tight score, you end up with ball protection being key, which means conservative play calling.
- Terrible Field Position - see above. ISU kept us pinned back, but our inability to get out of it was caused by a mixture of a lot of things as mentioned above.
- Penalties - funny - those OL penalties started when ISU started to blitz. Rushing 3 in the first half made things easier for OL (harder on WR and QB), but when you speed things up and start bringing pressure from multiple directions, inexperience OL playing in unfamiliar positions start doing whatever they can to protect and block which leads to...you guessed it...penalties.
