They came out aggressive against Purdue. Threw on first play of the game. Called 'punt block'. etc.. but you have to execute and not shoot yourself in the foot. They were 'loose' against OSU, according to the players, that's why I say 'just go out and play football'. I swear these guys are experiencing paralyzation though over analyzation a lot this year. I don't remember us blowing assignments like we have this year, and a lot of them by SR's and upperclassmen.
They weren't aggressive in terms of tempo like they were against Ohio State. That one drive in the fourth quarter ate up like five minutes on 11 plays and they they barely made it past midfield until Stanley through a pick. There was no urgency. When they finally went to the no huddle, hurry up offense, they moved the ball fast and well and they scored. They don't have to go no huddle, but they don't need to let the play clock run down under ten seconds every snap. It kills momentum and allows the defense to recover from the previous play and plenty of time to read the offense's formation and, combining that with film study, they're able to make easy reads on what the offense might do.
Yeah, they're throwing on first downs more, but they aren't disguising it well at all. And then the second down is almost always a short run and then it's 3rd and 8 or even 3rd and 12 (TFLs). That's why they can't sustain drives. It's not that they're predictable in play calling; they're predictable in particular plays out of their various alignments
and because they give the defense (players and coaches) so much time to make adjustments to get a defensive call that matches up well with Iowa's play.
Defenses even purposefully stack the box in such a way as to encourage Stanley to check to a particular play, like a stretch play to the short side of the field. They're defensive alignment might suggest that's the thing to do, but we've seen Iowa get stuffed repeatedly while running to the side of the field with fewer linebackers and/or DBs, but it's often a decoy by the defense, one that Iowa's coaches amazingly haven't picked up on. They're audibles are very limited and easy to predict for the defense based on offensive formations.
That's a solid analysis of some of the problems the offense faces, but the coaches are not ... they're not seeing it somehow and this was a problem under Greg Davis, too. It hasn't changed with BF. In the Ohio State game, I saw the Hawks getting to the line fast and Stanley getting the ball out really quickly, usually under two seconds. That's why they only got one sack. It also helped the running game tremendously because Ohio State wasn't able to stack the box as much because they hadn't seen plays called in such sequences before and didn't have as much time to adjust between plays because Iowa was hustling, guys were running back to the huddle instead of walking.
At Wisconsin and at home against Purdue, I saw a lot of walking back to the huddle, a lot of time taken to get plays in to Stanley, Stanley spending too much time before the snap trying to read the defensive formations. He's not skilled in that part of the game yet. Not at all. He needs to do a lot of film study in the offseason and start recognizing his own tendencies as well as the defenses. Look, I know football strategy really well and I know the type of commitment that's necessary as a player, a coach, an analyst. The mental part of the game is the hardest to learn, but it shouldn't be for the coaches. They need to be teaching them how to learn, the processes involved, how much time to dedicate based on a given player's thinking abilities, perceptions, interpretations.
The smarter a player is, the easier it is to absorb all of that and be able to read defenses much more quickly in game situations so that they don't have to "overthink things" (as you said). That's a skill, a learned skill for many, but an innate skill for some. Jewell has that, an innate skill for being able to absorb what he's seeing while being able to move his body the way he needs to perform well. Being a great athlete is good. Being a great thinker is good. Being passionate but in control/disciplined is good. But being able to combine the three? That's elite, that's how a player becomes elite. But if you're just a decent athlete with solid skills? Then its critical to be a special thinker and to play with disciplined passion.
