he was talking about the basketball game.

It’s the recap of a hoops game.

negated by Stanzi showing off his wheels, that was about it. He wasn’t bad by any means, but I didn’t see a top 15 draft pick.

Watch for when #91’s on the field for GT and when he’s not. There’s literally no push or pass rush when he’s off the field. There’s an OL in the backfield when he’s in. The pressure he applied and the ability to take on blockers in the run game was all that kept our defense from giving up ten thousand yards.

Sorry, but he won’t even play in the NFL if he’s slower than 6’4" dropback quarterbacks with surgical ankles who are running while having the inconvenience of carrying a football. Because, you know, NFL running backs are a little faster than lanky passing gimps? Whence all the hype for this guy?

Johnson noted that GT was “combo-blocking” our interior line (double-teaming), and GT wasn’t able to stop them with double teams. Your success in the second half with that rocket sweep (not an option play at all, incidentally) indicated that he was giving up on the foundation play of the triple option, the interior dive; you had to get wide and get wide fast. This also enabled PJ to relieve Nesbitt of the obligation to read our ends, who were, in turn, optioning the QB. (Our DEs were playing assignment football, but not like most people where they take one guy and one guy only. They had multiple reads, and it was clear Nesbitt was befuddled, and PJ kindly relieved him of the responsibility (before his brain exploded) to figure out what the heck Clayborn and Binns were doing.)

Anyway, for me the Morgan hype encapsulates the game. After listening to scheme-hype for a month, it turns out that football is still won with stronger, faster, tougher play at the line of scrimmage. Morgan didn’t bring any of that. He’d probably start in the Big Ten. But …. ???

1. You answered it with #2

2. You answered it with #1. It’s not prescient to predict Stanzi’s Pick Six when you already know it’s going to happen. We call them STANZIBALLS, and swing over to BHGP to see just how often that term shows up. The STANZIBALL is the only thing preventing Rick Stanzi from being a heisman candidate, in my opinion.

3. That is Ferentz 101. He is a clone of sweatervest when it comes to offensive strategy. Be honest – with our offense, wouldn’t you be? The entire scheme is simply “Defense, go win the game. Offense, don’t screw up what the Defense is going to do”.

I think people saw last night what Iowa fans have been saying all season. No, we haven’t been lucky. We’ve been letting our D win the game, because that’s exactly who we are. With an even “average” offense, I have no doubt we would have been a legit contender for the MNC.

until our QB was knocked out in game 10. We were 11-0 with our QB. Even the Colts lose when Manning doesn’t play.

3. Ferentz doesn’t coach like a college coach, he coaches like an NFL coach. If he decides he will hold a team to 17 or fewer points, we plan accordingly. It’s the inverse of a Leach, who is balls-to-the-wall, all the time. Iowa thinks that 24-14 counts as a W, and anytime we take a knee to end a game, it’s a rout. Just the way it is.

I’m not inclined to sift through all of the pre-game predictions, but I recall either Bird or Winfield predicting Rocket getting used quite a bit.

I’m sure you saw Norm Parker’s pre-game presser where he talked about Tech’s offense. He basically described every base play that we run. There are only four or five plays that we run(Triple, Midline (the one where the qb runs up the middle), Counter, Rocket and a Speed option play) with the variance showing up in formation and blocking assignments. The triple option play is called the most frequently, but it’s only called maybe 20% of the time.

I was thinking about the game some more last night, and the thing that most impressed me about the Iowa D was that they were able to stop those base running plays with the front 7. Tech’s offense has been stymied on a couple of occaisions since we went to the option attack, but the hawkeyes were the only team that I’d seen shut us down without having to bring a safety into the run game on a consistent basis. Keeping the safeties back shut down our passing game and made breaking a long run impossible. That’s a special group you’ve got up front. You should clone them.

I can figure is that route is dependent on the coverage. If the corner is tight, we don’t throw it so whenever it was called in, we must’ve audibled out.

but if it is an inside release/slant, it was taken away by our corners. You couldn’t release inside and you couldn’t throw the slant because we were totally sold out on run support, and Nesbitt would have needed an RPG, not an arm, to get the ball through the crashing corners.

will ever implement the shotgun. He enjoys his formation balance too much.

Or the bastard son, the Triple Option Pistol Spread?

The wildcat has become all the rage because of the success Arkansas had with it and now the Miami Dolphins. The key to it’s success – and why your suggestion won’t work – is that contrary to popular opinion, the wildcat isn’t one, two or a few plays, but an entire offensive subset (a playbook within the playbook if you will). Teams that understand this (Dolphins, old Arkansas, Ole Miss to a limited degree) run many different plays out of the wildcat formation, pass and run, dependent on the read. Teams that blindly try to install the wildcat that turns on two plays or so, don’t. And here is where, I believe, you are off in your thinking. As I read your post, you are in favor of running a few plays out of the wildcat, not committing a substantial portion of your offensive philosophy over to it. if that’s the case, it will fail as it will nothing other than a “gimmick” play that will be unsuccessful the second time it’s run as opposing Ds will know exactly what you plan to do.

you already have a divergent, run-first offense out of which you can pass if you’d like. Don’t you?

You’d have the same problem with the single wing that you had the other night, and then you’d have new ones because it’s easier to gameplan. Your O-line isn’t physical or technically good enough, your linebackers aren’t very active, and the QB can’t throw. If you stick with what you have and recruit some better players, and introduce them to the weight room, you’re a lock for 9-10 wins a year. Iowa, incidentally, is not a lock for 9-10 wins a year, and never will be.

Tom Osborne said it well, and best: the triple option is the most difficult offense in football to prepare for. It’s only technical deficiency is that it’s not a good come-from-behind scheme. The Johnson offense with a QB like Tommie Frazier (even, Scott Frost); an offensive line that is more respectable, coupled with your existing backs and wideouts: that offense goes undefeated, assuming even mediocre defense.

I’ve read that GT doesn’t really run Johnson’s offense yet, because the QB doesn’t have the grasp that Ricky Dobbs did, and therefore isn’t able to do the things that Navy did. I would measure Johnson and evaluate the offense after he’s got his guys on the field.