I agree with a lot of this, but who was responsible for Mess being in charge of the offense? Who made that hire? Of course the offense was a let down, but you win and you lose as a team and everyone should share in that responsibility. Yes there are going to be differences between coaches behind closed doors. That's fine. I'm sure that happens everywhere, but publicly throwing the offense under the bus was not the right way to handle anything. Specially not when you are responsible for the hire. Put the blame on the team as a whole or take it all yourself. Don't shove it off on one unit.
Quarterback Situation
- Thread starter Cyclone07
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I agree with a lot of this, but who was responsible for Mess being in charge of the offense? Who made that hire? Of course the offense was a let down, but you win and you lose as a team and everyone should share in that responsibility. Yes there are going to be differences between coaches behind closed doors. That's fine. I'm sure that happens everywhere, but publicly throwing the offense under the bus was not the right way to handle anything. Specially not when you are responsible for the hire. Put the blame on the team as a whole or take it all yourself. Don't shove it off on one unit.
I agree.
That UNI game last year told me a LOT about both Mess and Rhoads, and none of it was good. Mess was the problem, but Rhoads is just as much at fault for allowing it to happen and signing off on that gameplan.
Why you would run your QB that much? Sam Richardson had more carries in the UNI game than Wimberly, James White, and Shontrelle Johnson (our top 3 RBs) COMBINED! Richardson had 21 carries, and our top 3 RBs had 20 carries combined between the 3 of them. That is a sure fire way to get your QB killed in game one.
The Iowa game wasn't much better. Going into that game, everyone that knows anything about football knew what Iowa's weakness was defensively.... their secondary. Yet, Mess and Rhoads throw together a gameplan where we try to pound and ground it on them for 2 1/2 quarters and never test their secondary. Only once the game was basically over did we finally throw it on them, and guess what, it worked. Who would have thought?
Yes, Mess was a big problem and never should have gotten the OC job to begin with. But all that falls on Rhoads too. When Herman left, Rhoads had to go out and make a good OC hire, and he didn't. And it set this program back BIG time IMO.
I just hope, if anything, that Mangino trusts his QBs more to make the plays needed to win games. Mess and Rhoads never seemed to ever trust the QB to throw beyond 5 yds. WAY too conservative IMO.
I understand wanting to limit turnovers, but at some point you have to let these kids show what they can do. Throw it up to Bundrage 2 or 3 times a half at least and see if he can come down with it. Let these kids have fun and make plays at times.
Where would Johnny Manziel be today if he hadn't just thrown the ball up at times and let his WRs make great catches for him? Nearly every highlight you see of Manziel is him just getting out of trouble and throwing it up and letting Evans come down with it.
I've never understood the risk involved in the deep throw? 3 things can happen. You catch it, it's incomplete, or the other team catches it. You catch it, great. Incomplete, no harm. They catch it, they are likely tackled and it works out to be just as good as a punt.
The defense has had one poor season, the offense has had five. The offense also had way more talent than the defense. Based on your posts, I'm inclined to believe you've only watched one Iowa State football season.
Those writing Sam off don't know football. This should be a fun competition to follow and with a better offensive staff - I expect the QB position to be managed much better.
That was kind of my thought. Frankly, considering how the coaches have handled the subject, I had doubts about anyone truly in the know sharing such information with anyone who was going to rush off and post it on the internet.
This. I doubt that the competition is anywhere near being "over", and given the history of the OL back to Seneca's junior year, whoever starts against North Dakota, the other quarterbacks are going to see the field. Plenty.
And frankly, if we wind up having as many injuries as last season...well, not even Mangino is a miracle worker.
I would hope our staff works to recruit over every single player on the roster - regardless of how good they are. That is how programs build, improve and sustain.
It's Iowa State, most players are at best average. That's why we need good coaches. Sam would have been a much better player had Mess not been OC.
I see that my attempts to educate you on the not so subtle difference between "reasons" and "excuses" have failed miserably.
Fair enough? :biggrin:
Your reasons sure smell a lot like excuses. But by all means, keep fueling your "reason machine". I mean, it can't be that your "reasons" are flawed at all, right? No way the offensive line struggled mightily before injuries struck, eh?
The only things that have failed here are the ISU offense (notably the line) and the feeble attempts you make to blame it all on injuries.
See, this is the problem that I have, apparently with your reading comprehensions skills. I don't, I haven't, and I am not blaming it all on injuries. If you have that misconception, taking my words out of context to fit your own preconceptions, that's your problem, not mine.
In this case, I was simply saying that however the offensive line is playing, if we again have as many injuries to players who should be in the two deep--last year it started with Shaban Dika and Bob Graham, then to Farniok and Lalk, and on downhill from there--it will be difficult for even Mqangino to field a prolific offense.
As I have stated numerous times, last year's offense struggled due to injuries across the board (including to Richardson), ensuing inexperience, blocking problems, issues on the defense, and Messingham's shortcomings--among others. Just because I don't take the time to mention all of those factors every single time does not mean that I think that OL injuries were the only thing causing offensive woes last season. Capische? Is that really so difficult to grasp?
In the games late in the year two seasons ago I finally saw a quarterback who delivered the ball on time on target. Sam isn't as good as Seneca or Sage and didn't even look like a Big 12 level quarterback last year, but in my opinion he has the potential. I wish we knew the nature and extent of his injury, but it is pretty myopic to write him off based upon his performance last year behind that make shift line and with the head scratching play calling and poor management of the offensive side of the ball in general. My only question is can he regain his swagger and confidence in time and can we manage him in a way he is not continuously injured. I will fully support Grant if he is the #1 come fall, but I still think Sam will be the starter. Heck I'll even predict he is a top half of the league quarterback this year.
Total Defense during Rhoads tenure according to ESPN (120 teams):
2013: #99
2012: #83
2011: #54
2010: #102
2009: #63
Look at those rankings! One poor year!? Really!? What the heck are your standards? The best season ranking was only 54th, and three of the five were downright awful. The fact you say the defense has only had one poor year during Rhoads tenure says everything. You have no idea what you're talking about. You will grasp at anything possible to bend the facts in order to support this weird vision you have that somehow things aren't so bad. The amazing thing to me is that you actually seem to believe yourself.
ISU would have won 8 or 9 games several times already if only they were still in the B12 North...
The defense has only had one poor season....
Come on man. You need to take a big sniff of some smelling salt. And you think I've only watched one season haha. Unbelievable.
Your common "reason"and post subject is injuries. You are often the first to bring it up. It's a fact. Easy to grasp. Thanks for playing.
Until I hear Mangino or Rhoads announce the starter the job is still open.
I'm for Sam all the way.
I'd chair the Sam Richardson fan club, I just think he will compete and earn the job.
Go Cyclones.
Uh.....I think he did take responsibility for the hire by firing him and bringing in Mangino. If you don't like the way Rhoads coaches go back to Eastern Iowa where you can be among your friends. We don't need a Tavern Hawk here pretending to be a Cyclone.
You see, this is why I know you are a Tavern Hawk in disguise. The Big 12 puts up WAY higher yardage and scoring totals on average versus the low scoring offenses in the Big 10 (your favorite conference). Since you want to reference statistics, go back and bring me the facts on what the defensive rankings where for all teams in the top half of the Big 12 over the last several years. I am not going to do it on my own because I don't need to prove you wrong and waste my time doing so. Once you pull the stats you will notice several teams that where regarded as top 25 teams with defensive rankings worse than ISU over this time period. Posturing that the Cyclones have had several poor defenses over the past few seasons makes you look uninformed. No....actually stupid.
Look at number of points scored. It's a bend but don't break defense, so logic would tell you that they will give up a lot of yards. A lot of years they aren't great, but in a year like 2011 the offense put the defense in a lot of bad situations. That was the same defense that gave up 17 points to Oklahoma State in regulation. Notice the only person disagreeing with me is the Hawkeye troll, who is the only person on this board convinced that Rhoads let Messingham go for a reason other than the poor product on the field.
2013: 106, 36.7
2012: 43, 25.7
2011: 78, 30.2
2010: 88, 31.5
2009: 32, 22.2
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