Ben Bruns KU Game Recap on Iowa Everywhere

[quasistellar]

You’re obviously a youngster who doesn’t remember (recently) Mevis, Owens and Shaggy. Assalley was good, not great. Historically we’ve had Kohl, Shudak, Netten, Stewart and many others. That’s only place kickers. Punters creates another long list of talented folk.

We've had decent kickers, but people only remember the couple key missed FGs that would have gotten us to champ games, and assume our kickers sucked. They were at worst average for FBS college place-kickers.

The punting the previous two years (did the australian guy punt in the covid year? I forget) was unbelievably bad, though, until Mevis took over. It was fine before that.

Our kicking GAME has been god-awful in the CMC era. Coverage, returns, blocking, etc. 90% of that is not the kicker's fault

 

[AuH2O]

Agree, our running attack originates almost 100% of the time at the mesh point. Nothing to mess with opponents eyes. Would love to see some jet sweeps, reverses to get a speedy WR the ball in misdirection.

After watching Dekkers for 5 games, really starting to wonder if he is athletic enough to be an RPO QB. Question his speed and decision making at the mesh point. Seems like he decides to run ahead of time.

With our OL, they just look slow and not great feet. But it always seems like they struggle the first part of the season. Better get things figures out the next couple weeks.

You can run perfectly good RPO that is really difficult to defend with zero athleticism from the QB spot. Most of ISUs RPO success with Purdy were pass/give reads. Ask anyone that coaches defense. If your QB (like Purdy) was good at running the RPO, an offense should run the hell out of it.

I'm sure there are plenty of teams that run a true triple option (pass/give/QB run), but most run an RPO as either a give or pull and hit a receiver, or a more traditional read option (give/QB run).

I wouldn't really classify an option between pass and QB run as "RPO." I would say that is just really running a pass play with limited route reads. For example, Texas with Vince Young - they would have 3-4 receivers on routes, but he was typically checking if his primary was open, and if not, he was running.

 

[Klubber]

We have some younger reserves in the O line pipline like Brady Peterson, James Neal (juco), Tyler Maro, and others.

I wonder if we don't try some new combinations. What we have now isn't working well. Perhaps some different guys deserve a shot.

O-line was awful Sat. All KU did was line up unbalanced on the D-line and then stunt/blitz to the short side. They had guys in our backfield often.

It seemed we never really adjusted and had guys getting beat all game. Even Downing looked bad numerous times.

This needs to get fixed because everyone else is going to copy what KU did on D.

 

[BWRhasnoAC]

Them running cover 4 is why I kept saying run the ball. If you can't you don't deserve to win. They only had 7 in the box. Pathetic outing from the Oline. Them playing musical chairs is a really bad sign.

 

[CYEATHAWK]

Isn't BF typically on CoCaine?

Something. And Saturday so I thought so did our offense.

But hey look.........I received a disagree and dumb for that post.

For turd's sake people, lighten up. Try and add a little levity to the conversation and all of a sudden there are wedgie's riding high.

If anyone thinks 11 points against that defense isn't an utter failure then they need to take off their rose colored glasses. One doesn't need "credentials" to see that.

No one is asking for CMC to be kicked to the curb. There is a thread about Manning......personally I can wait until the end of the year to voice an opinion on that.

The guys pinched a loaf in Lawrence. It is what it is. Leave it there, clean things up and hope the same things don't happen this weekend because if they do.........ISU will be 0-3.

 

[CascadeClone]

O-line was awful Sat. All KU did was line up unbalanced on the D-line and then stunt/blitz to the short side. They had guys in our backfield often.

It seemed we never really adjusted and had guys getting beat all game. Even Downing looked bad numerous times.

This needs to get fixed because everyone else is going to copy what KU did on D.

Shouldn't we have been able to run it up the middle better against that kind of DL setup?? I'd have to go back and rewatch, but it seems like we ran more off tackle, where the maximum disruption from the DL was. Were we afraid to give the ball to Silas and Sanders more?

 

[AppleCornCy]

Sacks counting against rushing yards leads to these takes. Not that Silas and Sanders covered themselves in glory, but they had 50 yards combined, not single digits. Its more that Dekkers had -21 with sacks that makes us look terrible.

I don’t think it was really all that misleading. Take out the sacks and the bad snap and we got 47 yards on the ground from the RB position. Jihrel got 8 of those on his one carry, or about 17%. That may be significantly less than half, but no RB who only has one carry for 8 yards should have 17% of your rushing output. Silas and Sanders combined for 39 yards on 20 carries.

Maybe Kansas holds Brock in check if he doesn’t get hurt, but I bet we still would have had significantly better numbers. Brock is also our best RB in pass protection and not having him contributed to giving up five sacks.

I think it’s a whole different game if Brock doesn’t get hurt.

 

[quasistellar]

I don’t think it was really all that misleading. Take out the sacks and the bad snap and we got 47 yards on the ground from the RB position. Jihrel got 8 of those on his one carry, or about 17%. That may be significantly less than half, but no RB who only has one carry for 8 yards should have 17% of your rushing output. Silas and Sanders combined for 39 yards on 20 carries.

Maybe Kansas holds Brock in check if he doesn’t get hurt, but I bet we still would have had significantly better numbers. Brock is also our best RB in pass protection and not having him contributed to giving up five sacks.

I think it’s a whole different game if Brock doesn’t get hurt.

I think we might win, but it would still look like ****. Brock being out just helped expose the more pressing issues with the offense (which have been there for years, really, and covered up by great RBs).

 

[Gunnerclone]

Them running cover 4 is why I kept saying run the ball. If you can't you don't deserve to win. They only had 7 in the box. Pathetic outing from the Oline. Them playing musical chairs is a really bad sign.

Someone help me out…did we do the old sliding tackles to Guard and left guard to right tackle and right tackle to left Guard and right guard to left guard and etc etc again???

 

[cyfan92]

TE play has fallen off a cliff.. That doesn't help this horrific line either.

I'd love to see Sanders and Silas used in the passing game going forward. Send the WR's deep and let Sanders and Silas go 1 on 1 versus LB's to the sideline. Sanders will definitely win that battle more times than not

 

[PSYclone22]

This all seems really complicated. If we make just two high percentage FG’s and we win the game. End of story. Hell, if we make just ONE high % look FG we might win the game in OT.

Games like this happen, where the opponent has their game plan dialed in. You better have a LEGIT kicker. We NEVER have a legit kicker.

Our kickers have been so bad that one got a chance in camp with an NFL team (let's not discuss that outcome).

 

[Cyinthenorth]

I just re-watched some "highlights". Our o-line is getting ******* annihilated on several plays--even run plays. It looked worse in replays than it did in real time.

Maybe 1-2 sacks could have been avoided by Dekkers himself with a little better movement in the pocket.

The running game wasn't garbage because we lost Brock. It was garbage due to the plays called and the blocking.

2 things can be true at the same time; our running game struggled because we were without a real solid RB1 option. Silas is too small for more than maybe 5 touches a game, and Sanders is better in space where he can utilize his one true asset, his straight line speed. Silas is shifty, and powerful for his size, but not an every down player. With Sanders, I just haven't been impressed with his ability to do, well, much of anything. He's just fast. He doesn't seem to be elusive, doesn't seem to have good vision, and doesn't break tackles. I think Sanders has potential to improve, Silas probably is what he is which is limited due to his stature unfortunately.

 

[BWRhasnoAC]

Someone help me out…did we do the old sliding tackles to Guard and left guard to right tackle and right tackle to left Guard and right guard to left guard and etc etc again???

We started swapping out to see who didn't suck. Even Simmons got taken out.

 

[madguy30]

Shouldn't we have been able to run it up the middle better against that kind of DL setup?? I'd have to go back and rewatch, but it seems like we ran more off tackle, where the maximum disruption from the DL was. Were we afraid to give the ball to Silas and Sanders more?

I could have sworn more direct, inside runs at least generated some movement, could have had a chance to start to get more going, maybe get their Dline to soften a bit.

 

[CyJack13]

You’re obviously a youngster who doesn’t remember (recently) Mevis, Owens and Shaggy. Assalley was good, not great. Historically we’ve had Kohl, Shudak, Netten, Stewart and many others. That’s only place kickers. Punters creates another long list of talented folk.

Culbertson never hit over 80% of his field goals in any season and made 56% as a senior. That's a very loose definition of great to include him. Netten had one great year out of four. Owens 17/22, good not great.

 

[jdolson27]

so was he basically saying that since they were in a cover 4, we couldn't do anything about it? Can't roll the QB out with some run pass options? No bootlegs? Our run game struggled, but we run basically one play that is slow developing. No option, no mis direction, no quick hitters, no stretch play to take advantage of cutback lanes.

Manning plays checkers and gets double jumped on every move. He doesn’t make the defense adjust to anything. It’s never a guessing game what’s coming next.

 

[Cyfan1965]

This game should be a two word review ala shark sandwich

 

[AuH2O]

O-line was awful Sat. All KU did was line up unbalanced on the D-line and then stunt/blitz to the short side. They had guys in our backfield often.

It seemed we never really adjusted and had guys getting beat all game. Even Downing looked bad numerous times.

This needs to get fixed because everyone else is going to copy what KU did on D.

Yards per play vs. KU so far this year:

Houston 6.4
Duke 6.5
West Virginia 6.6
ISU 3.8
Tennessee Tech 2.7

If you want a comparison ISU was pretty dominant against Ohio and gave up 3.4 ypp.

It sure looks like everybody else in the league is going to light that KU defense up.

And somehow we went from everybody loving our RB unit to basically saying losing Brock is the excuse for getting outrushed by Tennessee Tech. I like Norton too, but the guy has like 21 yards against an FCS opponent, so it's not like we really know much.

 

[Big_Sill]

I suspect Brock going down may have hurt us more in the passing game than the running game. Brock has to be our best pass protection and check down back. I didn't see a lot of holes for any running backs.

 

[BWRhasnoAC]

Yards per play vs. KU so far this year:

Houston 6.4
Duke 6.5
West Virginia 6.6
ISU 3.8
Tennessee Tech 2.7

If you want a comparison ISU was pretty dominant against Ohio and gave up 3.4 ypp.

It sure looks like everybody else in the league is going to light that KU defense up.

And somehow we went from everybody loving our RB unit to basically saying losing Brock is the excuse for getting outrushed by Tennessee Tech. I like Norton too, but the guy has like 21 yards against an FCS opponent, so it's not like we really know much.

I didn't watch the game to grade the Oline specifically but we looked clueless against the twist. One play Downing and Silas ran into each other trying to pick up a delayed twist rush from their middle. Horrible performance from the oline.