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I think B.Ferentz silenced some folks

Yeah give him credit for the bowl game plan. But I think at least 2 of those 3 losses this year were poor preparation/bad play calling. Hindsight I know...I was scratching my head why he kept calling pass plays in the waning moments of 3rd quarter and into the 4th when the running game was effective? Hopefully he can build on this win.
 
Indeed. Where were all the trick plays all season? Where were all the misdirection plays all season? It was a great win, but it showed once again that Iowa has the talent to win the West and compete for the Big Ten title and CFP, but it lacks the offensive intelligence to use that talent effectively.

This was the first time in the last few years that Iowa failed to try ONE single trick play in the 12-game regular season. Somebody should ask WHY? And Iowa has used little misdirection against good, fast defenses like Wisconsin, Penn State, and Michigan, its three losses this season. Some people might wonder WHY not?

Make no mistake: USC is a mediocre defensive team, but when Iowa was still playing offense--which is to say the first half--the Hawkeyes made it look easy. Very easy.

Then, predictably, a combination of Nate misfiring at key moments and the offense generally going back to its conservative roots in the second half kept USC hanging around for awhile. Iowa could have scored 60 or 70 points had it called the same plays and had Stanley played as well the second half as in the first.

If you don't have the talent, that's one thing, but look at the speed on display last night. Look at the intelligent play calling that was missing most of the year. Same personnel, vastly different approach (aggressive in the first half), and vastly different game plan.

I'll admit that I just don't get it.

wait- you don’t get that we play in the best defensive conference in the country?
 
This is the Jekyll and Hyde dichotomy which is offensive football under KFz. We get games like this, tOSU in 2017, and others where we use an aggressive, varied playbook and let our most talented players make plays.

Then there are the play-not-to-lose games where KFz decides to stubbornly run into 9 man fronts or seems more interested in holding the ball, than scoring points.

Crazy
 
I like Brian and I too will be surprised if he isn't the next head coach, but Phil Parker deserves the job. Like Norm Parker's defenses, Phil's are the backbone of the Iowa team year in and year out. He's paid his dues at Iowa. He deserves the job.
Does Phil want the job?
 
we will see....

This was a poorly coached defense and Iowa took advantage of it. I don’t think BF performed any miracle. Iowa’s offensive ranking is 100 according to the FBS stats.

For the kool-aid drinkers out there, you might want to get a little perspective before you give BF the keys.

The biggest difference in this teams and past Iowa teams is that we finally have some SPEED at the offensive skill positions. Now we need to replicate that on defense for next year. I am thinking specially LB and FS.
 
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This was a poorly coached defense and Iowa took advantage of it. I don’t think BF performed any miracle. Iowa’s offensive ranking is 100 according to the FBS stats.

For the kool-aid drinkers out there, you might want to get a little perspective before you give BF the keys.

The biggest difference in this teams and past Iowa teams is that we finally have some SPEED at the offensive skill positions. Now we need to replicate that on defense for next year. I am thinking specially LB and FS.
Couldn’t be that the players don’t execute sometimes. He could call a perfect game but look bad.
 
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I think the Ferentz hatred is blown out of proportion, BUT it seems like pointing to last nights game as a Ferentz success is a little odd. We finished with 328 yards of offense, which would rank us 111th out of 130 ncaa teams.

really wish they’d add special teams yardage to that. It makes you forget that we had a 98 yard return as well, when you have to figure we would likely have moved the ball more.
 
I don’t think our playcalling was any different except for a couple trick plays. Those plays were called because of something we saw on film for this game and those opportunities are not there during the big ten season. The conference is too good on defense.
 
really wish they’d add special teams yardage to that. It makes you forget that we had a 98 yard return as well, when you have to figure we would likely have moved the ball more.
Thats fair. We can look at it on yards/play as well. We averaged 3.3 yards per rush which would rank 124th out of 130 and 7.6 yards per pass attempt which ranks 55th.

At the end of the day that was a fantastic team win and I will enjoy the hell out of it. I just took a slight exception to saying Ferentz silenced doubters with that performance when it seems to me that we still have a below average and inconsistent offense.
 
Thats fair. We can look at it on yards/play as well. We averaged 3.3 yards per rush which would rank 124th out of 130 and 7.6 yards per pass attempt which ranks 55th.

At the end of the day that was a fantastic team win and I will enjoy the hell out of it. I just took a slight exception to saying Ferentz silenced doubters with that performance when it seems to me that we still have a below average and inconsistent offense.
Due to what? Play calling or execution? He gets the blame when bad and praise when good. Some the good and bad goes to the players. Sometimes just a tip of the hat to the defense.
 
And we only had 3 offensive possessions in the first half. We had 9 possessions all game, with the last two used to milk the clock to salt the game away in the 4th. Many of our games are in the 10-12 possession range often with a kneel down or run out the clock drive(s).

That’s what these dipsticks citing yardage stats don’t get. Ball control offense + Bend but don’t break defense equates to much fewer possessions and a shorter game. Of course your freaking yardage stats can look less than stellar and your offensive scoring can be low when you are kicking FGs too.

The “ball control offense” excuse is thankfully starting to die. You either need to have a very efficient passer (not below 60% like Stanley) or a very reliable run game (how’s Iowa’s run game?). Teams like Minnesota and Indiana have bigger time of possession.

Phil Parker is absolutely that good.
 
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Couldn’t be that the players don’t execute sometimes. He could call a perfect game but look bad.

The execution argument is the best misdirection play KF/BF have in their play book. They could use that EXCUSE on every play they don’t score. Congrats, they even have you repeating it now.

If not for our All-American PK, this years record would be much different (29 FG’s).

I am just keeping it real! BF is only the OC because his dad is the coach and ever objective person knows it. There is no place for nepotism at a public university!!
 
The execution argument is the best misdirection play KF/BF have in their play book. They could use that EXCUSE on every play they don’t score. Congrats, they even have you repeating it now.

If not for our All-American PK, this years record would be much different (29 FG’s).

I am just keeping it real! BF is only the OC because his dad is the coach and ever objective person knows it. There is no place for nepotism at a public university!!

you haven’t actually looked at Brian’s resume, have you?

You are right though- if he wasn’t related to the head coach he wouldn’t be at iowa. He would be a head coach or OC at a different school.
 
The “ball control offense” excuse is thankfully starting to die. You either need to have a very efficient passer (not below 60% like Stanley) or a very reliable run game (how’s Iowa’s run game?). Teams like Minnesota and Indiana have bigger time of possession.

Phil Parker is absolutely that good.

Phil is really good but his defense was getting absolutely smoked until AJE knocked out the QB with an injury. Phil’s defense gave up chunk yards at times this season and failed to get two stops against PSU and at Wisconsin when it mattered most. If Phil’s last name was Ferentz there would be the same BF narrative pushed by some.
 
One thing's for sure, Iowa would have a very, very potent offense in the PAC12. In fact, I think the PAC12 would have come down to either Oregon or Iowa as the champion this year if Iowa had played in the PAC12 all season. They just don't play defense in that league and Utah is way overrated, sort of like Minnesota this year. Defense in the PAC12 is like D in the B12.

Meanwhile, Iowa played something like five top 30 defenses in the B10 this year. It's just flat out tough to score points in the B10 against the better teams and sometimes even the mediocre teams. It's not just Iowa struggling to score, either. Michigan scored 10 on Iowa, Penn State scored 17, and UW scored 24. The B10 has tough defenses most years and this year there were even more than usual.

That said, Iowa underperformed in some games offensively this year, but probably not to the degree that the rankings suggest given what the defensive rankings are in the B10 versus the PAC12 and B12. Iowa was just too inconsistent in their execution throughout games this year. Nate, as good as he can be for stretches (and wonderful in bowl games--thanks, Nate!), he typically had some off throws at critical times in certain games and usually struggled against pressure defenses. The run blocking was pretty bad this year, too (might need to overhaul the whole running game scheme at this point). There were also some critical drops in some games. But they always seemed like they were close to figuring it out which was frustrating as hell.

If Iowa has a QB that is a little more mobile and can be consistently accurate, then Iowa could have a pretty good offense next year because they're getting all of their playmakers back. They need to figure out how to transform the running game or learn how to consistently make teams pay for loading the box. Overall, I'm optimistic about next year even with the tough schedule.
 
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Thats fair. We can look at it on yards/play as well. We averaged 3.3 yards per rush which would rank 124th out of 130 and 7.6 yards per pass attempt which ranks 55th.

At the end of the day that was a fantastic team win and I will enjoy the hell out of it. I just took a slight exception to saying Ferentz silenced doubters with that performance when it seems to me that we still have a below average and inconsistent offense.

How can you argue our offensive performance Friday was below average? One of our primary objectives was to control the ball and clock while keeping Slovis and the USC offense off the field. Iowa earned an A+ in that category. You can’t use total yards as a barometer to define success or failure for a KF led Iowa team. We try to limit possessions for the opponent while grinding down and opponents defense over the course of 4qtrs. We also finished drives with touchdowns instead of field goals. Say what you will about BF or KF, but make no mistake, the offense earns an A against USC, despite what our average yards per rush or total yards rank compared to the rest of the country.
 
What was the offense's rank in the nation this year? I'll wait for you to let me know.

Iowa will never rank that highly in offense if you go by just yards, just not the way they play. Iowa scored 49 points against USC (really 35 by the offense) and had less than 350 yards of offense. Yet many are lauding BF as having a great gameplan (and he did). But Iowa won't have moved the needle at all in terms of NCAA rankings, and all people seem concerned about is yards.

I like going by the efficiency metrics (S&P+ and FEI, there are others). Iowa was 99th in yards this year, but 70th in the FEI for offense. And last year Iowa was 47th in offense by the efficiency metrics.

I will agree that Iowa's offense does need to improve in order to win the West. They have to be able to do better (and run the ball at least a little) against the good teams on the schedule.
 
The “ball control offense” excuse is thankfully starting to die. You either need to have a very efficient passer (not below 60% like Stanley) or a very reliable run game (how’s Iowa’s run game?). Teams like Minnesota and Indiana have bigger time of possession.

Phil Parker is absolutely that good.

Did you forget to login under your Iowa fan screen name, troll?

Go bitch about 10-3 with the losers on the Husker Board.
 
Should say "BF did his job last night"
I said in a different thread he called a heck of a game last night.

But lets not pretend we lost the West this year because the Offense couldn't hold up its end of the deal all year.
 
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Consistency will silence the criticism. The problem is that the next time the offense craps itself, people will be asking why? He called a great game at the bowl game? And before you mention player execution,, the way the players execute is as much on the coaches as it is on the players. Well coached players execute, poorly coached players do not.
 
Hmmm, I'd say good enough for a 10-3 record.
Great game plan/play calling by BF. However, the Hawks are the 99th ranked offense in the nation and near the bottom of the barrel in the BIG for a reason. Is it too much to ask for an offense to be ranked around 40-50th best in the nation? I can think of 4-5 games over the last two years that could have been wins. We leave more wins on the field and let more poor defensive teams hang around in games because we are that bad offensively. 4 losses last year and 3 this year by less than a TD. Hopefully, the USC win will be a launch point offensively for 2020. The obvious keys will be OL and QB play. Our history over the past years has been to not followup one good offensive game with another while wasting defensive play that was more than good enough to win. I say this knowing the opponent’s defense may have a say in what your offensive production looks like. Also, there is still the gap between the Hawks and the Badgers. Until we can run the ball against them with just even moderate success while in turn slowing down their run game, the Hawks will be battling for no better than 2nd in the West.
 
Should say "BF did his job last night"
I said in a different thread he called a heck of a game last night.

But lets not pretend we lost the West this year because the Offense couldn't hold up its end of the deal all year.

This. Play call, execution, whatever. Everyhting seemed to show up against USC, build on it, learn from it.
 
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Does Phil want the job?

I have no idea whether Phil, or even Brian, want the job. I assume that most coordinators would accept the right head coaching job, especially with the dollars that come with the position.
 
How can you argue our offensive performance Friday was below average? One of our primary objectives was to control the ball and clock while keeping Slovis and the USC offense off the field. Iowa earned an A+ in that category. You can’t use total yards as a barometer to define success or failure for a KF led Iowa team. We try to limit possessions for the opponent while grinding down and opponents defense over the course of 4qtrs. We also finished drives with touchdowns instead of field goals. Say what you will about BF or KF, but make no mistake, the offense earns an A against USC, despite what our average yards per rush or total yards rank compared to the rest of the country.

yards per game is a stupid measure. Under BF we have been around the middle in offensive efficiency which accounts for tempo. We want to run clock so there are few plays to gain yards.
 
yards per game is a stupid measure. Under BF we have been around the middle in offensive efficiency which accounts for tempo. We want to run clock so there are few plays to gain yards.
Then why are we the 13th ranked scoring offense in the BIG and one of the worst in the nation? We did, however, lead the BIG in made FGs by a wide margin thanks to Keith D.
 
Our Offense was good enough for 10 wins and NOT good enough for a championship. Our defense was championship caliber. Iowa was close to greatness this year but was also close to mediocrity. The running game is still broken. If they can figure that out, we will again contend for the title and maybe win it.
 
I have no idea whether Phil, or even Brian, want the job. I assume that most coordinators would accept the right head coaching job, especially with the dollars that come with the position.
Then why are we the 13th ranked scoring offense in the BIG and one of the worst in the nation? We did, however, lead the BIG in made FGs by a wide margin thanks to Keith D.

Because of an outlier red zone efficiency year
 
How can you argue our offensive performance Friday was below average? One of our primary objectives was to control the ball and clock while keeping Slovis and the USC offense off the field. Iowa earned an A+ in that category. You can’t use total yards as a barometer to define success or failure for a KF led Iowa team. We try to limit possessions for the opponent while grinding down and opponents defense over the course of 4qtrs. We also finished drives with touchdowns instead of field goals. Say what you will about BF or KF, but make no mistake, the offense earns an A against USC, despite what our average yards per rush or total yards rank compared to the rest of the country.

Exactly. Is it the fault of Iowa's offense that they needed only 6 yards to score a TD after USC fumbled? Iowa had three offensive possessions in the first half and scored on all of them, chewing up the clock and limiting USC to four offensive possessions which allowed them to score only 17 points. Is it ISM's fault for returning a KO return for TD to rob Iowa's offense of those 98 yards? Add up all the yards gained by the offense AND special teams and you have a better picture of how Iowa performed. Add in the turnovers and USC's averages on offense/ST as well as TOP and you get a better picture overall of how complementary football works instead of isolating offensive numbers without looking at the other two phases of the game.
 
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Iowa will never rank that highly in offense if you go by just yards, just not the way they play. Iowa scored 49 points against USC (really 35 by the offense) and had less than 350 yards of offense. Yet many are lauding BF as having a great gameplan (and he did). But Iowa won't have moved the needle at all in terms of NCAA rankings, and all people seem concerned about is yards.

I like going by the efficiency metrics (S&P+ and FEI, there are others). Iowa was 99th in yards this year, but 70th in the FEI for offense. And last year Iowa was 47th in offense by the efficiency metrics.

I will agree that Iowa's offense does need to improve in order to win the West. They have to be able to do better (and run the ball at least a little) against the good teams on the schedule.

Agreed that efficiency metrics are the best metric. After the bowl game, Iowa's offensive efficiency per ESPN's FPI is up to #50 in the country (was #38 last year). Do you know what explains the difference between ESPN's FPI vs. Football Outsider's OFEI? ESPN's FPI seems to like Iowa's offense more than Football Outsiders.

Regardless, the efficiency metrics tell us that Iowa has essentially had a mediocre offense the past two seasons. Given Iowa's great defense, that's a recipe for a pretty good football team, but not necessarily a ringing endorsement for Brian. At the same time, the offense was a lot better than what the unadjusted overall yardage and scoring numbers would indicate because Iowa played a lot of great defenses this year.
 
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Agreed that efficiency metrics are the best metric. After the bowl game, Iowa's offensive efficiency per ESPN's FPI is up to #50 in the country (was #38 last year). Do you know what explains the difference between ESPN's FPI vs. Football Outsider's OFEI? ESPN's FPI seems to like Iowa's offense more than Football Outsiders.

Regardless, the efficiency metrics tell us that Iowa has essentially had a mediocre offense the past two seasons. Given Iowa's great defense, that's a recipe for a pretty good football team, but not necessarily a ringing endorsement for Brian. At the same time, the offense was a lot better than what the unadjusted overall yardage and scoring numbers would indicate because Iowa played a lot of great defenses this year.

I do not know what the difference is between ESPN's FPI and the OFEI. Agree on your point though. Iowa's offense does need to be better than what it has been if they want to win the West. The way Iowa plays, the offense protects the defense a bit, when Iowa is playing well.

The Holiday Bowl was a good example. Iowa's defense didn't do much to slow down USC in the first half, but the offense did a great job of holding on to the ball and scoring TD's rather than FG's. It allowed the defense to find it's footing a bit in the second half. But if the offense had been going 3 and out or stalling out in the first half and given USC more opportunities/snaps, that game could have got out of control quickly. Up to the point when USC recovered the onside kick down 28-24 in the third quarter, USC had run 38 plays for 288 yards, 7.3 yards per play. Iowa's defense had stopped them once. The good news was Iowa scored touchdowns the first 5 times it had the ball in that game (including the KO return). That is literally as good as you can be. Had Iowa's offense not done that allowed USC to run 50 plays instead of 38 up to that point, Trojans could have had 30+ points easily by that time in the game.

The game was a continuation of what we saw over the last 4 games plus last quarter of the Wisconsin game, where Iowa used the pass to set up the run and ran much more out of the shotgun and made the receivers a bigger part of the running game. Let that be the offense going forward. Tracy, Ragaini, ISM, Smith, LaPorta, Goodson all back. Let Petras throw the ball please and be on the attack. Don't turtle up and try to play smash-mouth with 12 personnel against good teams.
 
I think the biggest difference in this game vs. losses this year came down to 1 thing, red zone efficiency. Way too many FGs vs. TDs in several games this past season (thus 29 FGs for Duncan). Much of that is simple execution, as well as playing a defense that isn't on par with the better B1G teams. People here seem to think Iowa never tried to run a reverse or jet sweep until Friday. They did, but in most cases it didn't work well.
 
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I think the biggest difference in this game vs. losses this year came down to 1 thing, red zone efficiency. Way too many FGs vs. TDs in several games this past season (thus 29 FGs for Duncan). Much of that is simple execution, as well as playing a defense that isn't on par with the better B1G teams. People here seem to think Iowa never tried to run a reverse or jet sweep until Friday. They did, but in most cases it didn't work well.

You are correct Franklin. The margins between winning and losing when playing other good teams is so slight. If Iowa recovers any of the 3 fumbles in the first quarter of the Michigan game (1 by Iowa, 2 by Michigan) that game is likely different. Or if the ref doesn't get in the way of Sargent blocking on Stanley's 2-point try.

In the final summation, Iowa has to find a way to be better on offense against good defenses. They will play more good defenses next year (Penn State, OSU, Wisconsin). Have to be able to get to 24+ points against those teams to win those games.
 
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