Comments and Questions

[mark82]

It seems to me that every year we are a "young" team with the exception being the 2021 season. Does our young talent leave after a year or two?

Injuries are part of the game, but it seems that most freshman can't hold up a Big 12 schedule for more that a few games. We have put a number of freshman into the game this season only to see many of them go down.

I have heard those that know more about football than me (which is most people) say that college football is a junior/senior dominated game. Unless you pick up a bunch of 4/5 stars.

Can a developmental program win a championship?

Could it be we need to get older quickly? Should CMC go the TJ route? Pick up a significant number of transfers that have shown they can play, are team focused and looking for playing time over NIL.

Anyway, just some thoughts on a gloomy Sunday....

 

[CySmurf]

Personally speaking, my soul is much more at peace when "National Championship" doesn't even enter my vernacular. My expectations are much more realistic with our college football team when I expect 7-9 wins in a season...and we reach it. Starting 7-0 was great...but it made me want to shift my expectations that I had before the season started...and it then became a disappointment when it didn't come to fruition. I had to tell myself, what were my expectations for this football team at the beginning of the season? For me, that was 8-9 wins. We still can do that.

 

[1SEIACLONE]

It seems to me that every year we are a "young" team with the exception being the 2021 season. Does our young talent leave after a year or two?

Injuries are part of the game, but it seems that most freshman can't hold up a Big 12 schedule for more that a few games. We have put a number of freshman into the game this season only to see many of them go down.

I have heard those that know more about football than me (which is most people) say that college football is a junior/senior dominated game. Unless you pick up a bunch of 4/5 stars.

Can a developmental program win a championship?

Could it be we need to get older quickly? Should CMC go the TJ route? Pick up a significant number of transfers that have shown they can play, are team focused and looking for playing time over NIL.

Anyway, just some thoughts on a gloomy Sunday....

ISU can win a conference championship, but each year there are really only 4-8 schools that have the talent to win a national championship in football. Look at the yearly recruiting cycles and it will show you who those teams are. What makes a Ohio State or Alabama great is that their backups could start for schools like ISU. So there is little to no drop off when they get a player to two go down with injuries.

Put me in the camp that a school like ISU should always be looking to bring in transfers that you think can thrive in our system or at a position of need. Its crazy to not bring in transfers when everyone else is. Players out of HS may end up going to smaller schools first and then use that route to jump to a P4 program after a couple of years.

 

[CycloneT]

It seems to me that every year we are a "young" team with the exception being the 2021 season. Does our young talent leave after a year or two?

Injuries are part of the game, but it seems that most freshman can't hold up a Big 12 schedule for more that a few games. We have put a number of freshman into the game this season only to see many of them go down.

I have heard those that know more about football than me (which is most people) say that college football is a junior/senior dominated game. Unless you pick up a bunch of 4/5 stars.

Can a developmental program win a championship?

Could it be we need to get older quickly? Should CMC go the TJ route? Pick up a significant number of transfers that have shown they can play, are team focused and looking for playing time over NIL.

Anyway, just some thoughts on a gloomy Sunday....

You can consider us a young team at certain positions and old at others. As a team were probably considered somewhere in the middle
Young- QB, RB, TE, LB, ST
Old- WR, OL, DL, DB

 

[MuskMisk]

Eventually young and developmental teams can win, but it requires learning from the mistakes.

Just because a kid coming out of high school has 4 or 5 stars coming out of high school doesn’t mean they will be good in college or make the pros. A few good videos on YouTube that look back over the top 25 high school recruits for football over the years and how many flops there have been.

When it comes to this team, injuries happen but they have made certain positions very thin and those mistakes during games magnify. Some of the magnification is that the team started out 7-0 and the fans started to have high hopes.

I only listened to the game yesterday and heard how depleted the tight end position is due to injury to add onto the linebackers and then the secondary made some mistakes in coverage… and then a bad game.

Looking at a lot of the “championship” programs, they had a history. That history was built over many years and development years. With the instant gratification that has become sports (transfer portal, more games on tv, more media as a whole) there is expectations of creating the program quick. I think this year showed glimmer of what can be. We, as fans, just need to to take a breath and look at a winning season as a positive. Look at going 7-0 as great. Look at winning 3 more games to give a double digit win season. Looking at recruiting and transfers to bring in more depth and continue to build to the next step. If we go to fast, you see teams crash and burn… let’s look for a program that keeps building and getting better.

 

[ISUTex]

We can be the Drake of div 1 football. Win your conference. Get waxed by 40 in the first round.
The way things are going with the NCAA and the Big 10/SEC, that might be all we can hope for.

 

[stewart092284]

You can consider us a young team at certain positions and old at others. As a team were probably considered somewhere in the middle
Young- QB, RB, TE, LB, ST
Old- WR, OL, DL, DB

Disagree a little on QB.

Yes, okay, the overall QB room is young but we have a 2nd year starter and 3rd year overall player. So while a sophomore and overall gets very young after that... as far as starting goes... he's middle aged as he's played in what, 24-25 games now and has started the lion's share? He's no Cam Rising or Alan Bowman but he's not young either. Its a weird middle ground there.

Same at TE... Moore is a Junior, Burkle a redshirt Sophomore so 3 year college player, Klotz is a senior, only Brahmer is young.


So we're not really that young a team. No injuries have made younger players more a bit earlier than expected, noteably at LB. but overall... no, this is not a super young team.


Can a team like this win the league? Yes.
Utah essentially was doing just that in the Pac 12.

But that's where IDK if we've hit enough in the development across the board to do that.

 

[quasistellar]

Personally speaking, my soul is much more at peace when "National Championship" doesn't even enter my vernacular. My expectations are much more realistic with our college football team when I expect 7-9 wins in a season...and we reach it. Starting 7-0 was great...but it made me want to shift my expectations that I had before the season started...and it then became a disappointment when it didn't come to fruition. I had to tell myself, what were my expectations for this football team at the beginning of the season? For me, that was 8-9 wins. We still can do that.

I kept my expectations in check. I just delayed them. I expected to lose 4 games, maybe 5 if you include the bowl loss.

 

[AuH2O]

1. ISU brought back as much experience as you can ever expect in today’s CFB. It allowed ISU to play well early despite all the injuries. As other teams break in new guys they are going to improve more tbrough the year.

2. Defensively this is all about injuries and talent. We have a lot of good college players and have over the years. But look at the NFL draft record since Campbell and Heacock have been here. They have had no business having a good P5/4 defense given the lack of NFL talent.

I think we have some good guys and some NFL prospects, but the idea that there’s enough talent to overcome this level of injuries is unrealistic.

 

[stewart092284]

I thought we had a real shot at 9 wins with our schedule, if we beat Iowa. Right now... IDK.

I hate saying it but Cincinnati's going to have a great game plan for our defense cause its basically their defense, more or less and they'e already played it before.

So that game is really really tricky now.

 

[AuH2O]

Disagree a little on QB.

Yes, okay, the overall QB room is young but we have a 2nd year starter and 3rd year overall player. So while a sophomore and overall gets very young after that... as far as starting goes... he's middle aged as he's played in what, 24-25 games now and has started the lion's share? He's no Cam Rising or Alan Bowman but he's not young either. Its a weird middle ground there.

Same at TE... Moore is a Junior, Burkle a redshirt Sophomore so 3 year college player, Klotz is a senior, only Brahmer is young.


So we're not really that young a team. No injuries have made younger players more a bit earlier than expected, noteably at LB. but overall... no, this is not a super young team.


Can a team like this win the league? Yes.
Utah essentially was doing just that in the Pac 12.

But that's where IDK if we've hit enough in the development across the board to do that.

If you are going to classify ISU as a young team this year, you might as well call every team in CFB young every year moving forward. This is as much experience and continuity you can expect to return given the current state of the sport.

The injuries at LB change that. The injuries to the other position groups have impact of course, but those are pretty typical for college football.

 

[stewart092284]

The only spot I'd say we are young at is Running back. Linebacker due to injury but pre-season, was RB.

 

[Dopey]

I hope no one here was seriously expecting a real national championship run.

My realistic, best case scenario was to sneak into the playoff. Host a first round game. And then get Big 10 West level of embarrassed in the post season.

8-4 would be a fine season. It just sucks to get it by going 7-0 and then 1-4. But if your best win is against a team who gave up 200 yards rushing to the worst rushing attack in the nation, you really that good yourself.

 

[stewart092284]

My realistic, best case scenario was to sneak into the playoff. Host a first round game. And then get Big 10 West level of embarrassed in the post season.

Most years, agreed. This year though... IDK.

What team other than Oregon is consistently looking unbeatable or playing great?

Bama - almost lost to South Carolina, did legitimately lose to Vandy and struggled versus USF. So , still Bama, but also, more average.

Georgia - average by their standards
Ohio State - same
Michigan - very bad by their standards
LSU - see Michigan
Clemson - still not back to their heights
Miami - not great
Ole Miss - very meh.
Tennessee - solid but elite? Not to me.



So I guess that's the only spot I see this is as a potentially missed opportunity. Between the teams that were down in the league, and nationally... if Iowa State was EVER going to win a playoff game or have a chance to , based on the relatively leveled playing field that this season has become, it was this year.


Moving forward, as the blue bloods regroup and reload... I completely agree. This year though... man. No one outside of Oregon really looks special.

 

[demoncore1031]

You can consider us a young team at certain positions and old at others. As a team were probably considered somewhere in the middle
Young- QB, RB, TE, LB, ST
Old- WR, OL, DL, DB

Agree with this, but at QB, RB, and TE we are not super young. I mean, we are talking about sophomores, so technically they are young, but those guys (Rocco, Sama, Hansen, Brahmer etc) have played in a lot of games. Linebacker is really the only position where we are inexperienced.