Last full week slate.

Egg Bowl should be pretty good tonight.

Enjoy:

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My picks for the tournaments this weekend in Portland.

LOVE THIS GUY!

He's like a McKay, Dendy, Cato mix.

He's playing like what I thought (to bring up another player) Cam Lard would be capable of.

The family and I will be headed to game on Saturday. Yes we have rain gear for everyone. Are there any dos and donts from previous experience?

I heard they have a Frog ally kids area for pregame. Any other cyclones headed down?

Go State!

After the recent first snowfall of the season in Iowa we thought an appropriate topic for OTN would be songs including the words "Slip" or "Slide" in the title or lyrics.

Since that seemed a bit light for results we decided to add the word "Fall," BUT ONLY WHEN USED IN THE NON-SEASONAL way. In other words, if the mention is about the Autumn/Fall season it does NOT count. Only the usage of fall when it denotes something or someone taking a tumble - or similar.

Variations such as Fell and Fallen are allowed, too.

And this weekly reminder: The OTN team consists of @cyclones500, @CycloneRulzzz and me.

Last week's OTN, Power to the People can be found here:

https://cyclonefanatic.com/forum/threads/on-that-note-power-to-the-people.275270/

*******

My First Five:

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Time for this again as the season ends. Probably wont use this as a tracker thread as there's so many dudes, but if someone else wants to start one go for it.

Opening the thread with a WR piece I dont know a ton on but is someone we could probably use

UPDATE: The transfer rules for this season are that the transfer window opens on December 5th. Grad transfers can jump in whenever they want to. For football the windows are:

Transfer Window 1: December 5th - January 19th
Transfer Window 2: May 1st - May 15th

Hope that helps everyone make sense of all of this


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Seems like it makes sense to have a thread designated to wrestling Twitter and news outside of our Cyclones. Plenty of stuff always going on.

Who: No. 5 Iowa State (4-0, 0-0 Big 12) vs. Michigan State (6-0, 0-0 Big Ten)
Where: Chiles Center – Portland, Oregon
When: Thursday, Nov. 24, 2022 – 6:30 p.m.

The Links
WATCH: ESPNU
PxP: Pam Ward
Analyst: Christy Thomaskutty

LISTEN: Cyclone Radio Network – Varsity App or Radio Affiliates
PxP: Noah Wolf
Analyst: Lyndsey Fennelly

LIVE STATS

IOWA STATE GAME NOTES (PDF) | MICHIGAN STATE PREVIEW

TOURNAMENT SCHEDULE
Thursday, 4:00 CT - North Carolina vs Oregon (ESPNU)
Thursday, 6:30 CT - Iowa State vs Michigan State (ESPNU)
Sunday, 12:00 CT - 3rd place (ESPN2)
Sunday, 6:30 CT - Championship (ESPN2)

PROJECTED LINEUPS

vs



IOWA STATE (3-0, 0-0 BIG 12)
Villanova (2-2, 0-0 Big East)
THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 24TH 2:30 P.M. CST
Moda Center / Portland, Ore.


TV: ESPN2
Talent: Kevin Brown, pxp Robbie Hummel, analyst

Radio: Cyclone Radio Network (Varsity Network)
CRN Talent: Chris Williams, pxp Derrin Hansen, analyst

Final home match this season. Will honor seniors afterward.
Decent crowd considering it’s the night before Thanksgiving.

I gathered the statistics on the most popular Thanksgiving goods. What is your favorite? There can only be one.

write in your reasoning below, and why scalloped corn is the right answer!

What is your best contribution to your Thanksgiving celebration?

Is it a particular dish that you make very well?
Is it a specific drink?
Do you set the table better than anyone else?
Or do you best contribute by staying out of the way, eating too much, and passing out watching football?

In our house, I do most of the cooking. And on Thanksgiving one of the dishes I like to make is mashed potatoes. I don't have a standard recipe, and instead will try different things. I've done mashed, skin on, red potatoes with boursin. I've done traditional russets with butter and cream. This year, l'm trying a method suggested by a friend of mine who went to culinary school, using Yukon Gold potatoes, putting them through a ricer and whisking in what seems to be an insane amount of cold butter, while over a double boiler. The end result is supposed to be spectacular, but we'll see.

Here are some quotes from a DM Register article today from CMC regarding the offense:

"With Iowa State last in the Big 12 most statistical categories and ranked 110th nationally in scoring, there’s a natural inclination to wonder if something is structurally or philosophically wrong with the Cyclones’ offense.

That, though, is not what coach Matt Campbell says he sees when he watches film of his team.

“With that, you see inept, an inability to function,” Campbell said of a hypothetical fundamentally flawed group. “Those aren’t our issues. Where we’re at offensively, it’s been the inconsistency.”

"“It’s not the call. It’s not the play. They are all there,” Campbell said. “It’s the execution of it. Those are things that continue to lead to inconsistency. That’s the hard thing about it and the frustrating thing about it.

Even has the players spouting the exact same thing. Per Noel - "“It wasn’t the play call. It was just us executing the play, being able to pick up the right blocks and do our right assignments to be able to execute that play.” Also - "“Knowing that it’s the execution part, knowing that it’s something we can fix and hold ourselves accountable for is in a way a good thing because we know we can go back and fix it.”

CMC is doubling/tripling down on his offense and play-calling. Given this, I expect to see little change for next year (staff, offense plays, scoring, and ultimately record). I guess he has now watched the tape and has decided it is not his system that is at fault. Unsurprising to say the least.

I hadn't seen this posted. Coach Campbell mentioned in his presser that Stanley, Lee and Vaughn are coming back. Sounds like none of the three went through senior day ceremonies.

IMO those are 3 solid players, to take their Covid year. Hoping Stanley can make a big jump with another off-season in our system.

Also our d-line could be really solid with Lee, Singleton, Orange, Anderson & Onyedim returning.

I was reviewing the recent Google earth update of Ames. I discovered some crop circles and a floating object between Izaak Walton and East River Valley Park. Pictures attached.

Other things of note:
Jack Trice looks way nicer
My backyard looks like crap thanks to my dogs
Ames is roughly 27 square miles (city limits)
Gilbert has not had an update (still shows HS under construction)

For the sake of conference integrity moving forward, based on the most recent FARTcast. He mentioned that it would be good for the Big 12 to have someone other than Oklahoma make the CFP, to prove that moving forward, the conference is a still a serious contender without the two big dogs to prop us up.

What say you? Do you agree with Jeff, or are you a loyal son forever true?

Currently ranked 1st in the Big 12 in passing yards, completion %, completions in general, and somehow tied for 2nd in TDs despite playing in the conferences worst offense. Yes, he also leads the conference in sacks taken and INT. But I have been overly critical of him down the stretch, to the point where I've wanted the staff to roll the dice with someone else behind center in what has been ultimately a lost season.

Say what you will about some of the intangible stuff, the poor reads, the turnovers, hanging on to the ball too long etc. The tangible stuff is good enough to work with and build off for next season and beyond. The offensive staff is doing him a disservice, in my opinion. Why we ever run the ball inside the 10 yard line is insane with a QB like Dekker's arm. The fact that we haven't scored more points with Dekkers gaudy yardage and completion numbers is a huge indictment of the offensive coaching staff.

I am making this thread basically to say, I have come around on accepting Dekkers as ISU's guy moving forward. It has been a frustrating season and I have been pointing blame around everywhere, but moving forward, I won't be pointing my finger at Dekkers anymore. The kid has been decent to good all season long, with a few moments of great sprinkled in.

I wanted to go back and objectively see what we've been doing on 4th downs where the QB sneak was a legitimate options this year. I went through the play-by-play for all 11 games so far this season and looked at every 4th down where the distance to convert was 3 yards or less. There were several 4th Downs with 4 to 6 yards to go that we attempted, but since those are too far for a QB sneak I didn't include them. I threw out everything where we punted or attempted a FG. That left 15 plays on the season. Two of those were penalties, which I threw out:

• Texas: Q1 on our own 30, 4th & 1, Delay of Game - probably did it for field position on a punt, but don't know for sure just from play-by-play
• Texas: Q2 on our own 37, 4th & 2, False Start - obviously intended to go for it

We also had two 4th & Shorts against non-con opponents, which I also threw out due to an assumed talent difference making a big impact. Both were passes out of the shotgun and converted FWIW.

So that left 11 4th & Short plays, in conference, that either converted or failed:

• Baylor, Q1 on their 2, 4th & Goal: Shotgun Pass that Converted
• Kansas, Q4 on their 49, 4th & 1: Shotgun Rush that Failed (Silas)
• Texas, Q4 on our 33, 4th & 2: Shotgun Pass that Converted
• OU, Q1 on our 47, 4th & 1: Shotgun Rush that Failed (Norton)
• OU, Q4 on their 20, 4th & 3: Shotgun Pass that Converted
• OU, Q4 on their 3, 4th & 1: Shotgun Pass that Failed
• WVU, Q3 on their 23, 4th & 1: Under Center Rush that Converted (Dekkers)
• OSU, Q4 on our 25, 4th & 1: Shotgun Rush that Failed (Dekkers)
• TTech, Q3 on their 2, 4th & 1: Under Center Rush that Failed (Silas)
• Ttech, Q3 on their 2, 4th & Goal: Shotgun Pass that Failed (Dekkers sack)
• Ttech, Q4 on their 28, 4th & 1: Under Center Rush that Converted (Dekkers)

I didn't figure there'd be enough samples to say anything about effectiveness, but I ran a Chi-Sq anyway. We never went Under Center and Passed the ball, but when we Passed out of Shotgun we converted 3 of 5 attempts (60%). However when we Rushed, we were 0 for 3 out of Shotgun (0%) and 2 for 3 from Under Center (67%). Even with only 3 samples of each that's enough to say there is a statistically significant difference at the 90% Significance Level.

One other thing that stuck out at me, though I didn't record it, was the number of times we called a timeout on 4th & Short. I'd guess about half the time we went for it and half the time we didn't. But to me that indicates we're not sure what we want to do as the game goes along. We should be thinking about how we'll approach 4th down as we line up on 3rd down, and then depending on the result it's a "simple" go/no-go. If we're calling timeouts a lot on our own 4th down plays, then we're not thinking far enough ahead IMO. Many times we'd call a timeout on 4th down and just end up punting or kicking a FG anyway. That feels like a wasted timeout.

Just got out of the theater seeing this. What a trip! Funny, clever as hell, terrifying. We thought it looked really good and it was better than expected. Better half said 'best movie I've seen all year' when the credits rolled. Fiennes is so so so funny and doesn't get enough credit for that.

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DraftKings has released some early numbers:

TCU 11.5 favorite over Cyclones

Iowa 10 point favorite over Nebraska

Here are a few others:

Seeds & Bracket were just released: