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Coordinators met with Media Today. Marco getting more reps than Deacon. Offense 85% installed
- Thread starter Franisdaman
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That's all you needed to say. Well done!
No, I witnessed all of Deacon's performance. But as much as that performance was lacking, it doesn't mean Marco gave the team any better of a chance to win.
DH was either ahead of ML, or they were even and the staff didn't want to change QB's while the team was winning. If the later, that decision would have been plenty understandable, plenty commonplace amongst coaches, and certainly nothing close to moronic.
For the sake of simplicity, and having been given new info from Lester, I'm going to assume that DH was simply ahead of ML last season. What I witnessed in the bowl game gave me reason to believe that, like many true freshman, the game was still moving too fast for ML to be able to process through his progressions. Lester is saying the same thing, or at least saying that ML is behind DH in terms of being of to get through the progressions in the new offense. It's the only thing that Lester pointed to as reasoning for DH being ahead of ML at this point.
If you can't get through the progressions of an offense, you can't give the team its best chance of winning. I don't think fans realize how true this is. If you didn't want to believe last season's staff, then believe Lester. He's saying the same thing.
Could Iowa have put ML in there and had a chance at success just running zone reads all game? Perhaps. But it's nothing near a slam dunk that they would have been any more successful. And it would have required significant change from every other player on the offense. To have not overhauled the offense, while the team was winning, for the sake of being able to play a backup that is limited, is nowhere near close to moronic.
"Better off" in the Michigan and Tennessee games. What does that even mean? Does Iowa not lose those games regardless of what QB played? Being able to have played those games closer is no reason to have called any staff decision "moronic."
Again, do you honestly feel that Iowa would have won their last 4 regular season games had they switched to ML? I have not heard anyone say they believe that. And even if they did, it would have tied what the team accomplished with DH. Not a difference there worthy of anybody being called "moronic."
More reps for ML last season certainly would have helped his development. But again, it wouldn't put him as far ahead at this moment as you are claiming. There is a new system that has to be repped. And Lester is saying, that at this point, ML is behind in terms of processing the progressions in this system
Yes, you can have an offense that isn't dead last without sacrificing the D. I never said you couldn't. And I've never said it's either/or. I think 20ish years of an offense that has at least been serviceable shows that it doesn't have to be dead last.
My point is that many posters have oversimplified the argument for a better offense. They have refused to examine the possibility that their answers on offense might actually compromise the D. And this had made the "just add offense recipe" a tired narrative.
Yes, certain ways of playing offense, running your program, and approaching recruiting would have the potentiality of compromising the D. Kirk has said so himself. He flat out said, "throwing the ball around hurts your defense and makes it harder to win." Where do you think the term "complimentary football" comes from? Kirk isn't the only coach that thinks in this way
May or may not be double reps. I have no way of knowing.
The point is that ML's reps are not being compromised. I can tell you that at this point in the season, development is a priority, and that every player on the team is getting plenty of reps.
It doesn't matter if Brian at OC was a mistake or not. Even if it was, it's no reason to assume that KF is getting it wrong with DH/ML.
There's a very understandable reason why DH is ahead of ML at this point. It's much more plausible than concluding that KF is senile, that he doesn't know offense or QB's, or that he for one reason or another is intentionally sabotaging himself
Even assuming that bad decisions have been a reality, where has it been costly?
Iowa had 10 wins last season. That amounts to one of its most successful seasons ever
Well, as everyone can see below, you originally said it was a fact that Marco was getting double reps. Now you basically admit that you made that "fact" up.
Where has it been costly?
We had 4 VERY bad losses over the last 2 seasons:
7-10.......Clown U
6-9........Illinois
17-24.....Little Debbie
10-12.....Minnesota
____________________________
10.0 pts scored/game average
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And with the Brian Ferentz offense, we had no chance vs the current Big 3 of the B1G and no chance at winning a B1G Championship.
We got Outscored 188-13 in these 5 games:
1) We lost 42-3 to Michigan on Dec 4, 2021 in the B1G Championship game.
2) We lost 54-10 to Ohio State two seasons ago.
3) We lost 31-0 to Penn State last season.
4) We lost 26-0 to Michigan on Dec 2, 2023 in the B1G Championship game.
5) We lost 35-0 to Tennessee on Jan 1, 2024 in the Citrus Bowl.
Ok, it's a figure of speech. Who cares?
It's a fact that Marco is getting plenty of reps. It's a fact that Marco's development is not being compromised, as some have suggested.
At risk of using a figure of speech, I would say it's a fact that the position is open for competition, to the contrary of what some have suggested.
This is all that matters
All loses are very bad. All wins are very good.
I can go through and list all the wins over the past 2 seasons. There are a lot more of them than loses.
History says that Iowa shouldn't have the same expectations as OSU. And that 10 wins at Iowa is a damn good season.
All the noise about the bad offense is overstated. Not that is wasn't bad. But the fact that it was bad just wasn't as important as people have made it out to be. Iowa's offense was bad in almost all of its recent wins. When you have the defense, punting, and punt return games that Iowa has had, a bad offense just isn't as big of a deal as people have made it out to be
Scott & Chad think Iowa needs to land a QB in the transfer portal to come in and compete with Cade.
Check this out & watch:
Check this out & watch:
For the most part I’ve agreed with you, but it’s also true that while we won a lot of games despite a bad offense, we also have 3-4 games we could have/should have won but lost because of it - ISU, @illinois and Nebraska to an extent (cooper getting injured also a contributing factor) two years ago, and Minnesota this past year. A competent offense may have given us a chance vs Michigan in conference championship also; seeing as how the defense only surrendered 215 yards of offense.
Unless hills or Lainez absolutely wowed Lester this spring I always felt this would be necessary. It was a shame Resar couldn’t early enroll this spring.
Marco wasn't the only other QB on the roster last season.
Blather on all you want, but when you have one of the worst QBs in college football it is coaching malfeasance to not even give someone else a chance....even if only for a series or two. So maybe Marco or Labas goes 3 and out or turns the ball over..... that's no different than what Deacon usually did. But at least we would know.
Sure, the Hawks were winning. But when the offense is already dead last and can't move the ball or score, then trying something different really isn't going to hurt.
You have your opinion and I have mine.
Man, I didn't believe these scores when I read these before, thank goodness you reposted them in their entirety, again.
Since none of us were aware of these things we can thank our lucky stars that you are here to regurgitate the same things, again.
Keep up the good work, the rest of us will need to start watching the Iowa Football team games so we are more aware of those games.
So appreciative of your efforts when you do stuff like this.........it really knocks the large amount of good stuff that you do.
So had ML had the same opportunityas DH, you feel that his ability to run the ball wouldn'thave been a benefit? The more he saw of game action wouldn't have equated to abetter understaning and progression read?
This is it right here. Can Marco run??? Sure, but as we have seen many times in the B10, running QB's get hurt. Yeah it would be nice to have one that can scramble and or take the easy 5, but this isn't HS where you can take your best player and run the veer. I mean unless you do not care about that player at all.
First clip I watch uploaded on Facebook is Hill throwing an INT. 😂
Ok, I probably didn't say it best to say the bad offense hasn't been costly. But it just hasn't been what fans have made it out to be.
You're right, winning a couple more games in the Petras season, for example, would have been huge. Every win is huge. I have a problem though, with the fans that assign importance to those games in the Petras season, while at the same time minimizing the fact that Iowa won 10 games last season, and dismissing the success of the season because they didn't win the big ten championship game.
It just seems that everything gets lumped into the same narrative. For example the Nebraska loss doesn't prove anything. LaPorta, the only offensive weapon was out. Cooper the most valuable player on D was lost. And most importantly, Petras was lost in the middle of the game, which meant he had to be replaced by a QB that was not repped during the week. Anytime an unrepped QB has to enter the middle of a game, there's a significant chance that game will be a loss. Not much can be concluded from a game like this.
As bad as the offense was is the ISU game, Iowa was a missed FG away from overtime. Heck, one could say a better defense in some of these losses would have produced a couple more wins. In the end, the overall product has been good enough to win a lot of games. And this is all that should matter.
As for last season, the team won 10 regular season games with a backup QB playing most of the season. While most coaches around the country are trying to bottle Iowa's magic, fans are lumping a season played primarily with a backup QB in with their narrative of bad offense. This is laughable.
Really, the joke has been on those that have perpetuated the narrative of bad offense and on those that find that narrative to be the main story at Iowa. Iowa football has been what sports is all about. It's been a story about winning. And it's been a very unique story about winning. It offers insight into the things that remain important in the every changing game of football. It's a story about finding a way to win. It's a story about all the things that go into winning, such as fight and togetherness. It's a story about winning culture. Really, Iowa football recently has been an incredible sports story that has been lost by all the attention put on the bad offense. It's really a shame.
Overall, the bad offense just hasn't been as big of a deal as people have made it out to be. Again, Iowa's offense was bad in almost all of their games last year. Yet Iowa won a high majority of those games. Win after win people would be complaining about the offense as if the game was a loss. Winning isn't easy; and it should be celebrated.
Again, last season's team won 10 games with a backup QB playing most of the season. In no way should that team be given a hard time.
It was one of the most successful seasons in the history of Iowa football. I believe they were just the 11th team to have won at least 10 games. Kirk is doing exactly what he is paid to do, win games, and somehow people have relentlessly given him a hard time.
So yes, the lack of offense has probably carried a bit of a price. But it hasn't been anything near what people have made it out to be. The coaches and players on this team have taken far too much crap that has been completely unnecessary
The key part, is that if we are to have realistic dreams in football playoffs, we simply have to have a better defense. It worked last year, but also required near-perfect defense and special steams to compensate for that. That’s simply not a sustainable formula.
I wouldn't say I have an opinion on any of this. It's just trying to put together a best guess as to why things have gone down the way they have.
Football players are given their "chances" in practice. You don't throw a player into the game to "see what he can do." The coaches already know what he can and can't do. Marco may have been able to make a few plays with his legs. But the coaches know if he isn't able to read the field, there isn't any chance for sustained success.
I could see putting in a player for a series or two to try to spark the offense. But that player has to be ready. And this is different than giving someone a try or a "chance." This is something that's done with the intention of the starter remaining the starter.
But Kirk didn't choose that route and I would guess it was for very understandable reasons. He knew Iowa was working with zero margin for error. Quite often an unrepped backup comes in at QB in the middle of a game and the snap isn't even able to be executed. Iowa just didn't have the margin for error to risk having to sustain any fumbled snaps, false start penalties, or untimely turnovers.
Throwing Marco out there also would have carried the risk of ruining the confidence of two QB's. Being pulled could have hurt Deacon's confidence and left you with an even less effective player. And throwing Marco to the wolves if he wasn't ready could have been disastrous and ruined his confidence as well, to the detriment of his development.
If the coaches knew Marco wasn't ready for consistent action, then putting him out there to provide a quick spark also carried another risk. In the case that Marco did well, it could have created a QB controversy. And if you know Marco isn't equipped to be the regular starter yet, as a coach, you want no part of a QB controversy. It just creates more negativity in the community and gives rise to the possibility of the locker room becoming less unified. Even though a good showing from Marco would have seemed like a positive, if you know he doesn't have a chance for sustained success, with the lack of margin for error that Iowa had, they just couldn't risk doing anything that could potentially lead to a less unified locker room.
Overall, it was probably too risky to throw Marco out there.
Most likely, Marco just wasn't good enough to be on the field. Fans are refusing to believe this, but yes, it could have gotten worse with Marco out there, and it could have cost the team games. I still have yet to hear anyone honestly claim that Iowa would have won as many games with Marco under center.
As for Labas, it isn't as clear. But if the rumors about his weed use and being late to meetings are true, there's your answer. Again, without any margin for error, you just can't trust a player like that on the field. And perhaps more importantly, you can't have a player that isn't committed to the team leading the team. This would have been detrimental to the program on a fundamental level.
In the end, Kirk went about it the way he did. And the result was more wins than anyone could have imagined at the point when Cade went down. Whatever his reasons were, he didn't go about things in the way you think he should have. But that in no way points to anything close to coaching malfeasance. You are so very wrong about that
I assume you meant a "better offense."
And what you said may be true. But dreams and expectations shouldn't be the same thing.
For the success it's been having as a program, Iowa football has been taking way too much crap. It is derived from fans not being entertained and has very little to do with any logical football arguments.
Every non-blue blood program in the country would kill to be Iowa. The struggles on offense are important and do need to be fixed. But they are nowhere near as important as what fans have made it out to be
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Quite simply, there are reasons to believe that ML did not give Iowa its best chance to win.
Yes, given that a player is somewhat ready, the game is going to slow down for him the more game action he gets. But at what cost to the team? Winning games was the priority; not Marco's development.
There is also the possibility that if Marco wasn't even somewhat ready, that putting him out there would have been like throwing him to the wolves. It could have been absolutely disastrous and significantly hurt his confidence to the detriment of his development.
Opportunities are earned in practice. They aren't "given" to anyone
For everything Kirk Ferentz has accomplished at Iowa, this will be his lasting legacy, sadly.
Who said anything about "throwing Marco out there"? You obviously give him practice time and work on some specific plays with the understanding he is going to get a series or two. When you have a QB who is flat-out terrible, ANY decent coach would...or should...be giving another guy some practice time and have some simple plays that can be run, so if he needs to go into a game, he is at least somewhat prepared.
Hurt Deacon's confidence? So we are supposed to keep playing ineffective players in order to not hurt their feelings? Giving someone else a chance would make Hill less effective? He was one of the worst QBs in all of college football last year. How could he be less effective?
As for Labas......maybe.....just maybe....he started to do the things he allegedly did because he was told in no uncertain terms (or based on Kirk's history of almost never replacing a starting QB) that Hill was going to be the starter, and he knew he would never get a chance to play.
Your undying love for Hill is puzzling.
I think Hill is a fine young man and a great teammate. He is also a terrible D-1 QB. That's not his fault. And that's not hate.
Since you think he is a great QB (despite the stats which prove you wrong), and you also think there is nothing wrong with the offense....your opinions are not to be taken seriously.
No 83...you're not allowed to honestly evaluate and critique someone's performance...that means you HATE THEM! Get with the times and leave DH alone!
By all accounts Hill is a great kid. But he's not a good D1 QB. Unless something surprising happens and Cade stays healthy or Lester persuades KFz to go with athletic ability over union card..(and make no mistake, KFz will recommend)...your first controversy of 2024 will be fans booing when Hill takes the field.
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I'm sorry. 😢No 83...you're not allowed to honestly evaluate and critique someone's performance...that means you HATE THEM! Get with the times and leave DH alone!
I doubt anyone hates him. In fact he looks like a great teammate. He’s smiling, laughing, overall a positive dude. Who wouldn’t want that around to keep things loose ??
Unfortunately he’s one of the worst QBs any of us have ever seen. He shouldn’t be on the field.
Do you believe that anyone could have played worse than Deacon. I think the problem everyone has with the offense is why is the Qb room filled with guys that can’t play. Yes that includes Cade because of injury. There is no talent on this offense. The recruiting has been terrible and that all falls on Kirk’s shoulders. Quit making excuses for his poor management of the offense.
You guys arguing about Hill or Marco make me laugh. I mean, you realize neither had played hardly any college football until last year. Yeah we get it out offense sucked last year, but can you name me any college team who basically started a freshman QB and set the world on fire on offense? If anything the OL bothered me more last year, because they were not all green horns. BUT as was pointed out, it is tough to do anything when you are out numbered in the box and play predictably (which again, show me a team with a green QB who isn't somewhat predictable). On to bigger and better things. It is a new day. They are improving (all of them) and that is agreed upon by everyone. Let's see how things look come fall.
You have to remember f5n5 thinks Brian was one of the best offensive coordinators in football, that the coaching staff never, ever makes a mistake, that Deacon is a great QB, and that there is NOTHING wrong with the offense.
He's either dumb, a troll, or a Ferentz family member.... probably the latter.
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its interesting to me that some folks think that expressing hatred for their favorite team makes them smart
It's interesting to me that you think any Hawk fan on this board "hates" the team.
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