Why don't we hear more about Hunter Dekkers?

I love how half of this board is just people flaming others for sharing opinions & asking questions - I'm so sorry for wanting to talk about football on the football forum during basketball season... :rolleyes:
OP: "OMG Why isn't anyone talking about this???"

CF: "Uh, because nothing is really happening in football and basketball is fun right now."

OP: "Jesus Christ, don't bite my head off - I just thought some of you ACTUALLY CARED about football, my bad."
 
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I kinda feel like the rest of y'all only read about football here...? There's no offseason. I read about college football year round. The Athletic alone has posted like half a dozen articles today. Do you guys know Iowa State is practicing football RIGHT NOW?

Offseason? OFFSEASON?
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For real though, were any of those Athletic articles about ISU? Or are they still pretty much only talking about SEC/B1G/CFP?
 
Dude was a 4-star, showed out at Elite 11, big boy, big arm, fast & athletic, he's not played a ton, but has had some big plays in mop-up duty. Why aren't people outside of Ames talking about him. I feel like if he was next man up at Texas or Oklahoma, we would be sick of hearing about him by now...

Am I missing something?
He showed glimpses, but also didn't set the world on fire the games he was actually in and actually over threw a bunch of passes. Not much for the National guys to go off of tbh.
 
He is still a bit of a mystery, since he has played so little. No doubt the kid has a cannon for an arm, and decent wheels. He had some good throws in limited action, but he also had some really bad ones. At this point it is wait and see.

As per the original poster, he had decent qualification out of HS, and if he was at OU he would be considered one of the best in the Big 12. That is just the way it is.
 
This feels a little like the transition from Meyer to Arnaud. Though obviously at a higher level. 4 years of a finesse qb that relied on timing and placement and jump balls to tall receivers, being replaced by a hyped in-state qb with a huge arm.
Hopefully Dekkers is more well prepared and put in a better position to succeed, he certainly has more skill around him. I am not going to let myself get too excited just because he's got a much stronger arm than the guy he replaced. I've seen that it doesn't always materialize.

To be clear, I hope Dekkers is our Deshaun Watson to Purdy's Taj Boyd. But I'm going to have to see something first.
 
The 'it' factor is having the confidence to thread the needle. I recall Dekker's first appearance. And comparing that to Brock's is widely different. Dekker missed an open man by a country mile. Brock seemed to have more control of his game at the beginning. That's just my opinion. Of course, I hope Dekker proves me wrong.
 
I love how half of this board is just people flaming others for sharing opinions & asking questions - I'm so sorry for wanting to talk about football on the football forum during basketball season... :rolleyes:

Here’s an idea - wanna talk about him? Talk about him. Yet instead you spent 3 posts ripping us for not talking about him when there’s nothing to talk about. Because if there was something to talk about with football, guess what - we’d be talking about it.
 
Here’s an idea - wanna talk about him? Talk about him. Yet instead you spent 3 posts ripping us for not talking about him when there’s nothing to talk about. Because if there was something to talk about with football, guess what - we’d be talking about it.
I don't mind talking about him, but there honestly isn't enough content to make any rational discussions. Kid does have a cannon for an arm, good size, decent wheels, so the tools are there. In his limited play he has thrown some nice passes and some really bad ones. On the bad ones, it could be they were bad throws, or it could be a WR broke off a route that he wasn't expecting. Until he is full time number 1 and has worked with the offense for a while it is all speculation. The coaches seem to like him, and they are usually right.
 
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I don't mind talking about him, but there honestly isn't enough content to make any rational discussions. Kid does have a cannon for an arm, good size, decent wheels, so the tools are there. In his limited play he has thrown some nice passes and some really bad ones. On the bad ones, it could be they were bad throws, or it could be a WR broke off a route that he wasn't expecting. Until he is full time number 1 and has worked with the offense for a while it is all speculation. The coaches seem to like him, and they are usually right.
This is along the lines of my own curiosity. Why no content? I was pretty stoked when we signed him - he seems like a big-time QB to me. He was at Elite 11 with some big names (among them Bryce Young & CJ Stroud), so I was just curious what others thought, or if I was missing something...
 
This is along the lines of my own curiosity. Why no content? I was pretty stoked when we signed him - he seems like a big-time QB to me. He was at Elite 11 with some big names (among them Bryce Young & CJ Stroud), so I was just curious what others thought, or if I was missing something...
I guess my disappointment is that he should have gotten into more games the last couple years. When ISU was kicking the crap out of KU or KSU he should have gotten most of the second half of those games instead of a handful of snaps. At some point you just have to trust the coaches, and they seemed to have him solidly behind Purdy at the end of last year.
 
I feel like there has been a lot of talk about dekkers. Just not much to say except what has already been said (and repeated in this thread)... Now it's just a question of what he ends up being. Does he surpass Purdy as many seam to think? Will he "just" be a solid QB? Or will he end up getting passed by another QB before the end of his career?

I think any are possible... hoping for the best. But I have said the same thing for about 3 yrs now... I really believe it will come down to the offensive line. it's just the way we play.

I am not going to say the coaches are wrong - they have won more at ISU than any staff in the modern era. That said, they are very conservative. We have to win the line of scrimmage on both sides of the ball in order to be successful. Dekkers may provide some big plays and fun moments we have not seen much of since Purdy/Butler. But, I don't see this staff tossing the keys to Dekkers and asking him to win games with big plays... 3rd and 10? draw play for 4 yrds and a punt.

Hate playing not to lose.... but i will just have to accept that is who we are. At the end of the day we are winning a lot more than we have in the past... so that is what is most important.
 
I feel like there has been a lot of talk about dekkers. Just not much to say except what has already been said (and repeated in this thread)... Now it's just a question of what he ends up being. Does he surpass Purdy as many seam to think? Will he "just" be a solid QB? Or will he end up getting passed by another QB before the end of his career?

I think any are possible... hoping for the best. But I have said the same thing for about 3 yrs now... I really believe it will come down to the offensive line. it's just the way we play.

I am not going to say the coaches are wrong - they have won more at ISU than any staff in the modern era. That said, they are very conservative. We have to win the line of scrimmage on both sides of the ball in order to be successful. Dekkers may provide some big plays and fun moments we have not seen much of since Purdy/Butler. But, I don't see this staff tossing the keys to Dekkers and asking him to win games with big plays... 3rd and 10? draw play for 4 yrds and a punt.

Hate playing not to lose.... but i will just have to accept that is who we are. At the end of the day we are winning a lot more than we have in the past... so that is what is most important.
Do you think his size would have been an advantage if he played behind the O-Lines that Purdy played behind - he's listed at 6'3" & Purdy is listed at 6'1", but he looks way more than 2" taller than Purdy
 
Do you think his size would have been an advantage if he played behind the O-Lines that Purdy played behind - he's listed at 6'3" & Purdy is listed at 6'1", but he looks way more than 2" taller than Purdy

When I say o-line, i really mean ability to dominate the LOS and run at will. Hall was great. But we didn't dominate the LOS in many games. He had some great runs and we were adequate up front. But we still do not have a single OL in the NFL from the CMC era (hope that changes with some of the guys on the roster now). If we are going to play b10 style football you need to crank out o-linemen like wisconsin and others...

I think of the last 2 uni games... they basically sold out to stop the run and we were not able to move the ball down the field. We would stubbornly run Hall over and over and we were not able to push them around. Also, throughout the season, it was almost always a terrible sign when ISU would run out 6 OL and 2-3 TEs and line up to run the ball... the def knew what was coming, would sell out to stop it and we had no success. we also never ran the fake and threw it in those situations. the o-line is fine. But it is not great. You need to be great if you are going to play the way they do...

To your question: I do think it will help him to be a little taller / bigger in terms of being able to stay in the pocket and make throws... But it will come down to his ability to read, react, and throw accurately. If he is able to hit receivers in rhythm from the pocket better than Purdy it could help the quick passing game. But that will depend more on his ability to read defenses and get through his progression quickly if his first read was wrong. I think this is key for any qb but i don't think our offense is a good fit for a johnny manziel style qb. our coaches want you to go our play within the offense. I think you could argue Purdy's best year was when he was just playing loose tossing it to Butler when nothing else was open. it was much harder when he had to read the def, play within the offense.
 
When I say o-line, i really mean ability to dominate the LOS and run at will. Hall was great. But we didn't dominate the LOS in many games. He had some great runs and we were adequate up front. But we still do not have a single OL in the NFL from the CMC era (hope that changes with some of the guys on the roster now). If we are going to play b10 style football you need to crank out o-linemen like wisconsin and others...

I think of the last 2 uni games... they basically sold out to stop the run and we were not able to move the ball down the field. We would stubbornly run Hall over and over and we were not able to push them around. Also, throughout the season, it was almost always a terrible sign when ISU would run out 6 OL and 2-3 TEs and line up to run the ball... the def knew what was coming, would sell out to stop it and we had no success. we also never ran the fake and threw it in those situations. the o-line is fine. But it is not great. You need to be great if you are going to play the way they do...

To your question: I do think it will help him to be a little taller / bigger in terms of being able to stay in the pocket and make throws... But it will come down to his ability to read, react, and throw accurately. If he is able to hit receivers in rhythm from the pocket better than Purdy it could help the quick passing game. But that will depend more on his ability to read defenses and get through his progression quickly if his first read was wrong. I think this is key for any qb but i don't think our offense is a good fit for a johnny manziel style qb. our coaches want you to go our play within the offense. I think you could argue Purdy's best year was when he was just playing loose tossing it to Butler when nothing else was open. it was much harder when he had to read the def, play within the offense.
I suppose it will depend on the abilities of Dekkers & the O-Line, but I wonder if the staff want to go to a more pro-style offense & more under-center stuff. The first time Purdy went under-center in 2020, my heart about leapt out of my chest.
 
I think of the last 2 uni games... they basically sold out to stop the run and we were not able to move the ball down the field. We would stubbornly run Hall over and over and we were not able to push them around. Also, throughout the season, it was almost always a terrible sign when ISU would run out 6 OL and 2-3 TEs and line up to run the ball... the def knew what was coming, would sell out to stop it and we had no success. we also never ran the fake and threw it in those situations. the o-line is fine. But it is not great. You need to be great if you are going to play the way they do...

It wasn't just UNI. Okie State sold out to stop the run - most teams did. Brock was a great Cyclone but most teams knew they could stack the box against and not have their safeties more than 8 yards back from LOS because we lacked a great down field threat or the threat of a QB to push the ball vertically consistently. Many different pieces to that - not having a great vertical receiver, arm strength, scheme, etc... but most teams we played tried to sell out to the stop the run and play in a 10 -12 yard box. Didn't always matter the formation either. Certainly going ever tipped our hand, yes, but we just either because of scheme or personnel or both developed an ability to threaten oppsing DC's and their defenses to not crowd the LOS.


That's the main thing I think Dekkers has - the size is nice. He does need to work on his short to intermediate accuraccy howver... but the way the ball comes out of his hand on the deeper and more pure arm strength throws (deep outs, throwing across the field) etc. is an added ingredient that MIGHT encourage opposing defenses to not be quite as tight to the box which, in theory, allows for an easier job for the offensive linemen because they can stay on double teams longer and have an easier time identifying whose who in the box and whose responsibility and all that jazz.



But more than anything IMO it falls on Manning. He has got to be better at finding different plans and adapting to what the defense is doing rather than beating his head against the wall and hope either that our QB makes a great play or our running back does ot X etc...
 
An aside - Weekly Spiral is currently working on a guide to 13-Personnel that will appear in their Coaching Concepts section soon - thought some of you may be interested - hopefully Manning will be reading ;)

 

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