BLOG: Snap reactions from 25-20 loss to UNI

[Skidoosh]

ISU can improve on the margins but you are looking at what we are for this year. Without good line play you won't have a consistent offense. Without a consistent offense the defense gets gashed in the fourth quarter.

Further, the game was just plain sloppy in terms of penalties and foul ups. I put that on the coaches and they need to fix that stuff. It is correctable.

No margin for error.

I disagree here. The defense held twice, after the interception and the fumble. They gave our offense a chance to win twice - putting up two stops when we needed them most. Did the defense play a good game, no, but the offense has to convert in those situations, especially when they shouldve been fresh as daisies.

 

[clonedude]

I can totally buy the fact that this still mostly CPR's players, that's fine, but I had really hoped to at least see something different last night with this new coaching staff scheme wise. But it just looked like the same old crap.

The only passing game we really had was deep passes down the sideline, which are fine at times when you have guys like Lazard and Butler at 6'5" or better. But there was virtually no other passing game at all. No quick slants over the middle. No 10 yd hook routes. Never passed to the TE once that I can remember?

Just deep passes down the sideline and the rest was read option by Lanning with Lanning usually making the incorrect read it seemed. AND.... by the way, Lanning really isn't all that mobile. Aaron Bailey is mobile. Heck, CJ Beathard is more mobile than Lanning IMO.

I'm just very disappointed we didn't see anything different than we've seen over the last 7 years. That was even more frustrating for me than the fact we lost the game. I understand our OL and DL and LB's are not very good at all, so losing the game isn't all that surprising really, I just wanted to see something different scheme wise, and it wasn't there at all. In fact, I'd venture to say our offense looked even worse scheme wise last night than it did under Rhoads.

 

[RealisticCy]

Calm down. A new coaching staff had to come in an install a new offense and defense using players recruited by Rhoads, potentially the worst recruiting head coach in the country during his time here, and developed by Rhoads and his staff that have a terrible history of developing players. You know what happens when you have very little upperclassmen talent? You play a shitload of true freshmen. You know what happens when Campbell shows up and only one guy on the team can bench 400? You get your ass handed to you by physical teams like UNI.

Lazard is an absolute stud, on another level this year. Lanning can sling it, just needs to make much better decisions. Certainly would help immensely if the offensive line (which is going to be awful all year) could get any amount of push in the running game or give him time to go through his progressions. Warren is going to have a long year. Defense seemed slow, line got manhandled and had no contain on Bailey, secondary played OK. Turnovers and penalties hurt, but we lost the line of scrimmage the entire game. I didn't think play calling was that bad for an OC's first game, at least we threw the ball down the field more.

Sad part is that because of the Rhoads era, this is no longer surprising. Lazard is here because his dad played here, Warren is here because they hired Ayeni. CPR put us in a huge hole and left the cupboard bare on the offensive and defensive lines (certainly didn't help to lose Campos). Until that is corrected, this is exactly what will happen. Years of incompetence in recruiting and player development doesn't magically go away with one recruiting class and a few practices. I think the coaches know exactly what they have and exactly what they don't have. It's going to be a long year.

 

[bosco]

Against UNI if ISU had just executed simple fundamental football then this game would have been over at half time. If the team cannot do that then it doesn't matter who the coach is, what players we have or what system it runs. Any other excuse or blind optimism is denial of the state of the program.

The team just doesn't play winning football. Period.

 

[clonedude]

Calm down. A new coaching staff had to come in an install a new offense and defense using players recruited by Rhoads, potentially the worst recruiting head coach in the country during his time here, and developed by Rhoads and his staff that have a terrible history of developing players. You know what happens when you have very little upperclassmen talent? You play a shitload of true freshmen. You know what happens when Campbell shows up and only one guy on the team can bench 400? You get your ass handed to you by physical teams like UNI.

Lazard is an absolute stud, on another level this year. Lanning can sling it, just needs to make much better decisions. Certainly would help immensely if the offensive line (which is going to be awful all year) could get any amount of push in the running game or give him time to go through his progressions. Warren is going to have a long year. Defense seemed slow, line got manhandled and had no contain on Bailey, secondary played OK. Turnovers and penalties hurt, but we lost the line of scrimmage the entire game. I didn't think play calling was that bad for an OC's first game, at least we threw the ball down the field more.

Sad part is that because of the Rhoads era, this is no longer surprising. Lazard is here because his dad played here, Warren is here because they hired Ayeni. CPR put us in a huge hole and left the cupboard bare on the offensive and defensive lines (certainly didn't help to lose Campos). Until that is corrected, this is exactly what will happen. Years of incompetence in recruiting and player development doesn't magically go away with one recruiting class and a few practices. I think the coaches know exactly what they have and exactly what they don't have. It's going to be a long year.

That's the most frustrating part for me.... the bolded statement above. I didn't see anything different offensively or defensively schematically. It looked like the same plays we've seen the last 7 years.

 

[swarthmoreCY]

Disappointed, but not discouraged. It should have been expected one partial off-season would not be enough for any new staff to clean up the **** of the previous staff. It's top bad this staff didn't inherit what Rhoads was given on the OL and DL. It will take a few years to undo not having a plan for the previous 6 years.

 

[Cyientist]

That was brutal last night, and I'm glad I held off on the season tickets. With that said, penalties and mental mistakes killed the team and those can often be corrected. An OC without any play calling experience coupled with being a completely different team that is young has disaster written all over it. Hopefully there is a quick learning curve. I still believe that Matt Campbell can get it done, it just might take longer than we had hoped, but not longer than what should have been expected.

 

[jsb]

That was brutal last night, and I'm glad I held off on the season tickets. With that said, penalties and mental mistakes killed the team and those can often be corrected. An OC without any play calling experience coupled with being a completely different team that is young has disaster written all over it. Hopefully there is a quick learning curve. I still believe that Matt Campbell can get it done, it just might take longer than we had hoped, but not longer than what should have been expected.

This is a good point. I, too, think Campbell was the best hire we could possibly get. I still think he is recruiting well and I think he has proven to be a good coach.

All of that can be true and we can still acknowledge that he and his coaching staff were very, very terrible last night. It's disappointing that a coach who has been a head coach before was so clueless.

 

[Cyinthenorth]

This is a good point. I, too, think Campbell was the best hire we could possibly get. I still think he is recruiting well and I think he has proven to be a good coach.

All of that can be true and we can still acknowledge that he and his coaching staff were very, very terrible last night. It's disappointing that a coach who has been a head coach before was so clueless.

It's already stuck in my head that Manning might be no better than Messingham and in turn Campbell no better than Rhoads for anointing Manning the OC. Going to take a lot for them to get me to think otherwise after the play calling debacles last night. Throwing the ball deep on first down in the 4th with the lead? Running the ball up the middle trailing with a minute to go in the 4th when the opponent defense was on it's heals? So much fail there, would be curious to hear an explanation

 

[jsb]

It's already stuck in my head that Manning might be no better than Messingham and in turn Campbell no better than Rhoads for anointing Manning the OC. Going to take a lot for them to get me to think otherwise after the play calling debacles last night. Throwing the ball deep on first down in the 4th with the lead? Running the ball up the middle trailing with a minute to go in the 4th when the opponent defense was on it's heals? So much fail there, would be curious to hear an explanation

I think we can be hopeful because Campbell is an offensive guy. And I still think that hiring a group of coaches is a good thing.

One thing that I think is a very good thing about last night is that we didn't pull off the win. Sure it would have been nice. But pulling off a win after that debacle would do nothing but encourage the coaches that they had a solid game plan in effect. Like my mom said last night, every one of those coaches has a list of crap that they did wrong last night. There's no false positives.

These coaches have been extremely confident (bordering on arrogant) about how great they are and how great the process is and all of that ****. That's good in many ways. But last night should illustrate to them that there is still a lot to learn.

 

[tolfbfan]

I was afraid the play calling would suffer when CMC's OC stayed at Toledo. It would have been nice to get the whole staff to come.

The OL is a group who right now has severe limits. You cannot call an offense the same as you call one with an experienced OL. It will improve......slowely.

 

[jsb]

The OL is a group who right now has severe limits. You cannot call an offense the same as you call one with an experienced OL. It will improve......slowely.

One would think that a coach would recognize that and not call a running play with 3 minutes left in the game when you have maybe 40 yards of rushing offense. Especially when the offensive line had occasionally given the QB enough time to make a pass.

 

[CyBlitz]

The best silver lining that I could find was the performance of freshmen and red shirt freshmen during the game. Desaunte Jones and Montgomery showed they have potential and could be options this season. Everette Edwards had a good showing before he got hurt. The linebackers were better than I expected with controlling the run game, but bailey gave them trouble. I didn't see much impact from the TE position. Was the F position even used in the game? Mike Johnson seemed to show potential. The O-line was horrible confirming my fears, and Lanning was constantly in danger of sacks. I thought they were going to do more schemes that would help the offensive line.

The UNI game plan was solid and simple

1) have the defensive line constantly win at the line of scrimmage, keeping the QB under pressure

2) contain the running game from ISU, forcing ISU to do passes that are harder to do with the QB under pressure

3) play a solid game and look for mistakes

4) bribe the judges jk

5) hope that ISU players run into each other at pivotal moments (honestly that was the most embarrassing moments for me)

 

[cfsivert]

Against UNI if ISU had just executed simple fundamental football then this game would have been over at half time. . .

This has to include dominating on the line.

 

[tolfbfan]

One would think that a coach would recognize that and not call a running play with 3 minutes left in the game when you have maybe 40 yards of rushing offense. Especially when the offensive line had occasionally given the QB enough time to make a pass.

Didn't get to watch, but the last four years Toledo was very successful at getting big running plays in passing down situations. If my QB had experienced turnovers in the game, I might of tried the same thing if I thought the tendancy was there for a potential big play. Just guessing based on what you said.

 

[Bryce7]

It was not a well called game by ISU at all. It looked exactly like the same offense and play calling as last year to me.

Not one single pass to a TE tonight, am I right? I thought that was going to be a big part of our offense this season? I'm not sold on Manning as a playcaller yet. I'm sure he's probably a good OL coach, but not sure about him as an OC at all.

Manning needs an assistant like messiingham to help out.

 

[Bryce7]

"mildly concerned about a first-year offensive coordinator."

Mildly? This has been my biggest issue from the start! Our HC decides to give a guy who has NEVER been a OC at any level a chance to be the OC at a P5 school.

Good old boy promotion like genre did with his fishing buddies. Lousy game calling in fourth quarter is good way to go winless.

 

[twojman]

This is a good point. I, too, think Campbell was the best hire we could possibly get. I still think he is recruiting well and I think he has proven to be a good coach.

All of that can be true and we can still acknowledge that he and his coaching staff were very, very terrible last night. It's disappointing that a coach who has been a head coach before was so clueless.

According to cfbmatrix (heavy analytics) Campbell was the only negative coach effect hire that went G5 to P5. Toledo always had the top talent in the MAC...didn't win like they should though.

 

[DuckDynastyCy]

That's the most frustrating part for me.... the bolded statement above. I didn't see anything different offensively or defensively schematically. It looked like the same plays we've seen the last 7 years.

Well I don't know what you're looking at because I thought both our offense and defensive play calls looked much different than CPR teams? WR routes all different. Totally different outside of bubble screens which you run when your OL sucks.

 

[DuckDynastyCy]

It's already stuck in my head that Manning might be no better than Messingham and in turn Campbell no better than Rhoads for anointing Manning the OC. Going to take a lot for them to get me to think otherwise after the play calling debacles last night. Throwing the ball deep on first down in the 4th with the lead? Running the ball up the middle trailing with a minute to go in the 4th when the opponent defense was on it's heals? So much fail there, would be curious to hear an explanation

Manning has the OC Title but CMC and QB coach also help with play calling.