Replay: Leistokow on the doomed 4th down pass play; Petras on his footwork

[uihawk82]

I know it is Illinois today but I just found and read Leitokow's DVR Monday. He says it so correctly below and I have and many others have screamed for a long time for easier pass routes and reads on third down and 4th down to at least get to the sticks. If your QB is having some accuracy problems then the best thing to do is have the receiver settle in an open space as a stationary target or running a comeback pattern right back in line with the qb. Petras was 14 for 18 in the 2nd half so he wasnt being avg even .

But has the article mentions, way too many passes to players running toward the sidelines with tough passing angles.

"On fourth down, Iowa essentially repeated its second-down play but to the left. Petras rolled left. A poorly thrown ball didn’t help, but LaPorta’s out route was blanketed by safety Will Johnson for a 1-yard gain. Iowa does this a lot, runs its own receiver away from the quarterback rather than settling into an open spot. Had LaPorta just stopped his route and worked back inside, it would have been an easy 6-yard touchdown.

Also, I meant to post this days ago that my son heard Petras on the postgame after Mich and on the overthrow to Lachey and one other overthrow he said he lost his concentration on his footwork and mechanics. My take on this is just like any sports skill it has to be such a naturally practiced skill that the mechanics do not need to be concentrated on while doing it. Too bad.

 

[RomanHawk]

I know it is Illinois today but I just found and read Leitokow's DVR Monday. He says it so correctly below and I have and many others have screamed for a long time for easier pass routes and reads on third down and 4th down to at least get to the sticks. If your QB is having some accuracy problems then the best thing to do is have the receiver settle in an open space as a stationary target or running a comeback pattern right back in line with the qb. Petras was 14 for 18 in the 2nd half so he wasnt being avg even .

But has the article mentions, way too many passes to players running toward the sidelines with tough passing angles.

"On fourth down, Iowa essentially repeated its second-down play but to the left. Petras rolled left. A poorly thrown ball didn’t help, but LaPorta’s out route was blanketed by safety Will Johnson for a 1-yard gain. Iowa does this a lot, runs its own receiver away from the quarterback rather than settling into an open spot. Had LaPorta just stopped his route and worked back inside, it would have been an easy 6-yard touchdown. Also, I meant to post this days ago that my son heard Petras on the postgame after Mich and on the overthrow to Lachey and one other overthrow he said he lost his concentration on his footwork and mechanics. My take on this is just like any sports skill it has to be such a naturally practiced skill that the mechanics do not need to be concentrated on while doing it. Too bad.

I've been talking about these kind of key down passes for years but nothing ever changes with this regime.

 

[TRHawkeye145]

If a QB who has been in the program this long and still has to think about footwork that's pretty sad. Just indicative of being a bad QB or poor development

 

[jonesy5960]

Terrible QB being coached by a terrible OC. Completely predictable results.

 

[grayhair81]

I know it is Illinois today but I just found and read Leitokow's DVR Monday. He says it so correctly below and I have and many others have screamed for a long time for easier pass routes and reads on third down and 4th down to at least get to the sticks. If your QB is having some accuracy problems then the best thing to do is have the receiver settle in an open space as a stationary target or running a comeback pattern right back in line with the qb. Petras was 14 for 18 in the 2nd half so he wasnt being avg even .

But has the article mentions, way too many passes to players running toward the sidelines with tough passing angles.

"On fourth down, Iowa essentially repeated its second-down play but to the left. Petras rolled left. A poorly thrown ball didn’t help, but LaPorta’s out route was blanketed by safety Will Johnson for a 1-yard gain. Iowa does this a lot, runs its own receiver away from the quarterback rather than settling into an open spot. Had LaPorta just stopped his route and worked back inside, it would have been an easy 6-yard touchdown.

Also, I meant to post this days ago that my son heard Petras on the postgame after Mich and on the overthrow to Lachey and one other overthrow he said he lost his concentration on his footwork and mechanics. My take on this is just like any sports skill it has to be such a naturally practiced skill that the mechanics do not need to be concentrated on while doing it. Too bad.

Like when he had IKM settling 7 yds in front of him and threw high and wide against Kentucky?

 

[BubsFinn]

If a QB who has been in the program this long and still has to think about footwork that's pretty sad. Just indicative of being a bad QB or poor development

Spencer doesn't have a coach who knows how to help him fix those issues. Brian might be able to tell him how to improve his footwork when passblocking, but he has no idea how to help with passing. Any QB who has a dream of taking snaps on Sunday, will not commit to a college with a lineman as QB coach.

 

[isuisshit]

Terrible QB being coached by a terrible OC. Completely predictable results.

it's almost like the QB coach has never played qb before

 

[Dargo]

Fifth year senior that is still working on his footwork, accuracy, etc. Pretty sad, and further illustrates the need to play another qb. Play someone that can make the throws because after 3 years of failing, I don't think Petras is gonna come around. A newborn giraffe has better footwork than he does.

 

[QChawks]

Petras is 💩

 

[hawkfan2679]

If your QB is having some accuracy problems then the best thing to do is have the receiver settle in an open space as a stationary target or running a comeback pattern right back in line with the qb.

Problem is it was man coverage. The age-old adage is that you run vs. man and sit vs. zone. Unless you are expected LaPorta to post up, which against a safety might be a good matchup...IF (and this is a massive IF) Petras delivers a good ball on the correct shoulder. The comeback pattern could have worked, but then you run into a different dynamic with the route concept and the depth of the route, given that we were on the 6 yard line...comebacks are best used when you can sell the go route and get the DB to flip the hips and run (best case), so doing it in the end zone isn't always the best answer. Again, unless you want to post him up, in which case a good throw gets 6.

"On fourth down, Iowa essentially repeated its second-down play but to the left. Petras rolled left. A poorly thrown ball didn’t help, but LaPorta’s out route was blanketed by safety Will Johnson for a 1-yard gain. Iowa does this a lot, runs its own receiver away from the quarterback rather than settling into an open spot. Had LaPorta just stopped his route and worked back inside, it would have been an easy 6-yard touchdown.

A couple points I would add/contribute...

- The route wasn't blanketed by the safety. The throw was late enough that the safety had time to go over the pick and still get to LaPorta as the ball was arriving. I posted this somewhere else, but that's the risk you run with essentially a 5 step sprintout to a 2 yard route.

- We do love our out routes. Out of trips the 2 inside receivers run the out while the outside receiver runs the clearout. I was shocked last week after Petras nearly threw the pick 6, we came back to that exact concept on 3rd and 22 and completed it to Ragaini. One little tweak on the 3rd and 22 conversion...we had LaPorta in a wing set to the 2 WR side, which created a trips look. It might have been nothing, or it might have been schemed, but I think we did that to get the desired coverage (a lot of teams will check Cover 3 or Cover 6 against trips).

- If LaPorta had stopped his route and worked back inside, would we have needed the pick route? Again, if you play the "What if?" game after the result of the play is determined, it's easy to say that's what he should have done...but you are working within the confines of the route concept/scheme and changing a route on the fly might change the entire dynamic of the concept.

 

[MitchLL]

I have never heard the words Petras and footwork used in the same sentence.

 

[doughuddl2]

If a QB who has been in the program this long and still has to think about footwork that's pretty sad. Just indicative of being a bad QB or poor development

Per Chuck Long when you are getting rushed sometimes you don't get a chance to get your feet right.

 

[ICWestfan]

Also, I meant to post this days ago that my son heard Petras on the postgame after Mich and on the overthrow to Lachey and one other overthrow he said he lost his concentration on his footwork and mechanics.

Steve Young was on PTI last week talking about Jalen Hurts and Tua and the biggest difference from last year to this year. He said their footwork had improved to a degree that makes everything natural, all the throws become easier when you have proper footwork, the game slows down. Parahrasing here.

Also, I am not comparing those two to Petras, but SP footwork is horrible and it makes every other aspect of his game horrible.

 

[WaterTower]

I know it is Illinois today but I just found and read Leitokow's DVR Monday. He says it so correctly below and I have and many others have screamed for a long time for easier pass routes and reads on third down and 4th down to at least get to the sticks. If your QB is having some accuracy problems then the best thing to do is have the receiver settle in an open space as a stationary target or running a comeback pattern right back in line with the qb. Petras was 14 for 18 in the 2nd half so he wasnt being avg even .

But has the article mentions, way too many passes to players running toward the sidelines with tough passing angles.

"On fourth down, Iowa essentially repeated its second-down play but to the left. Petras rolled left. A poorly thrown ball didn’t help, but LaPorta’s out route was blanketed by safety Will Johnson for a 1-yard gain. Iowa does this a lot, runs its own receiver away from the quarterback rather than settling into an open spot. Had LaPorta just stopped his route and worked back inside, it would have been an easy 6-yard touchdown.

Also, I meant to post this days ago that my son heard Petras on the postgame after Mich and on the overthrow to Lachey and one other overthrow he said he lost his concentration on his footwork and mechanics. My take on this is just like any sports skill it has to be such a naturally practiced skill that the mechanics do not need to be concentrated on while doing it. Too bad.

Opponents study tendencies and Iowa never changes. So easy to defend it makes me sick.

 

[DodgerHawki]

If a QB who has been in the program this long and still has to think about footwork that's pretty sad. Just indicative of being a bad QB or poor development

Yeah in the moment an athlete cannot be thinking about fundamentals. They have to be so ingrained that they are natural actions. A batter in the box can't be thinking about hand position or weight shift or whatever when the pitch is being delivered. Those are all things that can be part of the pre-pitch thought process, but at the moment the pitch is released the only thoughts can be seeing the ball, recognizing if it is a pitch he is going to swing at, and then swinging. Same for a guy shooting a 3-pointer or a QB throwing the ball. During the play, the QB's focus has to be on recognizing what he sees and delivering the ball. Footwork has to just happen at that point.

I suppose some of this is coaching, but to me this is really Petras needing to get out of his own head. He's spent the last 2 offseasons with a special QB coach and they work on these things all off-season. At some point, you can either process information fast enough while maintaining the fundamentals, or you can't. There is way too much going on in a play for the QB to be thinking about footwork.