Is there a reason NOT to fire
- Thread starter weR138
- Start date
Saturday was not the first game of Mess's career as OC at Iowa State. Nobody is calling for him to be fired just because of Saturday. They are calling for him to be fired because of the sum of his OC abilities as evidenced over many games. Saturday was just the last straw.
NONE of our WR routes stretched the field in the 2nd half. You can't throw to routes under the 1st down marker on 4th down.
This is my biggest fear right now. The fact that Klenakis might not be who we think he is. If the first game is any indication, he might not be. Our O-line got manhandled by an undersized FCS D-line. They imposed their will on our 300 lb guys, not the other way around. That is downright frightening in my eyes. And if it doesn't change, Sam Richardson will continue to be our leading rusher.
What disappoints me the most, I guess, is that our OL doesn't even play with the fire and passion of Klenakis. Even if they have poor technique, if they could at least play with his intensity and fire we'd probably be halfway decent.
In my worst nightmare going into Saturday night's game, I didn't envision us not being able to run the football and our best RB would only end up with 35 yds. That isn't just losing folks, that's getting blown off the ball in the trenches..... and by an undersized FCS team!
So privately you make the adjustments and wrest the authority of the play calling away from Messingham. Messingham remains, but all decisions offensively are under the authority of CPR. If CPR chooses to have someone else call the plays, then Messingham has to accept it privately or tender his resignation.
Bottom line is that you do not have a public lynching to satisfy an angry mob. And as I said, those wanting heads to roll after game one are not owners or managers of any kind of business. The angry vocal fans calling for heads to roll should stick to making the decision as to when the fries should be done.
That was one of my biggest gripes. We threw one long pass play that stretched the field and it was a 59 yard TD to Coleman. We never seemed to throw deep the rest of the game.
Yeah.... send Bundrage deep a couple times just to keep them honest. Explain to me how a 40 or 50 yd INT is any worse than a 40-50 yd punt? It's almost as if they are doing everything in their power to avoid Sam not throwing an INT. But that means you're also playing way too conservatively IMO as well.
Yeah, I don't see how you can fire Mess, although it should have happened after last season but it's too late for that now. But you could give Sturdy the playcalling duties behind the scenes, couldn't you? It seems pretty obvious that Mess doesn't know how to call a game.
Correct. You make the adjustments privately. I looked at the statistics of our receivers. Amazing how many 3 and 4 yard passes we had while there were very few passes over 10 yards. One thing lost in this whole discussion is that the UNI QB's combined for over 75% completion of their passes and their RB Johnson ran for almost 200 yards. As inept as the offense was, the defense was equally inept. We need to stop the insanity of playing off the receivers 10 yards and allowing 10 yard completions all night. And our tackling absolutely sucked. Starting MLB George had 2 tackles total, both assisted tackles. Starting OLB Miller had zero tackles, and God knows how many missed tackles as UNI scored TD's on their first 3 possessions.
I really thought we would look different on offense this year. We do not. Same old defensive style of playcalling. Run for one yard up the middle. Run for two yards. Dump a pass outside for three yards. Nothing taking a chance. Nothing scoring.
What do we do with Wally for starting Miller and coaches our LB's? George had 2 assisted tackles for the game. Do you suggest a beheading or just a public flogging? Perhaps we could put him in the stocks and throw rotten tomatoes at him and have "Tomato Justice".
I was terribly disappointed in our linebacker play. But that was a one game bad performance and also Wally made adjustments and substitutions to make the defense better as the game continued. Players were put into positions to make plays. They just failed to make them. Wally earned his paycheck as DC on Saturday.
Comparing Wally to Mess is stupid. Wally has a built up a little credit around here not to mention he also was able to actually make adjustments and improve. Mess has been a disaster since the get-go and once again showed he can do nothing on the fly.
Seriously. You can't call it K's line one game into his first season. Let's see how things progress this year before judging.
The defense was terrible particularly LB play, but personnel adjustments were made and things improved throughout the game.
It's hard to stretch the field when you don't give your quarterback any time to throw. Probably already time to shuffle in different players to see if anyone wants to block. Sam played well, but kind of was playing shell shocked by the end. There was zero urgency in that last drive attempt. It didn't even look like a hurry up offense let alone a 2 minute drill.
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Our defense has kind of sucked ever since we lost Knott after the Baylor game last year. We have not been the same defense since Knott was gone.
And I am not saying that Wally should be fired. But our LB play was absolutely terrible. Our defensive philosophy of allowing the UNI QB's to rack up over a 75% completion rate should be questioned as well. We allowed 21 points on the first 3 UNI possessions which was enough points to win the game right there. And who made the decision to let Arceo be the first kicker? So allowing a UNI RB to rack up a career high rushing total of almost 200 yards and allowing UNI QB's to complete over 75% of their passes is earning their paycheck?
Messingham sucks. But our Defense was as bad or worse IMO.
We may have a lack of talent, but that lack of talent could of put up 38 on UNI with some better play calling, IMO. Knowing that our defense was going to struggle, and then watching them struggle more than what anyone probably thought, it was completely inexcusable to call such a conservative offensive game.
Zero turnovers, and ISU's offense only hung 20 on FCS UNI? Thats not on the players, its on the coaching.
We obviously have not learned our lessons from the Danny Mac Era. When you play NOT to lose, You LOSE. The offense should be in "attack" mode. Stretch the field. Take some shots. We didn't do that. On Defense we played NOT to lose as well. Sticking with the insane game plane of allowing UNI QB's a 10 yard cushion on their receivers and then missing the tackles after they made the catch. The Cyclones acted like this was an exhibition scrimmage and lost the game. It was the first game of the year. We have a very young team. They say the biggest improvement is made from the first game to the second game. We better hope so. And open up the playbook. We have nothing to lose at this point. Play aggressively and take some shots.
