Getting to 6 wins...

[aeroclone]

This type of thing sounds really good right now because it's different. In your head you're imagining 16-play TD drives where we burn 8 minutes off the clock and limit the other teams possessions (or something along those general lines). But how many times would you trust an ISU offense to bulldoze its way down the field and sustain a long TD drive? And what happens when Baylor or TCU turn right around after that long drive and go 80+ yards in 1:30 to answer? We have to do that whole thing over again.. then when a team is up 14 or more points we have no offense in place to mount any sort of comeback. Fans would be livid watching that.

I personally don't think our offense is that far off right now talent-wise. It is easy to forget how good the offense looked in the first half Saturday. We were on pace for 500 yards of offense at halftime. It's just one thing here and there that seems to make the wheels fall off, whether that's the QB missing an open receiver, or missing blocks, or receivers dropping balls. We just can't seem to put it all together for a full game.

Have you been paying attention to what is going on with our program lately? Fans are livid with our current spread offense. I don't know how anyone can say the offense looks close to anything, we haven't had a threatening offense ever running this system. I'll believe it when I actually see it. I don't think that ever happens under CPR.

Also, the talking points around here for years have been that the defense is good enough to compete, they just get gassed because they are always on the field. Well, the only way to fix that is a team built to sustain drives. At least if we don't score, we can chew some clock and maybe reverse field position. That is infinitely better than a 3 and out that takes 90 seconds off the game clock.

Our offense plays right into the hands of most of the other teams in the league. Their defenses are build to stop our scheme, and their uptempo offenses get the ball back quickly and wear down our d.

I think to succeed here, we need to be running an offensive system that is very different from the rest of the league. It doesn't matter as much what it is, it just needs to be the opposite direction of what everyone else is doing. If we try to beat everyone at their game with less talent, that won't end well. That probably isn't a recipe to win titles, but I honestly don't see that being a reasonable goal here. I think the goal here is to get to bowl games and put a product on the field that holds the interest of the fans. Today, we are failing on both of those.

 

[CycloneGB]

Same amount as I trust the current offense. Which is not at all. But we're at the point where there's no downside to trying something different so what are you afraid of?

I guess I'd rather try to improve what we have at this point than try and blow the whole thing up in favor of a "4 yards and a cloud of dust" scheme. The scheme we have now is designed to create mismatches and, has the ability to score quickly. Now, I won't even go close to saying we're accomplishing that now, but if you think we are capable of perfecting a scheme like that the way it would be necessary, then we should be capable of fixing the few mistakes that are derailing us now with our current offense.

 

[CycloneGB]

Have you been paying attention to what is going on with our program lately? Fans are livid with our current spread offense. I don't know how anyone can say the offense looks close to anything, we haven't had a threatening offense ever running this system. I'll believe it when I actually see it. I don't think that ever happens under CPR.

Also, the talking points around here for years have been that the defense is good enough to compete, they just get gassed because they are always on the field. Well, the only way to fix that is a team built to sustain drives. At least if we don't score, we can chew some clock and maybe reverse field position. That is infinitely better than a 3 and out that takes 90 seconds off the game clock.

Our offense plays right into the hands of most of the other teams in the league. Their defenses are build to stop our scheme, and their uptempo offenses get the ball back quickly and wear down our d.

I think to succeed here, we need to be running an offensive system that is very different from the rest of the league. It doesn't matter as much what it is, it just needs to be the opposite direction of what everyone else is doing. If we try to beat everyone at their game with less talent, that won't end well. That probably isn't a recipe to win titles, but I honestly don't see that being a reasonable goal here. I think the goal here is to get to bowl games and put a product on the field that holds the interest of the fans. Today, we are failing on both of those.

Which half of the Iowa game do you want to base this off of? Because the offense I watched the first half of the Iowa game looked good enough to win us games. For whatever reason, that didn't carry over to the second half, but that doesn't point the blame at the offensive scheme for me. It points to individuals not doing their job executing, which is going to ruin any offensive plan, no matter how different it is.

Is your argument that, just because we come out with a totally different offense than the rest of the Big 12, teams just won't know what to do because they don't see it very often?

 

[ISUcyclones11]

Feels weird to be calling Texas a bad team. I don't even really mind Texas.

 

[Gunnerclone]

I guess I'd rather try to improve what we have at this point than try and blow the whole thing up in favor of a "4 yards and a cloud of dust" scheme. The scheme we have now is designed to create mismatches and, has the ability to score quickly. Now, I won't even go close to saying we're accomplishing that now, but if you think we are capable of perfecting a scheme like that the way it would be necessary, then we should be capable of fixing the few mistakes that are derailing us now with our current offense.

Doesn't have to be this, just SOMETHING besides the same spread that ever other team in the conference runs (and runs better than us). Or try a different QB in this system because we've seen SR for how many years now? And how many games has he won? Like the kid, just time to give someone else a chance.

 

[TensasCy]

If we improve some, I think we have a shot at the North Division title.

 

[Omaha Cy]

Whole lotta quit in this fanbase right now. I'm sorry a lot of you are currently in the "I didn't vote for Obama/Bush/Clinton/etc" camp, but Rhoads is here for now. The bottom line is that even when Rhoads was the toast of the town after beating OSU with 3 straight Big 12 wins, or going to 3 bowls in 4 years, and ISU fans were in full bonertown mode....NONE of it came easy, and that's just how it is.

Rhoads clearly has his limitations as a coach. I know this, but even so, his teams have shown some serious resolve in years passed. The way 2012 ended soured me for sure, and the last 2 years have been hard to deal with. With that said, everyone was in full suicide mode early in 2010(like they are now) and that team scraped along to play meaningful football into the last week of the year. 2011, looked like the cliff was ready to swallow them whole(woe is us), and ISU found some wins. 2012 was less dramatic for sure, but still required a must win game in November to get to a bowl.

Until this team loses to Toledo, or KU, can we wait to shovel dirt onto the grave???

Who expected Rhoads to get the better of Tech in 2010 and 2011?
Who expected ISU to beat OSU?
Who expected ISU to win B2B games vs Iowa, after they had embarrassed the Clones like 70-10 in 2 games?
Who expected UT to take a dump in 2010 and ISU capitalized on the situation.
Who expected ISU to beat UNI by 24? Didn't look pretty but it was a win.

It's never pretty. It's rarely as fulfilling as it should be, but there should still be hope for the men that wear the cardinal and gold. Maybe Mangino uses his grey matter a little bit better in the next 3 weeks and figures out some more clever tactics to get some sort of run game to get the offense in a flow. If every position group was incrementally better in the 2nd half, they probably hold on vs Iowa. They have 2 not so imposing opponents up next to get some things figured out against, and collect a couple wins along the way.

 

[BWRhasnoAC]

One game at a time people.

 

[Wesley]

So, after 6 years, why isn't this an effective system? What we seem to have now is more of a sack based spread offense. He has had time to get personnel in place to make it work, but we're continually thin - especially on the line.

The line is basically our most experienced group.

 

[CYEATHAWK]

I think it's legitimately possible. I've been watching a lot of college football so far this season and I must say that I think it's a down year for the big 12. Let's look at the some of the teams so far...
Kansas is a win. They might be the worst P5 team in history, no hyperbole.
Texas was out gained by Rice by over 200 yards. They only won due to offensive miscues by Rice to the tune of 5 turnovers. They are horrible on offense.
Toledo is a solid team but by no means unbeatable. Arkansas threw all over them because they couldn't run...if ISU can get it going in the passing game they can pull it out.
KState is using a qb that's never played a snap of qb until this season. Their offense, passing and running, looked awful against UTSA this last weekend.
Texas Tech still has no defense to go with their offense...it'll take a great effort to out score them but it's by no means impossible.
That's 6 wins. With some luck and execution (everyone's favorite word) it really can happen. Have a little faith.

Karl, our win against UNI was our 6th win.......................................in the last three years. So you need to understand exactly what our reaction will be when you say it is completely possible for us to win 6......................in one year. Just because Iowa beat us doesn't automatically make us good anymore than when ISU wins it must have meant that the Hawks didn't care. Trust me.........the Hawks didn't beat a good team. They just avoided losing to bad one.

 

[leroycyclone]

Won't happen. Max two wins.