THIS is what made Sucktember '21 notably frustrating, compared to simply the general slow-start trend.
SUCKTEMBER: Matt Campbell Teams not ready to start the season.
- Thread starter Gunnerclone
- Start date
THIS is what made Sucktember '21 notably frustrating, compared to simply the general slow-start trend.
Several mentions of staff valuing player development over winning.
1. Do they need to be mutually exclusive?
2. You play to win the game ... Hello?!!
1. Do they need to be mutually exclusive?
2. You play to win the game ... Hello?!!
Ya this is not middle school football. Any college coach that writes off wins for the sake of possibly being better later should not be a college coach. You have to do both at every level of football that pays a coach more than High School coach wages.
I think our perspective on September will dramatically change when the team stops puking up the football against Iowa.
CMC would be 3-3 against them now if the TO margin wasn't so ungawdly high. It will level out.
CMC would be 3-3 against them now if the TO margin wasn't so ungawdly high. It will level out.
Depends on where the implementation of your program is but you're 100% correct.
Below are the conference records of the greatest coaches in Iowa State football history (excludes ties).
Enough said.
Enough said.
| Coach | Wins | Losses | Winning % |
| Clay Stapleton | 22 | 43 | .338 |
| Johnny Majors | 9 | 25 | .265 |
| Earl Bruce | 18 | 24 | .429 |
| Dan McCarney | 27 | 68 | .284 |
| Matt Campbell | 28 | 19 | .596 |
CycloneErik
Well-Known Member
Would have marked "winner" if we weren't talking about September.
There was definitely no excuse for it this year. No year, really, but especially this year.
The problem with the UNI/Iowa thing is it doesn't explain the 1-5 record in Big 12 openers. The reasons for this year don't explain the same problems for 6 years.
- Hall banged up and Kolar out at UNI - It's a mediocre FCS team. If another P5 team that finished top 10 and brought everybody back had their fans using their TE being out and their RB being less than being 100% as the reason to barely beat a mediocre FCS team, our fans would ridicule them.
- Downing not playing in over a year - if he plays or doesn't play, ISU had more experience coming back than you can ever expect a team to bring back.
And the excuse of "their defenses are different than we play against in fall camp" is ridiculous. First, there is not a more basic, common, defense than Iowa's. It's not vanilla like Blue Bunny vanilla, but like the old generic stuff in the black and white packaging from the 80s that said "vanilla ice cream."
The variation in defenses from one week to the next within the Big 12 is pretty significant. Yet somehow they can prep for those variations with a week turnaround. More or less every week you are facing a defense you haven't really practiced against much, if at all.
It is frustrating. Especially this year. Years passed or next year when there is a lot of new players it makes more sense. This is the year you should've hit the ground running. I wonder if part of it is just this group of players too? Maybe they just take a couple games to get in rhythm?
As frustrating as it is for us I can't imagine Campbell isn't more frustrated. I'm sure he will learn to make changes and try and get over the September hump.
As frustrating as it is for us I can't imagine Campbell isn't more frustrated. I'm sure he will learn to make changes and try and get over the September hump.
Part of the turnovers against Iowa is Manning not putting the offense in a position to have success.
1.) Playing a slow tempo game is EXACTLY what Iowa wants and he gets sucked into it every year.
2.) Keeping Brock chained to the pocket is a huge mistake and he's clearly not comfortable playing that way.
3.) Iowa is not the team we want to run the double TE plus FB stack formations. Every damn offense that has had success against Iowa spreads them out to soften their zone scheme. Don't get me wrong, Iowa has a good defense but the number of TO's they have been gift wrapped this year is insane. If we spread Iowa out and run a fairly quick tempo offense we win that game 7 times out of 10 minimum.
Your post brings up something I should have mentioned. No one should have been creating expectations based on the CoVID year. The media couldn’t help themselves though.
I don't think coach Campbell's teams will ever be good in September and I also think CMC will never ever beat Iowa, we won't ever be good enough in September to beat a good power 5 team like Iowa. Plus, I think culturally, they don't understand or get the rivalry on the same level as McCarney and Rhoads. That is fine though, I have accepted that we won't be good early on. I love having him here and winning 7 plus game a year.
I don't think I would go that far.... Hell we would have beat Iowa two years ago if it wasn't for the second delay.
Manning is too damn conservative until till its to late , Campbell needs wake him up
I think it’s a shared thing. The playbook in the first 3 games is like a one-pager. Compare that to what we did against K-State and it’s stark. We don’t actually get “multiple” until about the 4th or 5th game of the season. It shouldn’t take that long for an offense with a SR QB to be able to run in and out of tempo at will.
He's right thought. Sucktember is pathetic and I'm sick and tired of playing like sh## against Iowa.
A whole bunch of overreaction and short term / selective memory in this thread.
"CMC will NEVER beat Iowa"
"CMC will NEVER be good in September"
... man, I can't help but shake my head.
For my money, here's how I feel:
ISU has SUCKED at football for the vast majority of its existence. And guess who DOES have an answer for that. CMC. Has it come at the expense of losing a few winnable games in September... yep! But man, I would take that EVERY SINGLE DAMN TIME for what we've gotten out of it.
Do I hope he can do better going forward, absolutely! Do I think he can, absolutely!
So many things here: Fiesta bowl win, beating Texas and OU in the same year, having a coach who has a winning conference record, having a coach who's won at every venue in the B12, making it to the CCG... none of these things seemed realistic 6 years ago. NONE. And now we're ******** because we have slow starts to seasons? Man, if that's what it takes to build a program from something that as been pretty much garbage for over 100 years prior... give me that every single time.
</rant>
"CMC will NEVER beat Iowa"
"CMC will NEVER be good in September"
... man, I can't help but shake my head.
For my money, here's how I feel:
ISU has SUCKED at football for the vast majority of its existence. And guess who DOES have an answer for that. CMC. Has it come at the expense of losing a few winnable games in September... yep! But man, I would take that EVERY SINGLE DAMN TIME for what we've gotten out of it.
Do I hope he can do better going forward, absolutely! Do I think he can, absolutely!
So many things here: Fiesta bowl win, beating Texas and OU in the same year, having a coach who has a winning conference record, having a coach who's won at every venue in the B12, making it to the CCG... none of these things seemed realistic 6 years ago. NONE. And now we're ******** because we have slow starts to seasons? Man, if that's what it takes to build a program from something that as been pretty much garbage for over 100 years prior... give me that every single time.
</rant>
It’s always seemed realistic to me. A great fan base is the foundation of a successful program and we’ve always been here and been one of the best in the country.
All valid, any realistic fan embraces all of that.
I think the frustration, within the narrow concept of Sleepy September, is: How can ISU find a way to replicate those types of accomplishments and that level of play, more consistently, within the first-third/fourth of the schedule?
