Brian Ferentz Presser
- Thread starter percyland
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The execute better idea. What would our offensive numbers look like if our receivers don’t have all the dropped passes and Goodson missed all the massive holes. If you don’t believe look at the games!!!!
A high % of the time an Iowa QB "makes the call at the line" it is a stretch to the short side of the field.
They were 13 - 19 when he was there. Best season was a 7 - 5.
career completion % in a no defense league was 63.5%
his last year they lost to Iowa State by a score of 66 to 10. 10 fuggin points.
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This is the problem - then when there is an hiccup on the defense the QB is so frozen in the Ferentz system they often miss "easy" throws.....Two of the most visible misses Petras in the bowl game .....Stanley overthrowing Hockenson - both receivers were wide open, but the QB was so tight they couldn't make the throw.
Trying to read the mumble jumble he put out there was embarrassing. There is no reason to believe he is not in over his head. He talks a lot and says little that has relevance. And you wonder why we have had one of the worst offenses in the country for a decade. Five years with GD and now five with BF. At the end of the day the offensive ineptness falls at the feet of KF the CEO of Iowa Football.
The offense is not that complex, that is an excuse they use to keep people thinking they are Gods of coaching. This is coming from past offensive and defensive players. If you keep repeating things folks either buy in or no longer pay attention (crying wolf).
Seems like plenty of B1G Defenses can learn the Iowa Offense in a weeks time just fine. I mean Wisconsin players routinely are quoted talking about how predictable the Iowa Offense is.
Why does our offense keep having so much trouble executing?
The system is the one constant over the years. Different teams, same results.
1 -- A fella by the name of Albert Einstein said, "Everything should be made as simple as possible." Of course, he never coached major college football, so he may not have taken its offensive complexities into account. LOL Iowa's offense is ridiculously and totally unnecessarily complex. It's undeniable. It's beyond debate. Some schools who are better at football than Iowa have had TRUE FRESHMEN come in and start at QB! How do they do it? Many others start redshirt freshmen or true sophomores. Again, how are such miracles achieved? But we are left to believe that KF and BF are smarter than Einstein. That's a tough sell. The evidence speaks for itself.
2 - As some posters have noted, execution--the magic word in Iowa football--is vastly improved in a simple system, which may be what Einstein had in mind. Most folks have heard of the KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid) philosophy, born of the same logic as Einstein's assertion.
3 - Stop with the bullshit about algebra and calculus. Research has long shown that 87 percent of adults will NEVER use any form of mathematics beyond addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. Life itself demonstrates that same reality. Teach all the math you want to those who have the intellect and inclination to study it. But leave everyone else alone! Logic says so. Instead, teach the unwashed masses about consumer math, something they'll deal with every day for their entire lives: interest rates, compound interest, loans, mortgages, investing--real estate, stocks, bonds, etc. Saving vs. spending. Developing a realistic budget and living by it. Teach taxes. Teach philanthropy. Most people's lives would be vastly improved if they never had to solve for X but knew how to make money work for them and how important it is to be generous rather than greedy.
4 - BF and KF can spin it upside down and backwards, but until the Iowa offensive philosophy is dramatically simplified, nothing else will matter. Talented QBs can overcome the Ferentz system--your Banks, your Tates, your Beathards--but others will continue to flounder, all because KF and BF think they're smarter than Einstein.
2 - As some posters have noted, execution--the magic word in Iowa football--is vastly improved in a simple system, which may be what Einstein had in mind. Most folks have heard of the KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid) philosophy, born of the same logic as Einstein's assertion.
3 - Stop with the bullshit about algebra and calculus. Research has long shown that 87 percent of adults will NEVER use any form of mathematics beyond addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. Life itself demonstrates that same reality. Teach all the math you want to those who have the intellect and inclination to study it. But leave everyone else alone! Logic says so. Instead, teach the unwashed masses about consumer math, something they'll deal with every day for their entire lives: interest rates, compound interest, loans, mortgages, investing--real estate, stocks, bonds, etc. Saving vs. spending. Developing a realistic budget and living by it. Teach taxes. Teach philanthropy. Most people's lives would be vastly improved if they never had to solve for X but knew how to make money work for them and how important it is to be generous rather than greedy.
4 - BF and KF can spin it upside down and backwards, but until the Iowa offensive philosophy is dramatically simplified, nothing else will matter. Talented QBs can overcome the Ferentz system--your Banks, your Tates, your Beathards--but others will continue to flounder, all because KF and BF think they're smarter than Einstein.
I think zone blocking is more complex because linemen have to make reads and running backs have to read and make quick decisions on where to take it upfield.
Yet over 20 years later here you are. I mean it’s the head guy you are speaking about. If I disliked a coach as much as you I would take some years off and come back when he is gone.
What the hell research is that?
Nearly every major innovation that has kept America toward the top of world economic pyramid has been built upon our technology ... and the advancement of said technology is reliant upon science, mathematics, engineering, and computer science. Having stronger quantitative skills helps to push forward these advances.
What innovations? For one ... the ability to first MAKE transistors ... and then second, the ability to continue to make them increasingly smaller. Lots of higher math there.
The country hasn't been able to produce quality computer scientists at a high enough rate ... so code-academies and code-bootcamps are springing up everywhere. Those folks make some money ... but their ability to truly appreciate how to design good object-oriented code leaves a lot of companies stuck with code-bases that are ultimately near-impossible to keep properly extensible. Most of the folks I know in industry lament the fact that many of the coders they interview don't have adequate math skills for their applications.
Wanna make better automation and cheaper manufacturing ... all while not screwing over the planet? That requires a lot of creativity and a lot of math coming from minds working in material science, chemistry, physics, and chemical engineering (among other fields).
Even in government - a lot of policy-makers throw their ideas at quants to "crunch the numbers." The problem is that a lot of folks in institutional research only know statistics and often have a lame-ass psychology background (or similarly background) ... those pseudo-quants are often misapplying mathematical principles all over the place ... because they don't understand the deeper mathematical underpinnings. However, because so much shitty quant work is getting thrown around in Washington ... you get each side thinking they're right because their dumb-shit quants are feeding them the confirmation bias that they want to hear. If folks weren't so damn quantitatively illiterate ... they'd be able to critically break things down and there'd at least be a little less polarization.
There was a time, not that long ago, when Germany felt that it needed a land-grab in order to feed its growing populace. Those in power didn't trust "Jewish Science" ... since many such scientists and mathematicians were advocating for scientific breakthroughs in agricultural technology to solve the problem of agricultural shortcomings. Such mathematicians and scientists were discredited, maligned, etc ... many of whom went on to be some of the most prominent scientific minds of the 20th century!
A long story long ... the economy is evolving. It used to be that a substantial portion of the public used to be illiterate too. You didn't need to read if all you had to do was some menial task in a factory. Much of the American blue-collar has shifted ... mostly to white-collar and service-sector jobs. I don't think I'm far off in thinking that the situation will continue to drift toward the continued need for quantitative literacy.
American know-how should have cracked the problem of nuclear fusion long ago ... however, the very anti-math attitude that pervades our culture has held up such advances. Frankly, folks like the Koch brothers are probably partially responsible too. All the same ... folks keep on saying that it's bound to get cracked in the next 20 years ... but that was being said 50 years ago!
The American path is often one prejudiced towards the "easy" path - opting for the easy-money whenever possible. However, in the long term, that is not a terribly sustainable approach. We're rapidly finding that that perspective is biting us in the collective ass.
Totally agree re importance of math and science. Also agree the economy has shifted, but has that shift been good for the country, made us more secure or prosperous (kind of the point of government).
Americans used to build everything for the rest of the world. Conscious policy choices, made through a series of catastrophic bipartisan mistake, that accelerated to warp speed around the first George Bush, turned the world's greatest builders into consumers who don't make what they consume. Our economic leadership used to come from billionaire families that made Ford, Firestone, and virtually everything else most Americans consumed.
Harry Bennett had a model robotic assembly line made, way back in the 30s, and showed it to Henry Ford I. Harry to told Henry I that it would eliminate 600 jobs per line. Henry I's response was "Harry, then who will buy the cars." Now the mercantilist vermin like Mitt Romney would see that as great. The super billionaires of Wall Street, the ones that make the Romney's seem poor, are dying to eliminate high paying American jobs and exploit poverty level and slave labor markets in Asia. All of their money is made from moving money around, leaving little or nothing behind them.
Hence, would it not make sense to reconsider the standards of education and globalization of trade and economic policies and maybe make widespread American prosperity the a priori objective of American education, trade and economic policy?
Americans used to build everything for the rest of the world. Conscious policy choices, made through a series of catastrophic bipartisan mistake, that accelerated to warp speed around the first George Bush, turned the world's greatest builders into consumers who don't make what they consume. Our economic leadership used to come from billionaire families that made Ford, Firestone, and virtually everything else most Americans consumed.
Harry Bennett had a model robotic assembly line made, way back in the 30s, and showed it to Henry Ford I. Harry to told Henry I that it would eliminate 600 jobs per line. Henry I's response was "Harry, then who will buy the cars." Now the mercantilist vermin like Mitt Romney would see that as great. The super billionaires of Wall Street, the ones that make the Romney's seem poor, are dying to eliminate high paying American jobs and exploit poverty level and slave labor markets in Asia. All of their money is made from moving money around, leaving little or nothing behind them.
Hence, would it not make sense to reconsider the standards of education and globalization of trade and economic policies and maybe make widespread American prosperity the a priori objective of American education, trade and economic policy?
All you naysayer are going to look awfully silly once Petras finally has a full grasp of the ultra complex Iowa offense and that offense rockets into the top 100 in the country! Hell, it wouldn't surprise me if they make it into the top 95.
Iowa has one the least effective offenses in the country by the numbers. Can’t argue the numbers. Once in a while BF can piece together a good drive of play calling but that’s not the norm.
BF- "Our quarterbacks job is to be a manager and get other guys the ball. The longer the ball is in our QBs hands the worse off we are. "
Boy that'll draw in the bigtime QB recruits. God forbid we get a playmaker at QB and can do something wild like scramble for a 1st down on 3rd and 6 to keep the drive going.
I understand what he means by you can't have them standing back there for 6 seconds holding the ball but that is especially true when all we recruit are QB statues.
Boy that'll draw in the bigtime QB recruits. God forbid we get a playmaker at QB and can do something wild like scramble for a 1st down on 3rd and 6 to keep the drive going.
I understand what he means by you can't have them standing back there for 6 seconds holding the ball but that is especially true when all we recruit are QB statues.
Calculus is NOT basic. First why teach it? 90% of us never use it in real life. Second, did YOU take Calculus before Sr. year high school? To understand it you need a basis - i.e. algebra and probably geometry. So you are going to teach 6th/7th graders algebra? Maybe the advanced kids, but the average student won't get it - they have problems with math. I have a math/physics degree (although from 1968) so I have a background here.
I think this is a gross exaggeration.
p.s. I agree with a lot of your posts, but not this.
Calculus in 8th grade? The majority of 8th-graders can't test at grade-level on a standardized test. School districts keep adopting new curricula and methods to assure the public they are doing something to stop the bleeding.
I have always had so much trouble just focusing and concentrating, in fact every report card I can ever remember getting said that I did not concentrate, did not pay attention, did not to apply myself, and it's always made my short-term memory be bad.
I had so much trouble with algebra there was no way I was ever going to try and tackle calculus. Lol
You gotta learn to walk before you can run. Even freshman calculus (often Math 150) is difficult, and college math instructors tend to have assumptions that their students have a solid understanding of algebra, trigonometry, and precalculus. Calc professors tend to jump in feet-first right away and don't spend much - if any - time reviewing what they view to be prerequisites for learning calc. They will often flat-out tell students that if they fall behind early on, that they're better off just dropping the class and take a more basic math course first.
My recommendation to juniors and seniors in high school who are interested in a major where calculus is either a requirement, or something highly recommended, to take all the algebra classes, trigonometry, and precalc (if not full-on calc) before graduating HS. It's much better to learn it in high school because like most anything else, high school classes are easier than their college counterparts. High school calc teachers don't make the same assumptions about their students' prior knowledge like college instructors do, and a fair portion of the class will be review to get everyone up to speed before they dive in to the heavy-duty stuff. Kids do get a smattering of derivatives in advanced algebra and trig, but a week's worth of material isn't nearly enough to prepare a student if they're interested in becoming an engineer. If their high school doesn't offer anything beyond say advanced algebra/geometry/trig, their math teacher himself/herself may be a great resource as they likely do have some sort of a background with calculus, but if they don't (or don't feel comfortable with it), they most likely can make some recommendations as to how to best familiarize oneself with it. Perhaps a summer course at a larger high school, or some online materials would be helpful.
There's literally a million other sites on the internet to have those discussions, and these guys choose an Iowa football board of all places.
Calculus is taught because it's absolutely fundamental for engineering, physics, and even medicine. It allows for problem solving that are difficult (if not outright impossible) for other branches of mathematics.
I learned the hard way that it's not a subject anyone can just jump in and pick up like a foreign language or a geography class. I know that it's not a course normally offered for high school freshmen, but at the college level the expectations have jumped considerably. I wish that they tested the aptitude of prospective students for 'tougher' freshmen courses because I really think a lot of them come in woefully unprepared and end up biting more than they can chew.
How did it fool Urbs so badly in that one game. Maybe he was thinking ahead to a young coed somewhere?
This makes sense.....after all we hired a LB to coach Tight Ends and a lineman to coach QB's why not have PP who is one of the best at Defense coach Offense.
If you're looking at the classical physics of the center-of-mass motion of a rigid body - then it's dead easy. There are Newton's 3 laws.
However, tell that to a novice engineering student ... they're most likely going to tell you that physics is hard. Just because the physics of motion only has 3 underlying "laws" ... those laws are applicable to an infinite number of different contexts. Many of the engineering students find it "hard" because they're trying to memorize how to solve different "templates" of problems. Thus, to those students ... physics is hard because they're not trying to understand the underlying physics and contextually apply Newton's laws ... instead they're approaching physics from the vantage of memorizing all the different contexts. Hopefully it's obvious that that is a fools-errand ... because those individuals will be finding themselves attempting to memorize an infinity of different contexts (which is impossible).
Brian likely describes football as "simple" ... because in terms of underlying key threads and concepts ... it IS simple. You can run the same inside and outside zone play from any myriad of different formations ... so formations are just "window dressings" that allow you to perform particular diagnostics and generate particular personnel match-ups ... however, many of the CONCEPTS are the same irrespective of the formation. Similarly, when you read a coverage - as a quarterback, that impacts how you want to go through your progressions. If it's man-coverage ... and the match-up favors your guys ... then you attack it. If it's zone ... then you have to recognize what sort of zone coverage it is. Different zone-coverages have different susceptibilities. Consequently, given the zone-coverage - you want to look to the routes in the route-tree that best exploit the "holes" in the zone. Furthermore, your WR has to make the right recognition of the coverage ... and then sit down in the right holes in the zone too. Hopefully you notice that in my description - it probably makes a lot of sense. However, for a lot of football players ... to them it's a combinatorial explosion of things that they feel like they need to memorize.
For the QB who feels that he needs to memorize things ... then think about the combinatorics involved. Suppose a team uses 5 different formations. Suppose that from a given formation, the O can have 10 different route-trees (I'm just making up a number). Then lastly, for a given opponent, let's suppose that he'll face around 4 different primary coverages. That QB then might feel that he needs to memorize 200 different reads to account for the 200 different combinations. Mind you ... this doesn't even account for all the other nuances either ... which can make the combinatorial explosion truly "blow up." Also, these numbers were artificially manufactured ... in some instances the numbers are greater and in others they are smaller.
Now ask yourself - is our "memorizer" of a QB approaching things the right way? Had the QB focussed on the CONCEPTs instead ... he'd realize that against the primary coverages that a D uses, not all of the route-trees will work ... so you only need to worry about the different route trees that best attack the susceptibilities of the coverage. Given the prior numbers I suggested ... the QB could compartmentalize the knowledge down to being familiar with well fewer than 40 scenarios (probably more on the order of 10 to 20ish). Knowing the game and being able to apply it quickly in real-time is the key. Just like muscle memory ... it becomes more automatic too.
So why is it hard to get things down? The biggest issue is getting guys to process the data fast enough - getting them to appreciate the bigger picture and not embrace a template-learning approach (they do that, then they're toast). Unfortunately, a lot of guys don't see the big picture ... so they lose for the forest for the trees.
Lastly, as an aside ... I could see Brian making that comment (about the game being simple) in anticipation of the media asking about his qualifications to coach QBs. Placing emphasis on the simplicity of the game undermines arguments concerning his lack of experience in that regard. In all frankness, it's not a bad point either. I have zero prior computer-science background ... but I'm also my institutions go-to computer science instructor. I gotta say ... I do a pretty fine job too. The fact that I'm a good teacher and the fact that I have a good working understanding of programming and computers has been able to more than compensate for any other deficiencies in my background. In the context of Brian coaching QBs ... I imagine that the story is pretty similar.
You bring to light an important distinction ... but it also emphasizes that a big problem with Iowa's offense last year WAS execution ... but not even necessarily the execution of the QB. How can the QB do his job if the blocking breaks down? We all know that Goodson was a terrific back ... but how could he do HIS job when and if the blocking breaks down?
On top of that, you have a QB who is potentially feeling extra REAL pressure and some phantom pressure because of execution issues on the OL. However, the situation got exacerbated by the fact that some of our best play at WR came from guys who were seeing their first positional action for us at WR (Jones, Bruce, and Johnson). When your best guys are inexperienced ... you're bound to have plenty of cases where guys aren't on the right page. Thus, that must have been yet another issue to complicate the lives of Iowa's QBs last year.
A lot of it was rather predictable too. Since Iowa's OL was pretty young/inexperienced ... a lot of our early experience was predicated upon the off-season preparation of the guys. However, as Ds got more tape on our young O-linemen ... defenses were more apt to adjust to the tendencies of our O (and O-linemen). However, the converse was NOT true ... because our guys were largely inexperienced ... their ability to adapt to their opponents was relatively limited. That's a big reason why experience can be such an important intangible for an O-lineman ... you build up a repository of knowledge upon which you can draw. Then, when you're put in different situations ... you're able to adapt accordingly with less latency.
One final point ... as it relates to QB play ... the execution of the process of PROCESSING the raw data, making the right reads, and getting the team into the right plays IS an execution thing on the part of the QB. You recognize the alignment of a corner being on the edge ... so you adjust the protection so that the RB is lined up to pick up the prospective blitzer. The QB is not merely reading in raw data - but the action of making decisions based on that data is a SKILL. When a QB makes bad reads ... it can lead him to pass the ball to risky parts of the field. When a QB processes data to slowly ... he won't see opportunities fast enough ... and he'll miss possible "windows of opportunity." This latter situation is intimately connected to a QB getting the ball out "on time."
The QB could make all the right reads ... but if he doesn't make the right decisions based on that information, the O can still suffer as a result.
Certainly the individual needs to appreciate algebra to gain better intuition as it relates to the derivative (because of it's interpretation as an instantaneous slope) ... and geometry to gain a better intuition as it relates to the integral (because of it's interpretation as an area).
However, even less complicated is the connection of the integral as just being the result of adding stuff up. Similarly, the derivative is just taking the difference. That's nothing more that addition and subtraction.
Hell, it's not hard for kids to understand vectors. In the context of vector spaces, you can view the derivative and integral as a linear functional. A linear function is just a simple map to your number-field of choice (the reals or complexes being but two possibilities).
If framed well, Calculus is near the bottom rung of the math-ladder. It's sad when folks mistakenly believe that it is near the top.
A physics degree back then ... cool! That was when Regge-theory was still pretty new!
As for advanced kids versus "average kids" ... I'd contend that so much of that is about framing things for the kids. Making things relevant - making things fun.
You could easily frame things initially more in the context of automata ... and motivate basic constructions relevant to computer science. Having kids understand the abstraction of maps in the context of making fun little games. From there you could help students appreciate the wondrous thing about enumerability - and that could motivate basic set-theoretic constructions of the natural numbers. Basic stuff ... but really foundational stuff too.
You could have kids play around with simple programs on how to find maximum and minimum values. Can they come up with simple plans to find such values. Add in a little algebra and graphing ... and the notion of slope connects to the important concept of increasing and decreasing. Seems pretty basic ... but the existence of ordering relations is of crazy-big importance in more applications than you can fathom. Then, from there ... it's a simple hop, skip, and a jump to the derivative.
The conceptual foundation for the integral is almost even more simple. Give kids a list of numbers and have them come up with procedures on how to add them up. Lets suppose the list of numbers are all integers. In this case, a surprisingly large number of kids would likely unwittingly discover the conceptual analog of the Lebesgue integral!
To answer your question ... could I have learned calculus back then? Sure ... do you recall how many years in a row you cover the same stuff ... year after year in elementary school? Some kids keep on reviewing fractions for years - it's absurd. However, did I? Nope. All the same, by the time I was finishing my undergraduate degree ... I was taking nothing but doctorate-level classes in math and physics.
