After some research, I've come around on Dekkers

You hit on a good point. Hopefully Hunter develops that edge to will the team to wins. It's really hard to say if he has that or not. The line play has been so bad, I'm not sure Purdy or even Mahomes would be making a lot of difference on this team.

Purdy never had an Oline this bad. The pass protection was generally pretty good.

It's been astonishing seeing how much more comfortable he is on a roll out or similar and how it's seldom used.
 
Agree on all points. I have been frustrated by a lot of this all year. The reads he makes, or doesn't, the sacks he takes that are due to holding on to the ball too long etc. he is not without some of the blame at least. I just had a chance to dive into the numbers, and have concluded that I won't bag on him anymore this season. Iowa State's issues are much deeper than at the QB position.

The short passes are essentially ISU's run game this year, since that has been non existent, and defenses know they can stack the box and pin their ears back for 4 quarters basically. They have certainly padded Dekker's stats some, and I would not be surprised if some of the issues get worked out --improved play at OL, RB, and TE-- his overall numbers may come down some, but his Yards per target, yards per completion numbers should increase. I think it's a big if that those problems go away entirely anytime soon though. Even with a new OL coach or OC next year, there will be struggles and a learning curve.
Oh he's not terrible, not at all. I think he's more than good enough to be the guy going forward. I just have been baffled a little bit by the whole season on offense, him included.
 
  • Agree
Reactions: Cyinthenorth
Here is another very disturbing trend. Maybe someone with more time can do the research, but when was the last time an ISU QB led a late drive to tie or win a game?

This year, correct me if I am wrong, but in 6 of our 7 losses, we had the ball late in the fourth quarter with a chance to win the game (at least take a late lead) or to tie and we FAILED every single time. Is that all on Dekkers? No, he didn't shank the tying FG at KU and he is not calling the plays, but leading the team late is the hallmark of a great QB. And it seems we have been lacking that for a long, long time.

Even going back to Purdy, when was his last comeback win? I remember endings like the Big 12 championship game, or letting his knee touch the turf on the Baylor two point conversion (pass failed anyway).

When was the last fourth quarter comeback win? Texas when Dicker missed?
1668441067795_image001.png
Here are all of Purdy's drives down one score with a few minutes to go. Add in the Clemson one.
 
Iowa game this year

Yea, I guess I am thinking a late 4th quarter drive. The Iowa drive started in the 3rd quarter. It did end up being the game winner, and was certainly clutch, but not a late drive.
 
I think Kansas, didn't Gilbert miss one or two late kicks? I know we didn't score but we certainly were in position.

God this season sucks so bad. If we were - below average on offense we'd be 6-6 or maybe 7-5.
If we were average on offense we could have won 8-9
 
He has absolutely earned my respect for standing behind that line and taking it on the chin 11 Saturdays this year, coming up on 12.

The yardage and completion numbers are probably a bit inflated from where they should be. Since Iowa State can't run the ball, Dekkers has dropped back an insane amount and attempted far more passes than any other Big 12 QB. Dekkers as thrown 433 times this year. The next guy is Spencer Sanders at 368, but the rest of the pack is 100+ behind him.
The discrepancy between Sanders and Dekkers looks worse than it really is since Sanders missed 1+ games due to injury. He has officially played in 10 games but missed a large part of others. Even with the 10 games played it is Dekkers 39.4 attempts per game, Sanders 36.8 a/g. JT Daniels is averaging 32.7 a/g but was averaging 36.6 in the first 8 games of the season before Green started really cutting into his playing time.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Cyinthenorth
The discrepancy between Sanders and Dekkers looks worse than it really is since Sanders missed 1+ games due to injury. He has officially played in 10 games but missed a large part of others. Even with the 10 games played it is Dekkers 39.4 attempts per game, Sanders 36.8 a/g. JT Daniels is averaging 32.7 a/g but was averaging 36.6 in the first 8 games of the season before Green started really cutting into his playing time.
True, Dekkers has had the benefit (if you can call it that) of being the only guy to take snaps at QB for Iowa State this year (Becht and Cook have 6 att combined).
 
Ranking the main elements of the offense from best to worst --

Xavier Hutchinson
Hunter Dekkers
TEs and other WRs (a collective "meh")
RBs who miss holes and can't stay healthy
the tire fire that is the offensive line
 
Jesus. Didn’t realize the discrepancy was that bad.
Dekkers may be the only the Big12 QB who hasn't missed time this year. Every team, save for Baylor (I think), has started at least two different QB's.
 
Because some of them are tied for rankings. So there's actually probably more than 104 players listed.
No, in the link you posted there is only one per line. It probably is because either a team doesn't throw enough for their QB to have enough attempts to qualify - like Navy - or they have used multiple QBs and none of them have enough attempts due to splitting up the attempts.
 
Dekkers is fine. I've been telling you guys all year our offense sucks so bad because of our running game. We have by far the worst running backs in the Big 12, whether that be from injuries, inexperience, whatever.
With no help coming. Have to hope Brock comes back strong and can stay healthy, Norton continues to improve, and huge strides needed from Silas and Sanders. The latter two really make me nervous anytime I see them in the game. Just can't be trusted, but they're all we have.
 
I think it’s hard to effectively evaluate Dekkers until we have a competent line.
 
Was surprised by how proficient Dekkers looks from a stats perspective so looked into yards per point scored for the top 100 total yard teams. Iowa State is at 18 yards per point scored when the average of the top 100 is 13.5 (~3.5 standard deviations from the mean). I'm sure average starting field position would explain a lot of it, but I think the offenses issue is converting production into points. For comparison, Iowa's offense is atrocious from a total yards perspective but is 14.5 yards per point (less than 1 STDev) so they are significantly better at converting their production into points.
 
  • Informative
Reactions: Cyinthenorth
Dekkers may be the only the Big12 QB who hasn't missed time this year. Every team, save for Baylor (I think), has started at least two different QB's.
Mostly you're right. TCU started the year with Chandler Morris, but he has only attempted 20 passes all season. Shapen has done most of the lifting at QB for Baylor, he may have missed time in one game, but Baylor also has the #6 rusher in the conference in freshman Richard Reese, makes life so much easier for a young QB.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Billups06
We have won 1 Big12 game to this point. For me there is open competition at EVERY position. Sure guys like Tampa, Purchase, Freyler, Anderson and Noel can probably be penciled in as starters (if they return) in 2023- but there needs to be a culture of change this off season.

Dekkers has had an OK season. But I don't feel I have seen much (if any) improvement from game 1 to game 11. Sure that can be blamed on coaching/play calling.

But I haven't seen enough good plays by Dekkers, in the type of offense I would like ISU to run, to say he's my QB in 2023. IMO his stats are misleading because he throws the ball a lot and he throws a ton of meaningless short passes. Sure teams are going to let us complete a pass 5 yard pass on 3rd and 8.

Where does Dekkers need to improve?
  • His footwork & mechanics. He has fallen in love with side arm motion. That's great sometimes, but his passes also tend to float.
  • His decision making at the mesh point. Just get the feeling he decides ahead of time to run the ball or hand off.
  • His accuracy is bad. He struggles to hit guys on the run. I think we have gone to a lot of passes thrown to a spot, to help compensate. But this results in our YAC to be bad.
  • For a guy with a big arm, I haven't seen many long completions.
  • I also think he loves throws outside the hash marks. Needs to be more comfortable throwing 10-20 yard routes between the hash marks. Sure some of this is limitation of ISU's passing routes.
 
Jesus. Didn’t realize the discrepancy was that bad.
It's why I give him a little pass on some of the INTs more attempts mean more chances for an int and when it's that heavy of a discrepancy then teams are going to plan for it. I'm sure he feels tons of pressure to make something happen. He can definitely improve on reading the defense still but he's young.
 
Ranking the main elements of the offense from best to worst --

Xavier Hutchinson
Hunter Dekkers
TEs and other WRs (a collective "meh")
RBs who miss holes and can't stay healthy
the tire fire that is the offensive line
Throw in predictable/inconsistent play calling just above the o-line
 
Dekkers may be the only the Big12 QB who hasn't missed time this year. Every team, save for Baylor (I think), has started at least two different QB's.
This is probably true or close to true. According to Big 12 stats Dekkers, Duggan (TCU), Shapen (BU), and Smith (TTU) have all played 11 games but haven't some of those even missed part of games due to injury?
- Duggan only had 3 attempts at Colorado to start the season.
- Smith started off the season averaging 42.6 attempts per game in the first 5 games but has only attempted 8 passes since even though he has appeared in all of the games.