I have been critical of the staff for sure. Do I think CPR should be fired? No, I don't. That being said... right now this program is in a complete free fall and CPR through his press conferences makes it sound like everything is fine because the team is young and has had lots of injuries. While those statements are true... there has been severely deficient play on both sides of the ball, a lack of talent, a lack of depth, and a lack of game management/play calling/and game planning by the staff. The announcer on tv said it all Saturday. On ISU first possession they were moving the ball pretty well. They ran the ball for 26 yards on 4 carries. Then on the 2nd possession ISU had 1 run for 8 yards on a QB scramble by Sam. Then threw 4 straight passes and had to punt. The announcer says "I don't understand why ISU abandoned the run on this possession. They were running it effectively." On possession 3 ISU ran the ball twice to set up a 3rd&1. They bring in Woody (a dead giveaway that ISU is going to line up and run the ball straight up the gut) and he gets stuffed. How many times in a short yardage situation this year has ISU brought Woody in only to watch him get stuffed for no gain or a loss? Too many... because that is too predictable. Has ISU once this season used Woody as a decoy and run a play-action pass on a short yardage situation? Not once. This is like Football 101... If everyone in the stadium knows you are going to hand the ball off to Woody a play-action fake to Woody will probably leave 3 or 4 guys wide open that you could throw the football too. It's simple things like this that drive me absolutely insane watching the ISU offense. That unit has playmakers yet the OC won't allow them to make any plays. When Arnaud was a senior ISU ran a play for the TE where they would get the entire defense flowing to one side of the field by rolling Arnaud and the RB that way... then he would turn and flip it back across the field to the TE and he would be standing all by himself wide open about 75% of the time for a huge gain. Has anyone seen anything like that this year? Nope. Do we have some talented TE's on the roster? Yes. Think a play like that would be a good play to call to get our talented TE's loose in the secondary? Yes. Does Mess do it? Nope.
Bundrage is a playmaker on the outside. Do they run any plays for him to get free on a rub? Do they isolate him on the wide side of the field to give him more room to operate? Nope. They stick him in a 3 WR bunch all the time so he is surrounded by defenders from the get go. Insanity.
The offensive staff does an awful job of scheme along with play calling to free up these playmakers. Instead... they make it easy for the defense to stop them. Insanity.
Rhoads will put some hope back in the fanbase if he guts the offensive staff. If he doesn't... well all hope will be lost because the results will be more of the same.
Bundrage is a playmaker on the outside. Do they run any plays for him to get free on a rub? Do they isolate him on the wide side of the field to give him more room to operate? Nope. They stick him in a 3 WR bunch all the time so he is surrounded by defenders from the get go. Insanity.
The offensive staff does an awful job of scheme along with play calling to free up these playmakers. Instead... they make it easy for the defense to stop them. Insanity.
Rhoads will put some hope back in the fanbase if he guts the offensive staff. If he doesn't... well all hope will be lost because the results will be more of the same.
