Official ISU vs Toledo Autopsy Thread (Post-Game)

[Wesley]

Brandtner made a high school mistake by not kicking the ball out of the end zone. Bad coaching? Bad play by player? Had to be bad play by player. Lost the game in the end. He has had his problems at times. He is not focused enough as Gene's staff would say.


Frankly, in 55 years, I have never seen seen this special teams scenario where 3 plays at end of game where a team self destructed itself: kick off return, bad snap, and blocked kick. This was a first and ultimately pathetic. See something new every day.

 

[moforisu]

3 losses. But not beat?

Yes it was a meltdown for special teams at Toledo, but I feel we gave it to them rather than them beating us. That's the only hope I am clinging to, that we are beating ourselves with turnovers and mistakes that CAN be fixed. If these were non-fixable errors, then we have a greater problem. Remember we are still playing with Mac's players. What's your thoughts guys and gals?

Go Cyclones!!

 

[guitarchitect7]

Re: 3 losses. But not beat?

If you dont mind, I am going to put merge this with the post game thread!

 

[Wesley]

We have lost 3 games due to mistakes and won won one game with few mistakes. This must be a trend. We need to get more FOCUSED as the staff says.

 

[keepngoal]

We have lost 3 games due to mistakes and won won one game with few mistakes. This must be a trend. We need to get more FOCUSED as the staff says.

we only have the talent win or lose by making or NOT making small mistakes. Hopefully in a few years we have the talent, that small mistakes don't hurt as much or nearly at all.

- keep.

 

[cmoore_23]

i dont even have a comment.. the fact that we had such a bad melt down on special teams... i dont even know what to say.. i mean has any1 ever seen this happen.. except for the texas and ou games a few years back... and what the heck was up with our guys slipping so much.. :swoon:

 

[Wesley]

We forgot to practice on the old type astroturf ahead of time - turf gets wet and slippery at night. Just one more oversight that we will correct with better talent next year. Or gives us five years to fix the problems.

Heck, Nebraska finally is talking about getting back to their 2003 9-3 no talent team. Funny how Bo Pellini came in and made a #100 defensive team Top 10 with the same players. Kevin Cosgrove has never had a Top 50 defensive team in his career. I see a trend at Nebraska.

Lucky we do not have to play the no talent Frank Solich Ohio U MAC team this year. Maybe Rivals is underrating Ohio high school players is the reason for rise of the MAC.

 

[d30fan]

I've followed the Cyclones since the middle 1950s. I can't remember ever being much more disappointed and discouraged than last night. Maybe it has taken so much practice time to get new systems in for O and D, that there hasn't been enough time to devote to special teams. See how you learn to rationalize after 50 years of being a Cyclone fan. Oh well, there's always next week, or year, or decade.

 

[loboclone]

At least it gets a lot easier now.....:no:
We should pick up a few wins in the next 5.

@ NU
@TT
TEXAS
OU
@Mizzou

If you think that way, we lost first 2 then beat Iowa. That means we beat Texas at home! then the Buffs at home, right?

 

[cycloneworld]

I'm still sick over the loss. Typical Iowa State football ending. But I'll pick myself up so we can do it all over again.

We actually played pretty well last night. We would likely have 3 or 4 wins if someone could teach some of the players a little focus.

 

[jtd9046]

We forgot to practice on the old type astroturf ahead of time - turf gets wet and slippery at night. Just one more oversight that we will correct with better talent next year. Or gives us five years to fix the problems.

The turf was not wet last night. I was at the game and live in the area. It's been very dry here the last few weeks and there was no moisture in the air.

 

[Wesley]

Guess they just did not play well on the old astro turf with all the slips.

 

[CaptainCamoBeer]

The ending of the game was a typical ISU meltdown, but with a new coaching staff I prepared myself for a season like this. Some things that I really liked from last night were that Bret did a better job protecting the ball. He (for the most part) made really good decisions and it sounded like he is getting better at looking for his secondary recievers. Defense wasn't great, but wasn't a total disappointment. Special teams on the other hand made me want to puke. There is no excuse for that kind of meltdown no matter how bad your team is. Well, on to next week. Bring on the Huskers!!

 

[kuney1]

Last week we almost lost with a runback on the last play against Iowa when they ran it back to the 30. Our problem is our kickoffs may go to the 5 or the 20. The last several kickoffs have been the 20. We have poor coverage and no real headhunters. We need a change immediately. Let the special teams coach earn his money starting now.

Maybe we should just kickoff out of bounds, and have the opposing team take over on the 35. Limit the risk of having it run back if we can't defend it.

 

[ISUAlum2002]

Maybe we should just kickoff out of bounds, and have the opposing team take over on the 35. Limit the risk of having it run back if we can't defend it.

This is what I was muttering all night while I sat amongst the 16,000 or so.

However, I'm not sure of the rules.....can the receiving team elect to force the other team to re-kick from 5 yards deeper? And if we were to keep kicking it out of bounds, could they keep on forcing re-kicks?

The safest thing to do would be to do exactly what Toledo did to us. Kick pop flies to the big guys up the line and make them fair catch it.

Then on punts, kick the freaking ball out of bounds.

And the AstroTurf DID make a big difference in the game last night. JJ slipped the first time he touched the ball. Drenard did the same thing on the opening kickoff. Robinson also slipped on his first touch. After that, all of those guys were noticeably more tentative with the ball.

 

[ISUFan22]

I believe the receiving team has a choice.

 

[ISUAlum2002]

I think they do too, but I'm not sure if there is a limit to how many times it can be kicked out of bounds before they just give them the ball at the 40-45-50-whatever.

 

[Flag Guy]

With 5 minutes to go the Toledo fans around us were like, "Looks like you guys have this game about wrapped up"

Superfan turns to him and says what I was thinking, "Hey, I'm a Cyclone fan. I've had enough heartbreak in the past few years that I know not to celebrate early."

Unfortuantly our worst fears came true.
Or close to it - on a positive note I was really pleased with our progression down the field in our last drive, we atleast got it within field goal range looking pretty decent for the most part, I thought we'd make a stupid play and turn it over or flat out just not get down the field on the drive, so as bleak as it is there was some positive in that last 5 minutes (just not quite enough of it)

 

[BugDoc]

I'm still sick over the loss. Typical Iowa State football ending. But I'll pick myself up so we can do it all over again.

We actually played pretty well last night. We would likely have 3 or 4 wins if someone could teach some of the players a little focus.

That's exactly what makes this whole thing so frustrating to me!!! Chizik preaches being physical and being focused, but apparently no one is listening.:no: