Because as a third-string walk on, he's NOT a D1 kicker. He's a d3 kicker with a roster spot
Game Thoughts Cincin Loss
- Thread starter cyclone1209
- Start date
We can be thankful for what he's done and also be critical of what's not working. What we did on Saturday was not working.
What's the definition of insanity?
IMO, the Cyclones need to come out and punch Colorado in the face a few times early. Get them down, bury them, rinse and repeat. With all of the gaps being filled by inexperience, they need some *** kicking confidence.
I just don't think we're a good tackling team. We couldn't even tackle Arkansas State players. That was the first glaring problem once that game happened.
You have to have talent to win a championship is the point of the ratio, the days of a BYU playing no one all season and then getting people to vote for them because they are undefeated are over. In the end, talent does win out, scheme will only take you so far.
Wow, what a fascinating insight! How could we have ever determined that without the blue chip ratio?!
How do you determine talent, it's nothing but a ratio, but has been correct every year since it was brought out. You don't like the system, come up with a better one to predict which teams will win the championship. Teams get lucky all the time and bring in players that have fallen through the cracks and then develop into high draft picks, but that does not change the fact that half the players taken in the 1st round of the NFL draft each season on average are 4 and 5 star recruits.
The more talent you have on a roster, the better chance that if a player is hurt the drop off of the next player in is less. We saw that at the LB position last year, you think we would have struggled so much if we had a group of 4 and 5 star backups sitting there, ready to play? Ours are 2 star or lower 3 star players that are going to need years to get ready to see the field.
I know that some fans have wanted it, but our defense is really bad when we use a four man front. We used a lot of that early in the game and were gashed by it. I think the staff tried to protect our cornerbacks and it backfired badly. At halftime, we went with our traditional 3-3-5 defense and let the safeties play more downhill.
Iirc a lot of plays Arky State burned ISU were actually more of a 4 man front/blitz/stunt kind of deal.
The 3-3-5 worked just fine in the 2nd half.
Agree on the offense. The playcalling was really strange on several drives. I don't usually complain about playcalling much, seems like the lazy man's criticism. But there were several where I just didn't understand what we were doing. And Rocco was not his best either.
The defense got their act together in the 2nd half, got FOUR stops in a row, and the offense abjectly FAILED to capitalize, scoring ZERO points. After taking the 2nd half KO down for a TD, and making it 31-22 (within 2 scores even after the total 1st half ass-kicking) 2nd half possessions:
Cin - fumble
ISU - downs
Cin - punt (to the 1)
ISU - punt (3 and out)
Cin - downs
ISU - punt
Cin - punt
ISU - downs
Cin - TD to make it 38-22 and basically game over
So IMHO, the defense blew it in the 1st half, the offense blew it in the 2nd half, and special teams sucked all day.
They were great tackling vs AZ. I think SPEED is the issue. In the long grass, the tackling is good, but on fast turf, wooo doggie watch out.
Quite frankly, the obsession with a 4-man front on this board is weird to me. We've used it at times this season, I would guess our average run given up is quite a bit more than our traditional 3-man front. The number of DL players on the field is not related to our success or failure stopping the run. We're typically weakest in tight C/D gap runs in this scheme when teams can get those defenders (usually our safeties or OLB) out of position. Between missed tackles from those spots and safeties playing back more than usual, we got exposed there in the first half while quite often playing in more of a 4-2-5 look. If anything, the criticism from Saturday should be why did it take us so long to go back to our typical 3-3-5.
Well, there are observations that suggest ISU should consider more 4 man front because Ohio State, Alabama and Georgia use it and they won titles. Meanwhile, players in the NFL in 2024.
Alabama: 73
OSU: 61
Georgia: 57
Iowa State: 13 That appears to be tied for 61st most NFL guys. I think we are up to 16 active/PUP this year.
Our defensive active guys are Hummel, Tampa, Uwazurike, Porter and McDonald, and Johnson is on the PUP.
I'm not saying for sure that the 3-3-5 stack is some way to minimize a talent gap, but it might be. Doing something unconventional that is complex and harder to execute is a way that can be managed.
We've had some really good players. But the fact is that we have had VERY little NFL talent since we've been playing the 3-3-5 stack, and yet the results have been great overall. Not to say Heacock couldn't do great things with a 4-3 or 3-4. But when he's gotten the output from very few NFL level guys it's pretty remarkable.
demoncore1031
Well-Known Member
Those guys had some offers but are pretty average. But a lot of less than average LBs we get have less offers. I don't see the LBs coming in next year to be better than average. Hawthorne is the one kid I am looking forward to seeing.
I agree. This is what many don’t understand. We tried a 4-2-5 in the first half. My guess is they did it to better contain the UC QB, but it caused significant issues in the middle. UC was using four wide a lot, so that forced Patton and Neal out wide. From that formation, UC ran between the tackles and the UC linemen dominated our guys in the box. Running lanes were huge and tackling was bad. Guys didn’t get off blocks. I expect the coaches were slow to change because they felt it was a performance issue not a scheme issue, but the performance never improved in the first half.
Unfortunately, we have a dinged up Orange and everyone else on the DL are just guys. We are going to need to trust Bell and Taylor to cover guys and have everyone else flowing to the ball, because the DL is not going to beat blocks until Orange is healthy.
Best O Line we saw so far this year, maybe the best we will see.
