Just watched Seneca Wallace on Facebook Live. What an amazing player! So then I had to go to youtube and watch some of the clips including the Heisman promo and of course "The Run". Got me thinking what happened to that 2002 team? Why the disappointing finish after that great 7-1 start and being ranked 9th in the AP?
Seneca
- Thread starter DrClone
- Start date
D Coordinators realized all you had to do was force Seneca to throw in order to shut him down... Oklahoma nightmare game wrote the book on how to beat that ISU team. It's a shame Seneca couldn't win at least 1 of the two ****** bowl games he went to.
Ummmm excuse me.... Don't you mean 8-0 start???? 
Not to disagree but I still don't understand. Those first 8 games he was a very accurate passer and with his speed when the pass wasn't there he could always make it happen with the run.
Who knows what happened? We ran into a real team in Oklahoma. Didn't have the depth as the season went on due to injuries and attrition, as per usual. He played for years in the NFL and he actually won games as a back up. I think he had a positive record as a starter, but I could be all wet.
Edit: For your viewing pleasure.
we couldn't run the ball the second half of the year but it was also against the top teams in the league all on the road and imo Seneca tried to do too much and began to force throws leading to multiple ints in the last few games. Uconn loss at home to end the year was so depressing. Losing to Boise wasn't much better. The first half of the year was unbelievable tho. Iowa St ranked #9. Unreal.
The **** schedule caught up with us. I believe to this day that if the schedule was in a different order such as Texas and Colorado before OU we would have won those games especially the Texas one. We got fisted on that 1st down in Austin. **** those guys. The OU debacle was pathetic. It went from bad to worst from the opening kickoff. The Kstate game was just as bad. It seemed like those team poured it on from the get go with poor play by us helping them out.
Seneca was that entire offense. I'd say going 7-6 regular season (possibly 8-5 if there was instant replay vs FSU) and the offense putting up 29 ppg is pretty damn good. Especially considering that the 2003 team returned all the skill players (Michael Wagner, Lane Danielsen, Jack Whitver, Jamaal Montgomery, Lance Young) but ended up going 2-10 and was 116th of 117 teams in points per game at 14.4. Fairly safe to say Seneca has the highest WAR in ISU QB history.
I thought Oklahoma also did a lot more with a spy back on Seneca and more with blitzes off the edge in an attempt to keep him contained.
I still remember being in the stands for "the run" screaming for him to throw it away once he was scrambling deep into the backfield then going bonkers celebrating the miraculous TD.
Probably one of the other plays in Cyclone FB history that got me that worked up was another game I was at when Billups taking a punt back for a TD filling in for JJ Moses who got injured during the 2000 Insight.com bowl game:
I'm hoping that we are on the verge of making some new long lasting memories with this current coaching staff and group of players as I still have a soft spot for the McCarney days when we were competitive. Would love to find a way to get Dan more involved with the program in some capacity as he's so positive and motivating and really got the most out of some guys that were little known during recruiting.
Probably one of the other plays in Cyclone FB history that got me that worked up was another game I was at when Billups taking a punt back for a TD filling in for JJ Moses who got injured during the 2000 Insight.com bowl game:
I'm hoping that we are on the verge of making some new long lasting memories with this current coaching staff and group of players as I still have a soft spot for the McCarney days when we were competitive. Would love to find a way to get Dan more involved with the program in some capacity as he's so positive and motivating and really got the most out of some guys that were little known during recruiting.
I still remember that OU game. At that point Seneca was by far the national favorite to win the Heisman. Then it all came crashing down. Wet ball, Seneca's small hands, injuries on the offensive line, and I believe Rutland got hurt too.
No ******* joke. Another spot where replay would have helped us out had it been available.
The schedule happened. That was, without a doubt, the hardest schedule we have ever played. FSU, Iowa, Oklahoma, Texas, Colorado, KState were all top 10-15 teams at one point during the year. Texas Tech, Nebraksa and Missouri were also borderline top 25 teams. Then we played a top 25 team in Boise St. in the bowl game, in Boise.
Here is what teams were ranked when we played them:
FSU - #3
Nebraska - #20
Oklahoma - #2
Texas - #7
KState - #12
Colorado - #17
Boise St. - #19
Iowa was unranked when we played them, but ended up in the top 10 as we were their only regular season loss. So we played 4 top 20 teams over a 5 week stretch, with a team that had no depth.
Our first 3 Big 12 games were all at home, and we won them all.
Our next 5 games after that 6-1 start:
at #2 OU: cold rain, we had a punt blocked for a touchdown on our very first series, all downhill... if the whether were warmer and drier, probably still a loss but maybe not such a nutcrunch
at #7 Texas: again cold rain, but much more competitive (led 10-7 at halftime), offense stalled frequently in the second half
vs Missouri: last game we'd win all year, made us bowl eligible; Wallace set school record with 493 total yards; game was still much, much closer than it probably should have been; the defense definitely lost the confidence they showed earlier in the year
at #12 Kansas State: we were somehow still ranked at #21, but nobody showed up. Wallace threw back-to-back pick-sixes in the third quarter.
at #17 Colorado: much more competitive, against the team that won the North; had a chance to tie the game in the 4th quarter but Wallace fumbled and CU returned it for a touchdown to put it away.
UConn... I think everyone had just given up on the season; they showed up expecting to win because UConn had just moved to D-1; nobody really cared when we fell apart.
Boise... believe we had the lead at halftime, but we were playing them on their own field for a "bowl" game
Basically it was a combination of playing much better competition than we had previously (mostly on the road) and us playing much worse.
Our next 5 games after that 6-1 start:
at #2 OU: cold rain, we had a punt blocked for a touchdown on our very first series, all downhill... if the whether were warmer and drier, probably still a loss but maybe not such a nutcrunch
at #7 Texas: again cold rain, but much more competitive (led 10-7 at halftime), offense stalled frequently in the second half
vs Missouri: last game we'd win all year, made us bowl eligible; Wallace set school record with 493 total yards; game was still much, much closer than it probably should have been; the defense definitely lost the confidence they showed earlier in the year
at #12 Kansas State: we were somehow still ranked at #21, but nobody showed up. Wallace threw back-to-back pick-sixes in the third quarter.
at #17 Colorado: much more competitive, against the team that won the North; had a chance to tie the game in the 4th quarter but Wallace fumbled and CU returned it for a touchdown to put it away.
UConn... I think everyone had just given up on the season; they showed up expecting to win because UConn had just moved to D-1; nobody really cared when we fell apart.
Boise... believe we had the lead at halftime, but we were playing them on their own field for a "bowl" game
Basically it was a combination of playing much better competition than we had previously (mostly on the road) and us playing much worse.
Bingo. OU laid out the defensive blueprint. From there, it was all downhill.
That, and the UConn defender being quoted after the regular-season finale that they knew what ISU was going to run based on formation and motion. (So did everyone else in the stands.)
