ISU and UofI - Week 1

[keepngoal]

Okay, before UofI fans state; "see it is your SB, you are worried about us after your first week!" I must state I am more curious then worried. And since I have been out of state since Friday morning and will be through this Friday, I only saw the UofI score trickle across the bottom of the FSU/MU game last night. I don't plan on watching much TV until Saturday afternoon while tailgating!

So, the reason for this thread:

compare what you saw at JTS and the UofI game (if you watched) for match ups that will and will not benefit us, and where you think both will be by game time in IC. Basically an analysis of both teams where they are now. Are we expecting too little/much? Are UofI fans expecting too little/much?

I won't be able to check often, but will now and this this week.

Go ISU!!

- keep.

 

[BryceC]

I think it's pretty fair to say that both U of I fans and ISU fans are expecting too much from what I saw on Thursday and Saturday. I don't think we'll win teh North, and I don't think Iowa will win the Big 10. Of course, it was the first game, ISU has a lot in injuries, and Iowa had a few suspensions.

Let's just say nobody was overwhelming.

 

[ISUFan22]

Didn't get to see the Iowa game. However, this was the synopsis I got from a Hawkeye friend. I'd also read similar things on the Hawkeye board.

- Iowa didn't do anything horribly yet didn't do anything spectacular either.

- Not once did they even throw to Calvin Davis - their "go to" WR per Tate. Peculiar.

- They had trouble with the running game early. They did get it going later, but wasn't impressive.

- Tate had some bad throws early but settled in and looked good overall.

- The defense was very solid all day...but that's obvious only giving up 7 points. Didn't get any details beyond that.

- Schlicher had a minor injury, they held him out and let Signor kick. Another good young kicker in Iowa City.

- Seems fans didn't like some of the changes at Kinnick. Long lines for the concessions/restrooms plagued fans. No matter what you do, in a 70k+ stadium, long lines will exist!

 

[BryceC]

Let me clarify. I watched the game start to finish, as most of my sports friends are Iowa fans.

Albert Young didn't break one run over 6 or 7 yards all day, and was stuffed under 4 LOTS of times in the first half. Tate had some rough throws, and one that was directly in an opposing linebacker's hands. I mean he coudln't have lobbed it to the guy any softer and he dropped it.

Defensive line wasn't that great, but Iwebema was out. Kanellis actually looked pretty good though. Linebackers, dispite all kinds of assurances by my Iowa friends, didn't really look that great. I mean you knew you were watching great players when watching Hodge and Greenway. Not so much with Klinkenborg, Humpel, and Miles.

Secondary didn't look great.

Needless to say, they have some work to do as well. Not nearly as much as we do, but if they seriously want to keep up with that national championship crap, they better figure some crap out in IC pretty soon.

 

[Cyclonesrule91]

The friend I have that is an EIU fan told me the biggest problem he saw was in the defensive secondary. On Montana's scoring drive it sounds like they really exploited one of the newby cornerbacks/safety's and basically picked on him the rest of the afternoon. I told him that his championship destined football team better figure some stuff out or, once again, or the championship will elude them once again....

 

[HGPuck]

About all the SB talk, personally I have heard more Iowa fans talking about the game on the 16th than State fans. This is probably due to their weak early season schedule. Realistically OSU, Mich, and ISU will be the only real tests for them with a possible exception of at Minn at the end of the season. For us it makes sense to also look ahead a little bit with the UNLV game being an easier game than our opener. But for me the biggest game of the season is in Ames on October 7th. Of our three big road games I have a feeling we will come out with a win in one of them. We have the feeling of a team that can get a big win, explosive offense and an athletic D that can come up with a big stop. Winning any of them would feel about the same to me, Texas and Oklahoma being the better teams and Iowa bc of the rivalry.

 

[zdorr40]

But for me the biggest game of the season is in Ames on October 7th

If we can beat NU and Tx Tech, I really like our chances to win the north.

 

[MNclone]

Schlicker the kicker's injury sounds kinda like what Yelk had. The mysterious leg injury that made him week to week for an entire season.

 

[BillyClone]

I thought Iowa looked rusty. Probably weren't getting too fancy against a 1-AA but found out that Montana wasn't just going to lay there. Tate looked downright bad on some of his throws and the running game took awhile to get going. Really, it's hard to tell what kind of a team Iowa has from this game -- I'm sure Iowa fans feel the same.

Iowa State looked green. Lots of mental mistakes on defense and special teams. The big positive was the ability to take Toledo's best shot and still pull out the victory. I thought the offense looked very good and for the most part, were able to move the ball at will.

 

[Wesley]

ESPN kept rattiling off the Tate passing stats like he had a great game on their ticker. "R Man Coleman" gained 13 yards in 12 tries with longest run of 5 yards. Suspect Iowa offense did not do well and Iowa defense did pretty good.
Also, Nebraska people are mad they dropped in their polls after roughing up La Tech. NE receivers dropped 4 easy balls. Wait till NE bombs Nicholls State (the unknowns) who runs an option offense.

 

[Hawk4Life24]

Iowa didn't show much

Iowa on offense was very vanilla they ran the same plays over and over. They opened up the playbook a little bit to get the passing game going. I thought going into the game that Montana would make a game of it in the first half. Then in the second Iowa would come out and continue to wear them down with the run and the runs would get longer and longer.

The entire game Montana put 8-9 guys in the box. So obviously it is hard to run against that many. Iowa was not going to throw all over them because they had things they wanted to work on.

The defensive line looked very good with the amount of presure and tackles they accounted for. As good as the defensive line there was not a lot of opportunity for the linebackers to make plays. Humpal and Klink looked comfortable out there. Miles looked ok but I think the fact they are all playing new positions and getting used to them and first game jitters/ rust was aparent. The secondary was a little more puzzling as Shada looked very good and Godfrey looked ok at times but he was going against Montana's only option at WR (Who was a very good one). The thing with Iowa's defense is that they had no tape to prepare for what Montana was going to do. Swogger was a new QB and Montana used to run a lot of 3 TE sets last year. I think the fact that Iowa was able to go against a spread offense will help them against ISU and OSU as they run a similar version of the ever popular Spread offense.

I'm not going to make a prediction on the score of the game on the 16th. I'm not an ISU hater, I'm not a fan, merely an Iowa fan who follows them because I love college athletics.