Game Thoughts Cincin Loss
- Thread starter cyclone1209
- Start date
That's great. A 3-4 and a 3-3 aren't the same thing though.
This isn't really true with our linebackers that are playing the most
McLaughlin: Offers from Iowa, Kansas State
Carson Willich: Offers from Kansas, Kansas State, Louisville, Minnesota, Northwestern, Vanderbilt, Wazzu
Brezina: Offers from Indiana and Syracuse
Bacon: Was a walk on but probably our best linebacker
So yeah, we're not getting guys with Georgia or Ohio State offers (that's not realistic if that's your expectation). The recipe is the same as its always been when we had guys like Rose, Hummel, and Spears - development. I'm not super impressed with our current LB coach at the moment.
So a team with bottom of the power 4 talent has some bad games. Shocking.
Yet in the end with the LB room wiped out ISU was the 4th or 5th best defense in the league last year, The year before Texas and ISU were 1A and 1B. That was the first year without McDonald. The year before Will was on campus ISU was the best defense in the league.
So there have been some bad games. And Will was awesome. But Heacock and the 3-3 stack have wildly outplayed our talent.
There's so many wild takes each season and 'ditch the thing that's largely been the reason ISU has sustained the most consistent success in football ever' might be toward the top.
you are right, Cincy got great field position a few times on returns on kickoffs that were not deep enough
Which teams in the NFL, or the Big 12 historically, or in college in general have a national championship/super bowl in the last 40 years (using the 3-3 as a base full time defense)?
It's ok that I have questions if it should be the full time base defense, because the answer to the above is zero. It's a defense lately that has allowed QBs to be way too comfortable, have tons of time to throw, and NEVER get hit.
I also don't disagree Jon Heacock is a top 10 national defensive coordinator, I think he's awesome - I just think the defense could use a spark sometimes. This is especially true when we go multiple games without a sack. (which we have this year)
Honest question: Why did Iowa State run it out of bounds on the last play of the game? Did the player ever give an explanation? It was so odd.
Most teams that win titles do so because they have elite players everywhere and scheme takes a back seat.
We're all puzzled as well. Only thing I can think of is he thought there was still time on the clock.
To win titles you have to have elite talent, but to be a very good team it becomes more coaching and scheme to take lesser talent and have them playing at a high level. The only way ISU could come close getting in a title game would be to have a QB that is playing on Heisman level of play, otherwise it's not really possible. The Blue Chip Ratio is a real deal and since it measures a schools stars in recruiting, we are never going to do well on such a scale. That does not mean that we cannot make very good players, you just have to find kids that were mis rated in high school or underrated . Montgomery and Hall would be such players.
You can have all the talent in the world, but if you can't get them to play as a team and be a team player, you will never succeed. Coach Campbell has brought some really good players and taught them to trust in themselves and hone their skills to be the best version of themselves. I trust in his program and will always believe you can't buy a team. all one has to do is look at Texas, Penn State and USC to see that this isn't going to work. You can throw all the money in the world at your recruits and still not have a team.
I don’t know who all runs what, but Clemson has finished top 5 in final polls twice since switching to it in 2020.
But they also won with a 4-3, so I don’t think it tells us much.
Im just saying, based on recruiting rankings and NFL draft results, ISU has had no business being the best defensive team in a P4 conference, which is probably what they have been on the whole during the 3-3 stack era.
I do agree though that we could probably stand to bring a 4th guy earlier and more often. Hard to argue with most of the second half performances, but maybe dial up some pressure a little more often in the first half.
Not aware of how much NIL bank we have.
Know for sure, chump change compared to the majority of the "top 25."
I really find it hard to complain, given we are "low-lower middle-class" (me thinks).
Know for sure, chump change compared to the majority of the "top 25."
I really find it hard to complain, given we are "low-lower middle-class" (me thinks).
I've always thought ISU didn't bring much for blitzes in the first half so the opponent can't make half time adjustments. Sometimes they start bringing corners etc. in the 2nd quarter but maybe like this past weekend, they didn't feel comfortable with it.
Does it matter if they were not feeling comfortable or not, they were chewing us up in the run, and the QB had all day in the pocket. By the end of the first quarter the staff should have seen what they were doing was not working and switch something up. That may or may not solve the problem, but staying in the base defense that we were playing lost us the game. Our offense has not shown the ability all season to go out and score 40 or more points, on a game by game basis, thinking we were going to out score them after giving up 31 points in the half was foolish. You just cannot allow yourself to get into such a hole.
I think that they overcompensated for losing their starting CBs and kept the Safeties back. That bit them pretty hard in the first half. Obviously, they adjusted at half and I wish they would have done it earlier. But, they had their chances in the second half. I was annoyed with the offense's slow movement/effort in the second half. They should have been in hurry up all half when they're down that much. Get up to the ball and run the play. Find a group of players that you want to go with and limit substitutions because you know if you substitute, the defense is going to milk the play clock walking their subs out there. These things should be obvious. There just wasn't enough urgency, especially in the 4th quarter. We should have had at least an extra minute for that final drive and it was just wasted.
Scheme does not ever take a backseat on defense. Football is littered with talented defenses that aren't as good as they should be (or good at all) because of varying schematic/coaching reasons.
I will preface this by saying this is not me saying that Heacock should be fired or that there should be a wholesale scheme change. Heacock has served us well with this scheme and is the reason for a lot of success. Now that that's out of the way it's also fair to point out that programs with talent don't run this system because it has glaring inherent weaknessed. I've said this before but this structure has no natural edge meaning you have to spill everything from a scheme standpoint because unless you just happen to get into the perfect call, you're asking someone to set an edge that's in no position to do so. When you have to spill everything, there's a big chance that you have overaggressive play by LBs and DBs that result in huge cutback lanes especially against teams that are good at running outside zone. See the first TD play from Cinci. Sure, we can point out that basically no one on the back side was sound, but that's the risk you run. I've talked about this before, it's not new, and it's not the first time we've gotten got in the running game like this. It's a bug of the system. IMO, good run defenses set hard edges and it's the one thing that I really don't like about the system.
So, for this structure to work and be sound against the run, you need very good LB play. LB is hard in any system. I'd say it's the hardest position in football because of the responsibilities they all have and the physical attributes it take. We haven't had good LB play for awhile and it doesn't really matter who was playing. This system just will not work if your baseline linebacker isn't good. Your DL is taking up bodies for LBs and DBs to clean up and they need to do so.
This isn't some dire "we're ******" post. The defense will be fine. These are just things that are going to happen once or twice a year like we've seen. Sometimes the offense overcomes, and sometimes it doesn't. If you wanted a change, personally what I would do is develop some packaging where you go to a 5 man front consisting of the 3 DL that we currently use plus one more anchor/edge player and then a hybrid type of LB/pass rusher who can hold an edge. I don't think this is some huge personnel lift as I think we've had the body types in the past and on this roster. You drop a LB and drop a safety and you concentrate the running game to the middle. We have some stuff like this in alignment but we don't change personnel.
