The Secondary is Legit

[wyohawk]

Hats off to those guys.

Now that teams know to throw away from DK and still have yet to find any success on the ground, our DBs have seen higher volume against some veteran QBs and solid athletes in the passing game. Mabin, Lomax, and Taylor have answered the call.

Even on the PI penalties today, our guys were in great position but got screwed when the WRs had to slow down for underthrows. (next step is turning to watch & play the ball..?) And nearly every one of the sacks were thanks to blanket coverage downfield.

Also, love that even though Mabin & Lomax got burnt by Allison (who is quite good) on one long play, they still have a pick and clean knockout blow to hold over him.

 

[ghostOfHomer777]

We gave up over 300 yards through the air. We didn't really get beat deep ... and that was by design.

 

[Hawk_4shur]

Thank you wyo, I agree. It is difficult to stop a good passing attack. I don't know if Illinois qualifies as "good", but they have weapons. I think our pass defense is pretty stout, but not impenetrable. Many fans think a good pass defense would not give up any pass yardage.

Illinois is going to win a lot of games the rest of the year. The D did a very good job today.

 

[MepoDawg#]

Mabin is average and getting picked on.

 

[ROCKY MOUNTAIN HAWK]

I thought this was the worst game the secondary has played all year. Not a bad game but their worst of the year.

 

[ozziesimmons22]

I really like our defense. It's very tough and plays hard.

Having said that, Illinois probably made 85% or more of their substantial passing yards against Mabin. I wonder if anyone has the stats on this. But, you could see the quarterback looking to his side before they even snapped the ball. This is not a personal attack on the young man. He is obviously playing his best and doing all he can to help the Hawks win. Hopefully, they can scheme differently, to give him some help.

But, especially after this game, teams are gonna just ignore Kings side. Unfortunate, because other than this, and now Ott, Iowa is formidable on defense.

 

[ghostOfHomer777]

Mabin is, ummmm....not very good.

The back 7 got shredded the entire 2nd half. Not a very good performance.

I would give Mabin some benefit of the doubt ... I'm willing to bet that he's still coming off an injury.

 

[denmar81]

Our secondary is questionable. Mabin struggled in coverage and missed costly tackles. King got burnt but what the hell was the safety doing? I hope they figure it out quick because without Ott it could get worse.

 

[WWDMHawkeye]

It looked to me like King gambled and got fooled by the out-and-up, but there was a safety in the area. Not sure whose responsibility it was, but I had the impression King guessed wrong and paid for it.

Mabin was going against their best WR, by far, in Allison. I'm not sure why we didn't put King on him, but Mabin clearly had the toughest assignment of the day. I think he's improved quite a bit and he's competing hard.

I think the secondary is a work in progress, but I do think they're getting better. A bit of a setback today, especially for Mabin, but he did come up with a pick, to his credit. I think this group will be pretty salty as a whole by the end of the season.

 

[Hawk and Awe]

Our scheme allows average corners to get exposed. We want to force them to beat us with intermediate passing 1-on-1. We lost some battles today (especially with penalties) but won the war

 

[BUCKSNDUCKS]

I'm glad Mabin got the int , but before that he was getting beat on every pass play thrown towards him

 

[93hawkeye]

We give up a lot of passing yards. We do not have a good pass rush. Coach Parker has been able to keep our keep us in the win column despite these weaknesses. Our team is not deep/talented enough to shut everything down a la Michigan. Let's enjoy the ride

 

[BubsFinn]

It didn’t help that we bailed out a bunch of bad throws with pass interference penalties.

 

[And1Hawk]

Really silly. Everyone expects no adversity in anything we do. Go back to your video games so you can get total domination.

Mabin has a bad hamstring so this might be affecting his play some. He was giving a pretty good cushion instead of his normal press coverage which might be a sign of not being healthy. We also do not get consistent pressure on the QB and lost Ott in this game for the season who was our best pass rusher. On the last IL TD Lomax read the play wrong running towards the sideline past the receiver who cut inside on the route. King was trying to take away the underneath. It was just a mistake and good pass & catch by IL.

 

[rclui57]

Perhaps I am wrong, but it appeared to me that Ott was frequently being held, especially on the play Mabin was called for pass interference.

 

[theIowaHawk]

We gave up over 300 yards through the air. We didn't really get beat deep ... and that was by design.

Yeah but it let them absolutely abuse Nabin.