Questions for X's and O's people

**cyman05** · 10-30-2011, 01:46 PM

1. How did we run for so many yards? The running game has been hard to get going consistently all year. What was different?

2. How come Texas Tech never got going offensively? What was different?

**acqflisu** · 10-30-2011, 01:50 PM

Good question, I didn't get to see the game so very interested. Against Baylor and Texas we were giving them tons of cushion to avoid the big play and they were getting 6-9 yards every time. I thought this was TT's game as well, but something must have changed in the design of our coverage, not just execution.

**bosco** · 10-30-2011, 01:54 PM

Originally Posted by cyman05

1. How did we run for so many yards? The running game has been hard to get going consistently all year. What was different?

2. How come Texas Tech never got going offensively? What was different?

My opinion.

1. The offensive line played the best all year. Limited our TO's and penalties. 1st down success.

2. They were flat. DL played their best all year. Got some pressure on the QB and made their running game a non factor. Offense kept them fresh with long sustained drives and didn't put them in tough situations with TO's.

**swammi** · 10-30-2011, 01:59 PM

Originally Posted by cyman05

1. How did we run for so many yards? The running game has been hard to get going consistently all year. What was different?

2. How come Texas Tech never got going offensively? What was different?

1.
I have not reviewed the game, just watched it live. My impressions are these:

A healthy QB was crisper in carrying out his assignments. He was more effective as a runner which makes the zone read work better.

Barnett seemed to make really good reads for the most part.

To me, and I can't explain why this is, but the O-line executed better than any game this year. They were really getting after it. They seemed to play with more energy, too.

2.
Our defense was really well prepared and made it tough for receivers to get open.

Our time of posession dominated and Tech was unable to get into a rhythm.

**heitclone** · 10-30-2011, 02:00 PM

As far as the defense I'd say the biggest thing was tackling. We gave up some dink and dunk passes but didn't give up much YAC. That was big, but getting the early turnovers (and stopping them on downs) allowed us to jump out to the early lead was crucial. They got one demensional early, and the second half we did a great job of keeping their defense on the field. I think we had the ball twice as long as they did....that was the most important stat.

**cyman05** · 10-30-2011, 02:00 PM

Originally Posted by bosco

My opinion.

1. The offensive line played the best all year. Limited our TO's and penalties. 1st down success.

2. They were flat. DL played their best all year. Got some pressure on the QB and made their running game a non factor. Offense kept them fresh with long sustained drives and didn't put them in tough situations with TO's.

I'm not doubting your answer, but it seems too easy to say that we played our best and TT played flat. If it was about effort, how come we haven't competed better the last few weeks?

I'm sure it was some sort of combination between X's and O's and effort, but it just seems odd how dominating we looked Saturday as opposed to the last few weeks.

I'm trying to come up with a logical X's and O's explanation, but I can't because I don't know much about strategy.

**jburke** · 10-30-2011, 02:06 PM

Better match ups, Tech's D is horrible against the run, I am sure in tape we saw that we could dominate them in the trenches on the Offensive side. Defensively we dominated them in coverage, we did not have a ton of pressure on Doege (mostly because of the quick drop back and pass style), to me we also kept everything about their running game in check. I honestly thought we had a game plan and they had no game plan possibly a little overlooking on their side but I honestly their lose is our game.

**Wesley** · 10-30-2011, 02:07 PM

Many of the killer mistakes were not made. We usually made yards on first down. This is what we need to do in conference play to be in games.

**dualthreat** · 10-30-2011, 02:09 PM

we played well vs texas and texas a&m but turned the ball over too many times. couple that with dumb penalties and other dumb mistakes and both of those games got out of hand quickly. neither of them were as lopsided as the score would indicate.

go back and watch the texas and texas a&m games again and you will see an iowa state team that actually played pretty well, just shot themselves in the foot when they were on the doorstep of making a game out of it.

Texas: 13-0 with several strong defensive stands. Hold texas on 3rd and 13 but LJ gets a personal foul after the whistle... gives them a first down-- very next play they get a 50 yard touchdown bomb and go up 20-0. Then they block a punt and go up 27-0.

A&M: 7-6 early with lots of dumb mistakes.. INT on first play. Dropped first downs by Money. They get a TD with 30 seconds to go in first half to go up 20-7. Then we drop a 50 yard pass play from barnett to horne.

We just didn't make the stupid plays and tech did. We stopped them on a couple 4th downs-- which we probably wouldn't have against a&m or texas.

Things can honestly swing pretty quickly

**bosco** · 10-30-2011, 02:13 PM

Originally Posted by cyman05

I'm not doubting your answer, but it seems too easy to say that we played our best and TT played flat. If it was about effort, how come we haven't competed better the last few weeks?

I'm sure it was some sort of combination between X's and O's and effort, but it just seems odd how dominating we looked Saturday as opposed to the last few weeks.

I'm trying to come up with a logical X's and O's explanation, but I can't because I don't know much about strategy.

I don't know enough about what we ran specifically on Off and Def to give an intelligent answer but I do know that this is the most complete game we played all year. We aren't 34pts better than TTU so I think them being flat had something to do with the margin of victory. I also don't think that UT, Baylor, and MU were that much better than us as the score would indicate.

Maybe this is the norm for this team and the other performances were us not getting in the groove. For this team confidence can make all the difference.

**benjay** · 10-30-2011, 02:13 PM

Our secondary played a great game, nobody's given them much love. Doege had an off night for sure, but i credit the DL and the pass coverage.

**Trainer** · 10-30-2011, 02:19 PM

My unprofessional opinion is as follows. Rhoads had a game plan to take the crowd out of it, and for the most part did. They went for it early and often.

Also I think Barnett made awesome reads as far as running went. Not trying to slight Steele, but there were a number of times that I was upset that the ball didn't go another way, only to find out that the read had worked and we got a first down.

Solid game, all around.

**CyCloned** · 10-30-2011, 02:27 PM

Originally Posted by heitclone

As far as the defense I'd say the biggest thing was tackling. We gave up some dink and dunk passes but didn't give up much YAC. That was big, but getting the early turnovers (and stopping them on downs) allowed us to jump out to the early lead was crucial. They got one dimensional early, and the second half we did a great job of keeping their defense on the field. I think we had the ball twice as long as they did....that was the most important stat.

The defense had a great plan, and TT did not play worth a crap. It surprised me how much TT went for the home run in the passing game. It also surprised me that ISU had it covered well every time, including the 2 INT's. Traditionally I think of Tech throwing lots of underneath stuff and getting big yards after catch. Yes, ISU did a great job of tackling, but Tech was still getting 5 to 6 yards a play underneath, and for some reason they just would not stick with it.

On offense I think the big key is that with Barnett in there they have simplified what they are doing and it has benefited the whole offense. There were a lot less mental breakdowns on the offense yesterday than in the past few weeks.

**Wesley** · 10-30-2011, 02:36 PM

Originally Posted by dualthreat

we played well vs texas and texas a&m but turned the ball over too many times. couple that with dumb penalties and other dumb mistakes and both of those games got out of hand quickly. neither of them were as lopsided as the score would indicate.

go back and watch the texas and texas a&m games again and you will see an iowa state team that actually played pretty well, just shot themselves in the foot when they were on the doorstep of making a game out of it.

Texas: 13-0 with several strong defensive stands. Hold texas on 3rd and 13 but LJ gets a personal foul after the whistle... gives them a first down-- very next play they get a 50 yard touchdown bomb and go up 20-0. Then they block a punt and go up 27-0.

A&M: 7-6 early with lots of dumb mistakes.. INT on first play. Dropped first downs by Money. They get a TD with 30 seconds to go in first half to go up 20-7. Then we drop a 50 yard pass play from barnett to horne.

We just didn't make the stupid plays and tech did. We stopped them on a couple 4th downs-- which we probably wouldn't have against a&m or texas.

Things can honestly swing pretty quickly

The MO game was a disaster as we could not get to the runners for several yards. That may have been a bad scheme on our part as runners cut up through the many gaps on the outside.

**Ry4Cy** · 10-30-2011, 06:47 PM

Originally Posted by bosco

My opinion.

1. The offensive line played the best all year. Limited our TO's and penalties. 1st down success.

2. They were flat. DL played their best all year. Got some pressure on the QB and made their running game a non factor. Offense kept them fresh with long sustained drives and didn't put them in tough situations with TO's.

Nailed it. It is amazing what our defense can do when they get a break and get a chance to force the other team to go 80 yards to score