Look at how positive our perception of Stanley is after seeing Deacon!
Any sportswriters or others getting first hand reports from spring practice?
- Thread starter uihawk82
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Except we're comparing an actual qb to whatever you call Deacon Hill.
Sidenote..I saw a tee shirt in some Hawkeye gift shop that said "Sneaken Deacon".
Funny thing is, he's not even good at that!
I think the gift shop pays you $6 to take it off their inventory.
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BirdistheWord
HB Legend
There was also a Big Deac Energy shirt.
Bottom line: This may be good.. for us at Iowa.
But in the big picture…It’s meh.
We’re remembering Stanley at this juncture simply b/c we have been cellar-dwellers in the quarterback department since his graduation.
And you did a good job padding Nate’s stats: ACTUAL is 8,300 yds and 68 TDs
Hard to remember when the Hawks had another QB with 4 and 5 TD game performances.
BirdistheWord
HB Legend
You can nitpick Stanley all you want and our context has a lower bar under KF but could you imagine if we had Nate over the past few years? No, he is not a world beater but very solid. Amazingly we have gotten worse and with Hill, much worse. Personally, I would have been trying to bring in dual threat guys all along, given the safe offense we run. Hoping Lester is able to influence our QB scheme and recruiting strategy, not holding my breath.
I'm choosing to keep an open mind regarding the OL - I want to see what a competent OC does to help the OL.
All other things aside; I've said before I don't really know how to grade the OL considering how impossible of a position BF regularly put them in.
Respectfully, we haven't seen many reports out of spring camp so idk how you can have formed an opinion that there won't be any improvement from the offense at all.
If Marco can’t surpass Hill - that’s a swing and another miss at QB recruiting/development.
Well I know this much, the past is the past and it has to be a good thing to A have a high caliber QB in the room for the last year, even if he was injured and B It has to be a good thing to have a coach on staff who played the position. So in a way, it is a new era in Iowa football. Turn the page and hopefully flip the script on some things.
BirdistheWord
HB Legend
But if we had a dual threat QB, he might try to do something silly like run for his life when the oline siv breaks down and do something real awful like drop the ball that leads to a TO.. The horror.
I'm not convinced that the offensive staff over the past few years wouldn't have ruined/wasted him too. You can't possibly be this atrociously bad without one of the worst offensive staffs in football. I get a chuckle when I hear some people comment about "how unlucky they've been". I'd say given how bad the offense has been, they were all extremely lucky to have jobs making a lot of money for as poorly they performed. Everyone should have such shitty luck.
BirdistheWord
HB Legend
Fair angle. As bad as our staff was our O line and receivers were just terrible, mostly after Lachey and All went down. I will say it was largely the same scheme with Stanley but he had weapons and an adequate O line.
His decision making, pocket awareness and relative accuracy vs Hill would have been worth 2+ wins IMO.
I remain curious to see if the OL struggles have had to do more with recruiting misses/lack of development or the scheme simply being broken. Same for receiver recruits for that matter.
It just seems impossible to say we continue to recruit and develop well on defense/special teams, but the offensive recruits have been all misses.
Of course the offense would have been better if Hill played like Stanley, but I will never understand people suggesting that a bad oline, receivers, and quarterbacks aren't simply a direct reflection of a bad staff that is responsible for recruiting, developing, and coaching these players.
Stanley was recruited under Davis and coached by him and O'Keefe. Think about the run of QB's under those guys. Tate, Stanzi, Rudock, Beathard, and Stanley were all good quarterbacks. It's not pure coincidence that things went to shit from a QB perspective after O'Keefe left and Brian took full reins of the offense.
Funny part is you have never heard a coach say anyone was a miss. They recruit, #1 people who want to be here and #2 football players. Meaning the rest is on the coaches. GOOD OR BAD. I do not think anyone is going to say we were ever setting the world on fire with qb's and wr's, but when the OL slide it really made the whole thing fall apart and look just plain awful. So if there is one good thing that came out of all this, it's that the inability of KF to admit the OL has become a major liability and instead look at the wr and qb as the problem, maybe we end up getting upgraded in all 3 rooms????
He is probably also wondering how no QB development happened over 6 yrs.
Well, Kirk not any other coach is going to throw players under the bus like that.
I’m just saying it’s hard to believe we’ve missed on that many recruits over the last few years - who all had decent recruiting rankings at a minimum, at OL in particular.
Hopefully we can discover that it was a schematic issue as much as or more than a player development issue.
...and realizing why the offense was among the worst in the nation the past few years.
Iowa has historically been at its best when it has even a decent QB.
If Lester doesn't know why there wasn't any QB development the last 6 years than he may be dumber than his predecessor
Not to beat a dead horse, you could throw oline decline in there.
That’s the hope anyways.
Like I said, it’s hard to believe we’ve consistently hit on 2/3 of our recruiting classes each year but somehow keep missing on offense.
BirdistheWord
HB Legend
I don’t remember saying it wasn’t on the staff but this ultimately falls on KF’s shoulders. I think the biggest issue has been O line play and lack of player development. Quarterback as you noted has fallen off significantly post Stanley. I am not optimistic that Lester will be empowered enough to make sweeping changes, but I will take any improvements at this point. The QB they signed does not get me excited on paper.
It’s interesting however that Kirk made a point at the start of spring ball that they were using Lester’s playbook, and not trying to update the existing one.
I agree with you. But ego is tricky for everyone and while nobody is going to throw a player or group under the bus, you know the Ferentz's look at the OL through different colored glasses. Sometimes that is good and gets the most out of players and produces greats and sometimes it is bad because it is like admitting a personal failure. Not saying that is what happened. Just saying if the scheme did not change and we never really had super star qb's and wr's, or a high powered passing attack............................. If nothing else it leaves the door open to question coaching and development on the OL. Since I am letting it fly, I thought it was almost odd that Rusty was brought in. Not dissing on Rusty at all, but it almost felt like a "here, here is a guy Barnett selected and coached up". Like they were trying to prove Barnett is not the issue. Rusty did ok, on some of the worst lines we have had here in a very very very long time. So bad other B10 coaches are saying our OL is soft. So yeah. I believe it when I hear that KF is spending a lot of time with the OL. If he isn't he needs to be.
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BirdistheWord
HB Legend
Right? I saw that but it falls into the “I’ll believe it when I see it” file
BirdistheWord
HB Legend
I know what you mean but even “clearly” is a bit strong IMO. We are still a below average unit.
Yes. Ultimately it falls upon the head coach to assemble the staff to generate success. On the offensive side he has failed miserably at that. Complete opposite of the defensive side and special teams where he has excelled.
I think it went from worst in the country to just worst in the Big10. Progress my man. Progress. Now we get to see if it was partially a function of Brian's inability to design an offense or Barnett needs to follow him out the door.
BirdistheWord
HB Legend
Yes, fair enough. It’s a tough pill given it historically has been a strength. It’s not like we have t brought in talent either, something like 3.3 over past 5-6 years.
Deacon has nothing to do with Nate. He had a better win-loss record every year he started. 8-4, then 9-3, then 10-3 with a big win over USC to end his career. My favorite Stanley memory wss him throwing a touchdown to Hockenson with a d-lineman hanging on to his legs.
I think last year established beyond any shadow of a doubt that scheme was a far bigger part of the problem than talent.
Agreed. If weather holds I’ll be at the spring practice to see a little bit - also works out that there’s a baseball game in the afternoon as well.
If memory serves, it was a Bosa who was hanging on him, before he was ejected?
Then again, memory doesn’t always serve.
