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Explain to me why Phil Parker gets a pass…

A lot of head scratching decisions with play calling, clock management, and in-game decisions no doubt. So, I am not discounting that.

With that said…

Iowa State has the ball around their own twenty with no timeouts and under a minute to go. In that scenario, would you not set up your defense to cover the sidelines, especially the deep thirds, and try to force everything underneath and over the middle of the field? I only ask because it seemed to me, from what I could see at least, that Iowa was still in their base defense and left the sidelines wide open, which included that easy pitch and catch for a ridiculous gain that put Iowa State in field goal range.

I mean, am I wrong in wondering WTF the end game strategy was on that last Iowa State drive? I have never seen a defense so incompetent on a final drive in which they have every advantage given the offense has no timeouts and has to go at least 45-50 yards for a realistic chance at a field goal. There was no gimmick play or some random dumb luck that allowed Iowa State to get into field goal territory. It was simply a matter of them taking advantage of Iowa’s gross incompetence at the end of the game.

For a defense that is supposedly elite, I find what happened on that final Iowa State drive completely inexcusable. And I am not sure why Phil Parker gets a pass on that. Someone explain it to me.
Because 1st and goal 2x first half and walk away with 6. 1 of those times was D with pick. Not on him or D add those up and it’s ballgame
 
Phil gets a pass today because he's earned it. They gave up 20 points. Most teams win holding their opponents to 20 points. Iowa, not so much. The Iowa offense hasn't produced when it's needed to in years.
Whether Phil should get a pass or not is kind of irrelevant. The old strategy of relying on the defense and special teams to keep winning games has jumped the shark.

The staff should internally be pushing Kirk away from that approach... but we all know it would be for naught.
 
No shit. Phil's defense repeatedly bails this team out...over and over and over again. People are so spoiled they have lost perspective. We gave up 20 points. 20 points/game puts you in the top 23 defenses in college football last year.

The problem is NOT the defense. FFS
Defense gave up 20 points in the second half. That certainly is a PROBLEM ! Our QB play was dismal today and we don’t have punter who can flip the field anymore. He gets good hang time but really doesn’t punt it that far.
 
Phil gets a pass today because he's earned it. They gave up 20 points. Most teams win holding their opponents to 20 points. Iowa, not so much. The Iowa offense hasn't produced when it's needed to in years.
The defense gave up 20 in a half. Not good by any definition. Our D-line rarely got any pressure on their QB in the second half. We miss Joe Evans a lot more than I thought we would. Isu really doesn’t have a great O- line.
 
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Explain.

Is Iowa’s defense elite or not?
You’re gonna have to define elite ?

Elite = never give up any yards or point ever ? Have there been teams that pitched shutouts every game ?

Phils defense is good to great. The problem is his group has the most pressure of any group in college football. No other team relies on its defense to score points because the offense cannot. If Hitchens makes a better cut to the inside he probably scores and Iowa runs away with it.

Instead the offense craps itself and settles for 3….and it did it again before end of half.

They are not the 85 bears but they’re a good defense that if any other team had them, they’d probably win a national championship

We’ve let Kirk **** with our minds so much that we think it’s normal for a QB to throw for <100 yards cause we got a “elite” defense

This isn’t happening anywhere else except Iowa. Win 10 games against cream puffs and think it’s revolutionary to not advance the ball.

Iowa finished the game with punt, punt, punt, punt, punt, INT

But it’s the defense fault
 
IMO, we're going around in circles for little reason other than just being upset about watching Iowa lose a game that it never should have.

Every phase of the game - save for KJ, when the OL opened some space for him - sucked some major ass from the point that McNamara threw that idiotically stupid INT near the very start of the 2nd half.

Kirk's traditional "turtling" 'play not to lose' was the shit snack shoved down our throats for the majority of the game as we all watched the game-winning kick by ISU sail through the uprights.



God I really ****ing hate this game on the schedule every year. Does nothing for Iowa when they win - aside from keeping the record unblemished - and when the lose, not only does it make Iowa even more of a national laughing stock it also makes looking forward to the B1G schedule a lot less enthusiastically, knowing there are more losses waiting. That @OSU game is gonna be downright fugly.
 
Any Hawk fan who watches a lot of other games, and is honest with themself, understands the Iowa D is a paper tiger propped up by an antiquated PPG stat that itself is more a product of ball control offense than truly elite defensive play.
 
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Any Hawk fan who watches a lot of other games, and is honest with themself, understands the Iowa D is a paper tiger propped up by an antiquated PPG stat that itself is more a product of ball control offense than truly elite defensive play.
So that is part of the strategy. Except the last five or so years the offense can’t produce more than 3-6 plays before sending the defense out.

They also had a NFL punter who gave them great advantage of pinning teams deep which could force conservative play calling by the other team

What this team has been missing for a long time is that elite pass rusher. Thats the player who can win you the game at the end vs trying to bend but don’t break
 
No shit. Phil's defense repeatedly bails this team out...over and over and over again. People are so spoiled they have lost perspective. We gave up 20 points. 20 points/game puts you in the top 23 defenses in college football last year.

The problem is NOT the defense. FFS
20 points in one half. Big plays allowing receivers to get out of bounds with seconds in the game? Teams with a pulse have success against Phil.
 
No shit. Phil's defense repeatedly bails this team out...over and over and over again. People are so spoiled they have lost perspective. We gave up 20 points. 20 points/game puts you in the top 23 defenses in college football last year.

The problem is NOT the defense. FFS
this
 
20 points in one half. Big plays allowing receivers to get out of bounds with seconds in the game? Teams with a pulse have success against Phil.
Maybe we should stop giving the ball back to the other offense, and perhaps put some more points on the board? Seems like a better strategy than defending the slimmest of leads at the end of the game and hoping for the clock to expire.
 
No shit. Phil's defense repeatedly bails this team out...over and over and over again. People are so spoiled they have lost perspective. We gave up 20 points. 20 points/game puts you in the top 23 defenses in college football last year.

The problem is NOT the defense. FFS
Make no mistake, that coverage on the long play where Castillo got burned lost them the game. Phil isn’t the problem, but that’s a bad offense that just ran up and down the field on you all second half, including when it mattered most.

The problem is that Iowa continually puts the weight of the game on this defense at crunch time. I can’t count the number of times I have seen Iowa games play out in that exact scenario. Single possession, no timeouts, minute ish to go. Iowa D on the field asked to close it out. I have few memories of Iowa running it down their throats to close out a game.
 
In a team sport, Phil has been holding up his end of the bargain since he got here. The offense has and continues to put the defense in tough spots because we can’t score, stall on drives and fail to put away teams.

What does this game look like after the Higgins interception if we score a TD? Or if we go up 17-0 at half but once again, our offense can’t muster 3 yards?

The defense definitely has some blame. The blown coverage assignment between Higgins and X let ISU right back into the game. The lack of any kind of pressure when the game was on the line allowed them to get into a groove and pick apart our soft secondary.

But no team does or should win when your passing attack musters 99 yards on 29 attempts and then turns the ball over 2 times. Well not in the last 50 years at least.
 
20 pts/game puts you around 25th in the nation defensively . The defense isn't and has never been the problem. We're so spoiled that when the other team does score we think it's something extreme.

Offensive ineptitude, both coaching and QB play, lost the game yesterday.
If your team scores 30 points and you lose, your defense is the problem. If you score twenty or less points and lose, your offense is the problem.
 
The offense contributed 13 points……..enough said.

And we were given tremendous field position by Higgins’ INT.

The D gets another pass. Easy.

There is always WAY more offensive disappointment than defensive disappointment. There you have it.

Exactly. It's not so much giving a "pass" to the defense.... It's the level of sh*t offense that we have over AND over AND over.... It completely overshadows the mediocre 2nd half by the defense.

Mediocre for our defense still isn't acceptable.

But Mediocre for our offense is still a pipe dream....I WISH we had a mediocre offense.....

Which is why many are ready to burn the place to the ground after yet another offensive sh*t show.
 
When X got burned, Phil pulled him and he didn’t see the field the rest of the day.

On the last drive, Phil went man to man in order to try to keep the receivers from going out of bounds and Castro flat out got burned.

I do think there are times Phil sticks to his base to his detriment. Today wasn’t one of those times in my opinion.

Now, if we want to fault Phil for failing to recruit a true rush end since Epinesa, I’m all for that.
I think Castro said the same in the post game. "They know our tendencies and what we default to".
 
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For a defense that is supposedly elite, I find what happened on that final Iowa State drive completely inexcusable. And I am not sure why Phil Parker gets a pass on that. Someone explain it to me.
To keep the conversation focused, please respond to what is in the actual OP.

The offense being shitty in the second half is not in question. The defense being light years ahead of the offense is not a subject of debate. The strategy on Iowa State’s final drive is.

Thanks.
 
You’re gonna have to define elite ?

Elite = never give up any yards or point ever ? Have there been teams that pitched shutouts every game ?

Phils defense is good to great. The problem is his group has the most pressure of any group in college football. No other team relies on its defense to score points because the offense cannot. If Hitchens makes a better cut to the inside he probably scores and Iowa runs away with it.

Instead the offense craps itself and settles for 3….and it did it again before end of half.

They are not the 85 bears but they’re a good defense that if any other team had them, they’d probably win a national championship

We’ve let Kirk **** with our minds so much that we think it’s normal for a QB to throw for <100 yards cause we got a “elite” defense

This isn’t happening anywhere else except Iowa. Win 10 games against cream puffs and think it’s revolutionary to not advance the ball.

Iowa finished the game with punt, punt, punt, punt, punt, INT

But it’s the defense fault
Is reading that hard?
 
In a team sport, Phil has been holding up his end of the bargain since he got here. The offense has and continues to put the defense in tough spots because we can’t score, stall on drives and fail to put away teams.

What does this game look like after the Higgins interception if we score a TD? Or if we go up 17-0 at half but once again, our offense can’t muster 3 yards?

The defense definitely has some blame. The blown coverage assignment between Higgins and X let ISU right back into the game. The lack of any kind of pressure when the game was on the line allowed them to get into a groove and pick apart our soft secondary.

But no team does or should win when your passing attack musters 99 yards on 29 attempts and then turns the ball over 2 times. Well not in the last 50 years at least.
Again, the defense is not being blamed. The Iowa offensive ineptness largely is.

The question, again, as it relates to the OP, is to Iowa’s defensive strategy on the final Iowa State drive and why Phil Parker shouldn’t be questioned about that. The reason I started the OP is because I hadn’t read any comments on that topic and I thought it was worth discussing.
 
Again, the defense is not being blamed. The Iowa offensive ineptness largely is.

The question, again, as it relates to the OP, is to Iowa’s defensive strategy on the final Iowa State drive and why Phil Parker shouldn’t be questioned about that. The reason I started the OP is because I hadn’t read any comments on that topic and I thought it was worth discussing.
I think everything should be discussed after a collapse like that. I think the reality is our defense has taken a step back, our special teams has take a step back and we needed our offense to take 10 steps forward. Our secondary is the weak link of our defense followed closely by our pass rush.
 
I’m not gonna burn down Phil Parker’s house, but he does deserve some tough questions and scrutiny. He definitely lost some luster.

Team loss says it best.

A lot of stuff had to happen for Iowa to blow this game. A lot a lot. And it all transpired.
 
When X got burned, Phil pulled him and he didn’t see the field the rest of the day.

On the last drive, Phil went man to man in order to try to keep the receivers from going out of bounds and Castro flat out got burned.

I do think there are times Phil sticks to his base to his detriment. Today wasn’t one of those times in my opinion.

Now, if we want to fault Phil for failing to recruit a true rush end since Epinesa, I’m all for that.
Going man was an inexplicable decision there. Thats the only way they were getting a big play in that scenario. Disappointed with the pass rush all day.
 
In a team sport, Phil has been holding up his end of the bargain since he got here. The offense has and continues to put the defense in tough spots because we can’t score, stall on drives and fail to put away teams.

What does this game look like after the Higgins interception if we score a TD? Or if we go up 17-0 at half but once again, our offense can’t muster 3 yards?

The defense definitely has some blame. The blown coverage assignment between Higgins and X let ISU right back into the game. The lack of any kind of pressure when the game was on the line allowed them to get into a groove and pick apart our soft secondary.

But no team does or should win when your passing attack musters 99 yards on 29 attempts and then turns the ball over 2 times. Well not in the last 50 years at least.
The offense earned its share of the blame.
 
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Reality for me, ISU gets ball at their 22 with 32 seconds left and no timeouts, I fully expected Iowa to keep them out of FG range, They didn’t. I can almost guarantee you that Phil found the results of ISU’s drive unacceptable.
 
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