• Poll Poll
Wednesday OT - Thanksgiving Power Rankings

Best Thanksgiving Food

  • Turkey

    Votes: 11 9.9%
  • Mashed Potatoes

    Votes: 19 17.1%
  • Scalloped Corn/Corn Casserole

    Votes: 5 4.5%
  • Yams/Scalloped Potatoes

    Votes: 1 0.9%
  • Stuffing/Dressing

    Votes: 34 30.6%
  • Bread/Rolls

    Votes: 2 1.8%
  • Green Bean Casserole

    Votes: 13 11.7%
  • Pumpkin Pie

    Votes: 7 6.3%
  • F***ing Pecan Pie

    Votes: 15 13.5%
  • Macaroni and Cheese

    Votes: 4 3.6%

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!

Thanksgiving specialties

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.

Don't Expect Many If Any Changes In Offense

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.

Stanley, Vaughn & Lee Back for 2023

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.

Google Earth Update; Alien Activity in Ames?

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)
ABEC143F-AD95-4687-958D-2D7DF7E35594.jpg72FF6F47-FBD5-4D67-80FA-C7851C7A083A.jpg

  • Poll Poll
Jeff Woody hopes we lose to TCU on Saturday

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

  • Yes, I want TCU to beat Iowa State to increase their odds of making CFP

    Votes: 125 30.3%
  • No, to hell with TCU and the Big 12, Go State!

    Votes: 287 69.7%

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?

After some research, I've come around on Dekkers

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.

4th & Short Analysis

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.

Pac 12 MBB is a trainwreck

Checked scores while on lunch break today and saw that the Pac 12 dropped another buy game. The amount of bad losses theyve accumulated is insane. We're just under 3 weeks into the season and they've lost 11 buy games, campus games in tournaments, and challenge games against the Swac. That's at a rate of one horrible loss almost every other day.

Heres our scorecard. Games in bold are double digit losses.

Arizona
Arizona State - Texas Southern
Cal - UC Davis, UC San Diego, Southern
Colorado - Grambling,
Oregon - UC Irvine
Oregon State - Portland State
Stanford
UCLA
USC - Florida Gulf Coast
Utah - Sam Houston State
Washington - Cal Baptist
Washington State - Prairie View A&M

Arizona, UCLA, and surprisingly Stanford are the only teams here without a bad loss. Over half of these are by double digits. There were many, many, many close calls in there too I could have listed and didnt. What a mess

Big12 Coaching Staff Comparison

I was interested to see the breakdown of all the Big12 coaching staffs. I found this: https://www.heartlandcollegesports.com/2022/02/04/2021-big-12-football-coaching-tracker/

I only looked at Offense and ST as I don't think we need to do anything to our defense. A couple observations.

  • The only teams without a dedicated ST coordinator are ISU, K-State (I was surprised by this), OU, and OK-State. Not sure if there is a good way to rank STs and see if there is any correlation here. Maybe it doesn't matter because at the end of the day our STs suck and have for awhile so we need to do something different.
  • Tom Manning and the KU OC are the only OCs that don't also coach a position group (looks like typically OCs are coaching QBs which makes sense)

I really think we need an OC that takes a position group as well and not sure we need a dedicated TE coach. Open up a spot to grab a ST coordinator. That also takes all the ST work off the other coaches so they can focus on their position group.

Took the time to look through this so figured I would share.

***#7 Iowa State vs. Columbia (Sunday, 11 a.m.)***

Who: No. 7 Iowa State (3-0, 0-0 Big 12) vs. Columbia (3-1, 0-0 Ivy League)
Where: Hilton Coliseum (14,267) – Ames, Iowa
When: Sunday, Nov. 20, 2022 – 11 a.m.
PURCHASE TICKETS

The Links
WATCH: Big 12 Now on ESPN+
PxP: B.J. Schaben Analyst: Molly Parrott

LISTEN: Cyclone Radio Network – Varsity App or Radio Affiliates
PxP: Noah Wolf Analyst: Jamie Steyer Johnson

LIVE STATS

IOWA STATE GAME NOTES (PDF) | COLUMBIA GAME NOTES (PDF)

PROJECTED STARTERS
IOWA STATE​
COLUMBIA​
F/C - 10 Soares (6-6 SR); 15.3 ppg, 8.3 rpgF - 12 Pratt (6-1 SR); 14.5 ppg, 6.5 rpg
G/F - 24 Joens (6-1 SR); 23.0 ppg, 11.7 rpgG/F - 4 Davis (6-0 SR); 14.8 ppg, 9.5 rpg
G - 3 Fritz (5-11 FR*); 8.0 ppg, 6.3 rpgG - 5 Patrick (5-10 SR); 9.3 ppg, 5.8 rpg
G - 21 Donarski (6-0 JR); 14.0 ppg, 3.0 rpg, 4.0 apgG - 35 Hsu (5-11 JR); 14.3 ppg, 2.8 rpg
G - 11 Ryan (5-11 JR); 13.0 ppg, 5.3 apgG - 10 Henderson (5-10 SO); 12.0 ppg, 3.8 apg


COLUMBIA 2021-22 RECAP, QUICK HITTERS
*Abbey Hsu led the Ivy League and ranked Top 5 nationally in 3-point makes (108), makes per game (3.38) and attempts (288). Her percentage (.375) from the outside ranked No. 62 in the NCAA.
*Hsu ranked No. 3 in the Ivy League and just outside the Top 100 nationally in scoring (16.4 ppg)
*Kaitlyn Davis ranked top 100 nationally in rebounds (267) and field goal percentage (.477).
*Davis ranked No. 10 in the Ivies in scoring (13.1), No. 3 in rebounding (8.4), No. 3 in field goal percentage (.477), No. 4 in blocks (1.3), No. 9 in steals (1.6) and No. 9 in assists (2.5).
*Columbia had four of the Ivy League's Top 25 in scoring (Hsu, Davis, Patrick, Henderson).
*Columbia boasted five of the league's Top 25 in rebounding (Davis, Patrick, Hsu, Henderson, Pratt).
*Columbia also ranked No. 21 nationally in assists per game (16.3) and Top 50 in total assists (521), field goal defense (.366), total rebounds (1,353), 3-point field goals per game (7.7), 3-pointers attempted (787), 3-pointers made (246) and overall winning percentage (.781).

  • Poll Poll
What changes do you hope we see next year

What changes need to be made next year?

  • Tom Manning Fired

  • Tom Manning Demoted

  • Joel Gordon Fired(QB Coach)

  • Jeff Meyers Fired(OL Coach)

  • Special Teams Coordinator Hired

  • Jake Waters Fired(Quality Control of Offense Coach/Analyst)

  • Hunter Dekkers Benched

  • Transfer Portal skill position player upgrades (QB,TE,WR,RB)

  • Transfer Portal OL brought in

  • Something I didn't mention(Please share below)


Results are only viewable after voting.

Alright well, season is over after next week. Time to set our sights ahead. What changes do you think we need to make? Fire away

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