Poor recruiting will put you in this position. Our QB position is frustrating and hard to watch, defense is a joke.
It's not a talent issue.
- Thread starter CYCLNST8
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Yeah, some of it is talent. Some of it is X's and O's. Some of it is weight training. Some of it is just lack of toughness and desire.
It's a lot of things right now, but talent is definitely one of them. Especially on defense. We do not have a Big 12 LB on this roster right now IMO. Meeks might be one someday, but he isn't right now. Same with Knott. But that's it.
Miller was so far out of position and taking horrible angles again all day yesterday it wasn't funny. And he's slow. Brackens gave good effort, but he too is too small and isn't in position either.
Drake Ferch... I love his toughness, but he is FAR from being a Big 12 LB, sorry. I knew there might be an issue here when Drake said in an interview in fall camp that his two brothers were better athletes than he was, and they weren't even playing Div 1 football anywhere I don't believe? Yikes.
And Syrie... I feel for the kid because he's not ready either. He was thrown into a tough spot yesterday. Looked like he had no idea what he was doing? Took terrible angles all day too. I thought they might put Darian Cotton back there when Cotton-Moya went out just for the fact that he's been here a long time and might know where to be to be in good position? But maybe Cotton doesn't play that safety position, I don't know?
I think our scouting need some serious help possibly? I was at the Prairie game Friday night, and I'm sorry but Meeker doesn't look like a Big 12 player to me at all either. I can see why Iowa didn't offer. Don't get me wrong, I love the kid, but I'm not sure he has the toughness or nastiness either?
Prairie played Linn-Mar, and Linn-Mar had nobody on their DL bigger than 240 lbs, and their nose tackle was about 5'7" and weighed about 200 lbs, and no I'm not kidding. He was a little bulldog in there. And Prairie couldn't do much of anything running behind Meeker against that small DL from Linn-Mar. Meeker is 6'6" and 285 lbs, and he couldn't get any push on the 230 lb DL from LM. Prairie went for it on 4th and 1 once, and couldn't make it running behind Meeker.
Maybe he will still turn into something great for ISU down the road, who knows? But if you can't dominate smaller kids in high school, then that isn't a good sign.
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I think the talent is on the roster but very young. What frustrates me is why can't we have upper class talent on the team? Every year it feels like the younger guys are beating out the juniors and Seniors because they are more "talented" bit then the excuse is they are young.
It's a bunch of new starters on defense. They have plenty of film to go over this week and see what they did wrong and can fix it.
IMO the skill position talent is adequate (bottom 1/3 of Big 12 but it always will be) but the obvious problem for the entire tenure of the CPR regime has been the complete lack of talent/recruiting/player development on both sides of the LOS.
Year after year UNI and now NDSU completely manhandles us in the trenches. COMPLETELY. The past few seasons there's been BS excuses floating around like how the UNI D-Line does some gimmick to blow up our gaps, blah blah blah.
NDSU and UNI both recruit/identify/develop their interior lineman much much better than we do even with all their built in disadvantages. Let that sink in for a minute.
Also, it seems anytime we get an above average (on paper) lineman recruit like Dauran Williams, Quenten Pompey, etc. they completely flame out. How does that happen? Kids like that had a lot of good programs after them. Take a look at the depth chart and see if you can find Williams anywhere.
Year after year UNI and now NDSU completely manhandles us in the trenches. COMPLETELY. The past few seasons there's been BS excuses floating around like how the UNI D-Line does some gimmick to blow up our gaps, blah blah blah.
NDSU and UNI both recruit/identify/develop their interior lineman much much better than we do even with all their built in disadvantages. Let that sink in for a minute.
Also, it seems anytime we get an above average (on paper) lineman recruit like Dauran Williams, Quenten Pompey, etc. they completely flame out. How does that happen? Kids like that had a lot of good programs after them. Take a look at the depth chart and see if you can find Williams anywhere.
The most glaring mistake was on the 80 yard TD run. Haven't had a chance to watch the game on DVR yet but curious which LB was out of position.
It's absolutely a talent issue. Rhoads won the first 3-4 seasons with more talented teams (at least 1st stringers) recruited by Chizik and staff. Now that those players are gone there is an obvious talent gap (especially on the lines). We have had different o-line coaches and the results are the same. I have heard people on this site say that development has not been an issue and Yancy McKnight is not the cause--well, the only thing left to blame is talent.
According to Curt, it was a safety out of position for that gap, though I have not rewatched it myself.
It is a player-retention problem. We are recruiting the same level athlete as we ever have. In order to compete, we need guys to be in our program 4-5 years. We have lost too many over the years, which makes us rely on younger players, who are not quite ready mentally and physically for the grind.
I really think that is part of the problem. As a quarterback it is YOUR team and the message in the huddle needs to be confident and do what ever it takes and Sam just seems way to timid. I think if you listen to CPR between the lines he knows it but there is nothing else to do and probably another season like last year may be coming up. Same for the defense we really miss the leadership of Klein and Knott.
In order of problems I saw yesterday and through the last couple seasons talent is way down the list. Before talent I would put poor fundamentals, poor coaching, lack of on field leadership, and to some extent maybe even poor effort from time to time.
The talent at receiver, running back, and QB is definitely good enough to be successful, IMO. On the lines it may be suspect, but still should be good enough on the offensive line to be competitive with NDSU and have a decent run game.
The talent at receiver, running back, and QB is definitely good enough to be successful, IMO. On the lines it may be suspect, but still should be good enough on the offensive line to be competitive with NDSU and have a decent run game.
You honest to God believe this team has the talent to compete in the big 12 this year?
Not yet, we're working on it. But for some reason people don't want to give Mangino time.
Why do some folks not admit this? It's so super obvious to anybody who looks at the field when the D is on it.
You drove me nuts for the last nine months but I think you may be on to something. To me it has to be either a schematic thing or something very wrong in development or overall attitude of the program. I really have trouble believing it's an attitude issue because then their probably would have been more problems CPR's first four seasons but who knows. It's not talent though, for that to be the case Iowa State's staff would have to be historically terrible at recruiting every position and that would have been more obvious in years three and four if it was the case.
Talent in football starts with blocking & tackling. 'Recruiting'-type figures (40 & shuttle times, weight-lifting numbers, etc) may lead one to think ISU has better talent against an FCS foe. Yesterday, the NDSU players put their helmets on ours & we did not get off of enough to make tackles. Their OL did not blow us off the LOS, but they stuck to us &/or turned us enough for gaps/holes to open up & our 2nd level guys were there too late most of the time. We get blocked too easily and we stay blocked too easily.
Our blocking after the 1st quarter was poor. The jail-break screen had 2 of our WRs whiff as did the 1 OL who shot out to the 2nd level - believe this was Farniok's replacement. Just one instance for an example, but I re-watched the game (sonofabitch that was difficult) and it was pretty evident. We did not block for crap.
Wasn't it Lombardi who said it was all about blocking and tackling? Think that's where all this mess starts, and if these new coaches are worth anything improvement should show up pretty quickly. What will make that difficult is the type of team we play next. Yikes.
Our blocking after the 1st quarter was poor. The jail-break screen had 2 of our WRs whiff as did the 1 OL who shot out to the 2nd level - believe this was Farniok's replacement. Just one instance for an example, but I re-watched the game (sonofabitch that was difficult) and it was pretty evident. We did not block for crap.
Wasn't it Lombardi who said it was all about blocking and tackling? Think that's where all this mess starts, and if these new coaches are worth anything improvement should show up pretty quickly. What will make that difficult is the type of team we play next. Yikes.
