ROAD RECAP: ISU 34, TEXAS TECH 24

[bawbie]

- Bend, Bend some more, then Break defense with very little full blitzes. I think this is going to fail us against TX and OK. I hope Heacock is holding back / saving some pressure packages for those games, but feeling like not.

I think this is over exaggerated. No one has scored over 24 points against us (in regulation) and we've out-gained every opponent by at least 100 yards (except Baylor). We held TTU to 4.7 yards / play - almost 2 under their season average.

And we did it with several key players missing. Eisworth didn't play much - in fact we played our second string secondary for large parts of the game - Grant, Kyle, Miller and Azunna played as much as the starters from what I saw.

 

[acoustimac]

Sounds like the "key stat" to me.

how quickly people forget...yes we were playing with a lead yesterday. But we’ve played this same defense in many games where we were behind or the lead was one score. What happens? We don’t get the ball to really put things away. Defense gets a stop and our high flying offense gets to go again. We won this one, but we’ve lost a couple where that defensive strategy didn’t work. I’d just as soon see us dominate with stops instead of letting a team run a defense, that may need to get a stop late in the game, into the ground.

 

[somecyguy]

I hope you are right and playing that way is on purpose based on game / opponent, and we have an "aggressive - get a stop" mode that we just haven't seen. But it sure seems like this year, we just have the bend and bend mode. You may be right in that Heacock thinks with the young corners he has to chose to mostly run the 3 drop 8 mode and it is the lesser evil.

One of the announcers, Ben Leber, a former LB with the Vikings, said it a couple times; that Tech was waiting for ISU to start coming up on those receivers so they could call a double move and go over the top. But Iowa State never took the bait. Given the scheme that Iowa State runs, I think you are always going to see the bend defense, because it's predicated on the idea that if you force the offense into enough plays, they will make a mistake eventually.

 

[FinalFourCy]

how quickly people forget...yes we were playing with a lead yesterday. But we’ve played this same defense in many games where we were behind or the lead was one score. What happens? We don’t get the ball to really put things away. Defense gets a stop and our high flying offense gets to go again. We won this one, but we’ve lost a couple where that defensive strategy didn’t work. I’d just as soon see us dominate with stops instead of letting a team run a defense, that may need to get a stop late in the game, into the ground.

Why aren’t we calling the pick-six defense every down? I really like that one.

 

[MJ271]

I can't remember who exactly tweeted it, so I doubt I can find the exact tweet, but last night I read a really interesting statistic about Iowa State vs. Texas Tech. During this season and the prior 3 seasons, Texas Tech has been held to 6.3 yards per play or less only 10 times. 4 of those are the past 4 games against Iowa State. Texas Tech wants their air raid to turn small and medium plays into big plays. Against a lot of teams that works, but it hasn't at all against Iowa State. I think when we play Tech, we go into an even more extreme bend but don't break, simply because of the style that they play. And it has certainly worked, so I don't have a problem with it.

 

[Aclone]

how quickly people forget...yes we were playing with a lead yesterday. But we’ve played this same defense in many games where we were behind or the lead was one score. What happens? We don’t get the ball to really put things away. Defense gets a stop and our high flying offense gets to go again. We won this one, but we’ve lost a couple where that defensive strategy didn’t work. I’d just as soon see us dominate with stops instead of letting a team run a defense, that may need to get a stop late in the game, into the ground.

Speaking of "how quickly people forget"...

In our two losses, Iowa and Baylor scored a grand total of 18 and 23 points. It wasn't the defense that was the problem in those two games. I'd be gleefully happy if every opponent the rest of the year scored a max of 23 points on us.