Giving up 2 special team TD's is very frustrating. They are such big momentum shifters. So if getting better in the margins means better special teams, we better get things figured out quickly. We were also fortunate on the muffed punt and personal foul didn't hurt ISU.
But I look at 2 area's that are not "Margin" issues that were as big of reasons ISU lost.
The 3-3-5 has been a good defense. But I feel that its kryptonite are teams with power run games, mobile QB or strong flair/screen game. IMO our talent on the DL has progressed that we should be playing a 4 man line 75% of the time or more. Go with a 4-2-5 and adjust the personnel on the back end depending on down/distance. Seems to me we have the talent on the d-line to be an aggressive defense that can dominate the line of scrimmage, put a little fear into the QB and create turnovers.
- Our OL was just OK. Mainly against the run. It has been mentioned a lot that after Downing went out we struggled. That really shouldn't happen when ISU is playing Louisiana. Maybe against against a Texas or OU losing your best lineman makes a noticeable impact- but not most teams. Especially in pass protection.
- We just lack a smash mouth mentality on both offense and defense. We just seem very reactionary and passive. Louisiana was a good team, but we should have been playing with a lot more swagger.
Generally speaking Heacock's defense, and probably more specifically the personnel that are recruited and developed to play in it are not as well suited to stop power run game-oriented offenses. But unless you have top athletes, that's going to be the case for everybody, so you play defense, recruit, and develop in a way that best suits most of your opponents.
You can't be geared to stop every type of offense, so you build a defense to stop what a majority of conference teams are doing offensively, and try to gameplan and execute your way through the Iowa and K-State games. Pretty much every team outside of the elite programs has to work that way. It's sort of like how Iowa's better defenses would still struggle against 6 win Northwestern teams running the spread and using the horizontal passing game.