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What’s the bar for QB stat line game 1?

What would constitute a successful outing for Petras against an FCS school in game 1 and help squash concerns?

My expectation for a third year starter would be 70%+ completion, 7 to 8 yards per attempt, 250+ yards, 2TD and 0 Ints. Achieve that and I’m optimistic we could see some improvement in BIG play. Thoughts?
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What would constitute a successful outing for Petras against an FCS school in game 1 and help squash concerns?

My expectation for a third year starter would be 70%+ completion, 7 to 8 yards per attempt, 250+ yards, 2TD and 0 Ints. Achieve that and I’m optimistic we could see some improvement in BIG play. Thoughts?
W
 
I’m guessing he will be 12-25, 165 yds, 0 tds, 0 INT. We get a defensive score, a rushing score, and 4 fgs. We all celebrate a lackluster 26-10 Hawkeye victory, and pray the next week is better.
This is slightly closer to the truth than anything else I've seen so far.

Petras will go over 50% but many things will contribute to it being nothing that convinces fans things are a-changin'..........

I also don't think we'll see 4 FGs in an opener, especially with a new kicker.
 
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I’m guessing he will be 12-25, 165 yds, 0 tds, 0 INT. We get a defensive score, a rushing score, and 4 fgs. We all celebrate a lackluster 26-10 Hawkeye victory, and pray the next week is better.
I can absolutely totally and completely see this exact thing happening.
 
I’d be happy if he only threw the ball 15 to 20 times. I think we are going to establish a running game and we could easily have two backs get over 100 yards. As long as he doesn’t have terrible overthrows, happy feet in the pocket or turnovers, I’ll be content with a low stat game from Spencer. I think we put these guys away early, why are so many of you such pessimists?
 
Just to piss off the SP haters I'd like to see 11 completions on 22 attempts with 95 yds passing. 1 passing td thrown by the half back and 1 interception thrown by SP. Hawks win 38-7
 
I'm expecting a game-manager sort of performance. I'm expecting the ball to get distributed to a bunch of targets. I expect pretty decent efficiency ... but not necessarily gaudy statistics.

I'm expecting Iowa to do enough in the passing game to open up the running game - and then let our O play "keep-away" from their O.

If you look at the SDSU O ... it's their strength. We'll be seeing a game of strength against strength. Mind you, their D isn't too bad either ... giving up just 19.7 points per game. Of course, on average, their D was on the field just 28 some minutes per game.

Anyhow, you look at their O ... they have some darn fine RBs ... and they return a QB who has prior starting experience AND a returning WR who had 1000+ yards receiving. Both the top WR and his twin brother are big, tall WRs ... who might pose mismatch issues against smaller defenders. They might be a little more like TEs playing WR.
 
Unfortunately with our beat up receiver corp I expect very little from our passing game in the opener this week.
The realist in me agrees with you and thinks we lean on our OL and RBs to wear down SDSU and grind out a win. However, the optimist in me hopes to see some 2 TE sets with LaPorta and Lachey to help mask some of our WR deficiencies.
 
Unfortunately with our beat up receiver corp I expect very little from our passing game in the opener this week.

The realist in me agrees with you and thinks we lean on our OL and RBs to wear down SDSU and grind out a win. However, the optimist in me hopes to see some 2 TE sets with LaPorta and Lachey to help mask some of our WR deficiencies.
Will SDSU go with a 2-high or 1-high safety against Iowa?

My guess is that Iowa will pretty heavily use twins (2-TE sets) ... and that will likely force SDSU to do something equivalent to bracketing LaPorta. My guess ... they're gonna have to spend a safety if they want to prevent LaPorta from hurting them too much.

Furthermore, you gotta figure that SDSU will also come "downhill" against the running game - aggressively flowing to the ball in order to keep our running game from gashing them. They have a proud defense ... so they're going to try to make the sledding tough for us.

However, what is all that going to do?
  • In all likelihood, we'll have a WR with a lone CB trying to contain him (if they spend a safety to deal with our TEs). Be that in man-coverage or some matching-concept ... a guy in coverage will likely get caught on an island. The odds, as they are, that WR should get open some of the time.
  • Given that the D will likely aggressively flow to the ball ... I'd look for cut-back runs to potentially have some success.
  • I expect for us to use end-arounds/jet-sweeps if the need arises ... to further catch an overaggressive D.
  • As is always the case with Iowa ... we'll have our play-action game going ... along with our QB-boots. Given the word about how we've changed some route concepts ... I wonder if we'll still use levels concepts (particularly with TEs) out of the boot.
Lastly, as I alluded to before ... if Iowa really did change facets of its route-concepts ... then SDSU will not have tape on what we've been doing. The implication being that the Iowa has a chance to "surprise" them in the passing game early on ... until they recognize the concepts and adjust accordingly.
 
The realist in me agrees with you and thinks we lean on our OL and RBs to wear down SDSU and grind out a win. However, the optimist in me hopes to see some 2 TE sets with LaPorta and Lachey to help mask some of our WR deficiencies.
For some context for everyone expecting Iowa to dominate this game and Petras to throw for 300 yards. In 2021, in the Sagarin ratings South Dakota State was 71 . In comparison, here were some of the Iowa opponents last year.

Colorado State (106). Game tied at half, Iowa wins 24-14.
Northtwestern (101). Game is a rock fight that Iowa wins 17-12.
Indiana (94). Iowa blows out Hoosiers
Illinois (76). Iowa trails 10-0, pulls away 33-16 late on strength of Campbell pick-6. Jones has a KO return for a TD also.
Kent State (108). Iowa wins 30-7.
Maryland (58). Iowa blows out Terps.

We don't know how good Iowa and the Jackrabbits will be this year. But last year, they would have been arguably better than 5 of Iowa's opponents. Several of those games were 4-quarter games.

I don't expect Iowa to look really good on offense if Johnson and Ragaini are not playing. Without those guys, you will see a ton of all 11 SDSU defenders within 7 yards of the LOS, daring Iowa to do something about it. I don't care how much improvement the running game has made, being efficient running the ball with that setup will be hard. I really hope I'm wrong on that. If so, that bodes very well for the season.
 
I would be happy to see OPEN receivers somewhere in the 10-20 yd range and have SP complete the pass. If they can do that, say 10 times in the game, I would be slightly encouraged.
 
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What would constitute a successful outing for Petras against an FCS school in game 1 and help squash concerns?

My expectation for a third year starter would be 70%+ completion, 7 to 8 yards per attempt, 250+ yards, 2TD and 0 Ints. Achieve that and I’m optimistic we could see some improvement in BIG play. Thoughts?
Good thing you don't ask for much!

😉
 
The bar can’t be much lower. 5th year senior and we’re hoping he can improve to be just an average qb. It’s almost as if he’s a true freshman making his first start.
 
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I’m guessing he will be 12-25, 165 yds, 0 tds, 0 INT. We get a defensive score, a rushing score, and 4 fgs. We all celebrate a lackluster 26-10 Hawkeye victory, and pray the next week is better.
I think this is going to be pretty close to spot on
I think game is closer tho.
 
A low drama "W" in the W/L column with 400+ yds of offensive is all I want to see ... with our D holding them to single digits and the run game looking as solid as the bowl game at the end of last year. I think LaPorta will have a big game.
 
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I’m guessing he will be 12-25, 165 yds, 0 tds, 0 INT. We get a defensive score, a rushing score, and 4 fgs. We all celebrate a lackluster 26-10 Hawkeye victory, and pray the next week is better.
this. and here's charlie jones after seeing the stat line sunday morning...

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All I want is a 130 passer rating for the season. This shouldn't be asking too much. One game is never enough to establish a bar on a season.
 
I just want no sacks, a 60+ percentage, 7+ypa, and no INTs. Don't really care about yards. If Petras has to pass for 200+ in this game, that will probably be a sign that the oline and running game hasn't improved to the extent that we had all hoped. While I hope he has improved over last year, if the offense has to rely upon Petras and this receiving corps to win games, the offense will look a lot like last year. This game is all about how that oline can handle the SDSU front 7. We need to look like NU did against UNL on Saturday. Huge holes and hard running for a ton of yards is what I'll be looking for. If they can't do it against SDSU, they won't be doing it against anyone else.
 
To clarify my expectation, I believe even an average BIG QB needs to be able to look really good against an FCS team. I think a really good stat line (and efficient day overall) should be the bare minimum expectation for a third year starter against an FCS team. Anything less is a big cause for concern and likely an indication of not much growth from the last two years. I’d argue an “average stat day” would be a bad day.
 
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