To be fair, I'd have loved to have seen Sullivan play against that D. I can't imagine it helped being down to the 5th string QB.
Oh I'm sure that was a significant factor, but the Iowa offense was so thoroughly dominated in every way that I'm not sure it mattered who was playing QB. They weren't great against UCLA either.
oh for heaven's sake - just let the Deacon Hill stuff died. You know, I know, and everyone else knows he was brought in solely for depth...Everyone expected Labas to be the backup to Cade last year, but whatever Labas did happened, and we ended up with Hill as the backup. And then it all went downhill from there for reasons that Kirk will never be able to adequately explain.
They started well enough prior to Sullivan getting banged up, and did manage a scoring drive with Stratton to tie it.
It might be worse than that, Iowa’s offense last Friday loses to a Texas A&M or South Carolina by 30 plus.
Sullivan at least keeps defenses from loading the box because he can at least pass.
When healthy I agree. Sullivan was clearly available only as an absolute emergency friday.
Were either of those teams playing with their 4th string QB?
I'll never understand Iowa fans. The defense gave up 20 points. That's equivalent to the 20th best defense in the country and that shouldn't be too much for any average offense to overcome given the fact that the average offense scores 28 points per game.
1st - once they were down to Stratton they were a long way from being an "average offense".
No. This thread started out with someone asking how bad it could be facing an SEC opponent with that 4th string QB behind center. I responded that it was bad enough vs a pedestrian Nebraska team and that's how we arrived here...
UCLA front 7 is tough but they are 1 of the worst pass Ds in the Country, Iowa not being able to pass them out of the loaded fronts to open things up for Johnson is an Iowa problem, Defense wasn't great but 20 on the road is fine , problem is it took a few turnovers deep to keep that from being 34 points . UCLA seemed like they were on offense the entire game .
The defense gave up 20 points. That's good enough to win 80-90% of college football games.
Agreed - but 80-90% of college football games don't feature a 5th string QB taking his first major collegiate snaps.
Sigh... Then don't tell me that "the bigger problem was the poor play by the defense"... The bigger problem in that game and the ISU games were the Iowa offense, per usual.
I agree about his arm. I disagree, at this point, about his running.
Have to agree to disagree. Defense giving up 400 yards to a bad team and not being able to get off the field was the bigger problem.
Games aren't decided by yardage. They are decided by points. Otherwise Iowa lost on Friday. Bigly.
Yes I do. I'd rather have Stratton play over McNamara, Lainez AND Sullivan right now. Open the playbook and let him throw it down the field from the start. Might be surprised at what happens. Kirk is so afraid of what "bad" might happen that he doesn't give the team an opportunity to do anything good. Stratton is the best passer on the team and it isn't even close. Throw the ball down the field!
Yea. That’s what was so frustrating about the Nebraska game. Literally nothing on the line and we manage the game like it’s the Big Ten Championship or something.
Big difference for me between a regular season/rivalry game on senior day vs a bowl game/exhibition game where multiple players are opting out.
It's almost like we were playing a 4th string walk-on at quarterback or something.
Whut? Kirk has dunked all over ever starting a true freshman at QB, this year he was a redshirt freshman and absolutely would have been playing had he not been injured. We didn't even see Sully until Cade was "injured."
