*** Official IOWA STATE vs #19 Kansas State Game(Day) Thread ***

[SEIOWA CLONE]

How do you know that the way to beat Iowa is pass the ball early and often? Do you have examples where teams with similar talent levels have been successful recently?

NW and Purdue gave them fits over the years by passing the ball on them. Their defense is set up to guard and stop the run, which is what most teams in the Little 10 do, but defensing the passing game is not what their defense is made to stop. Neither NW nor Purdue out talented those EIU teams, they just out executed them.

 

[SEIOWA CLONE]

Sounds easy except that Iowa is also a top 10 defense against the pass.

Truthfully any defense that played the same teams that EIU played week in and week out would do well against the pass, because no one had even a basically talented QB. The kid from Penn State was the best they faced all year. ISU played against 5 or 6 better QB then anybody they faced.

 

[isufbcurt]

NW and Purdue gave them fits over the years by passing the ball on them. Their defense is set up to guard and stop the run, which is what most teams in the Little 10 do, but defensing the passing game is not what their defense is made to stop. Neither NW nor Purdue out talented those EIU teams, they just out executed them.

And both of those teams are historically spread teams and execute that system normally. ISU isn't a spread system, it'd be really hard to execute it properly just putting it in for the Iowa week.

 

[madguy30]

NW and Purdue gave them fits over the years by passing the ball on them. Their defense is set up to guard and stop the run, which is what most teams in the Little 10 do, but defensing the passing game is not what their defense is made to stop. Neither NW nor Purdue out talented those EIU teams, they just out executed them.

Then why didn't they beat Iowa this year? Purdue still throws the ball plenty.

 

[BCClone]

I was curious this morning, so I did some quick match. If you remove our big plays, the 5 plays that went for a TD over 60 yards, our offense only moved the ball 119 yards. We had the ball 13 total times on offense, so remove those 5 plays from the total and that means on our 8 other drives, we only moved the ball 119 yards, or averaged 14-15 yards per drive. So while KSU was able to move the ball very well and consistently in the weather, we weren't really able to.

So, eliminate half our drives and focus on the bad ones? That doesn’t work. Those passes at the end were set up my Sama gashing them. You can’t look at only half.

 

[madguy30]

Any both of those teams are historically spread teams and execute that system normally. ISU isn't a spread system, it'd be really hard to execute it properly just putting it in for the Iowa week.

An absolute favorite gem on CF is 'run a different offense for one week in early September with a redshirt freshman QB'.

 

[ScottyP]

I've checked Youtube for any highlights or replays and haven't found much. There are some highlights on Cyclones.com but the ones on youtube are horribly edited to the point that they are unwatchable.

Does FOX have some sort of way to watch replays on their site? Maybe the BIG 12 website? Years of K-State trauma scared me away from watching the game live.

 

[bozclone]

NW and Purdue gave them fits over the years by passing the ball on them. Their defense is set up to guard and stop the run, which is what most teams in the Little 10 do, but defensing the passing game is not what their defense is made to stop. Neither NW nor Purdue out talented those EIU teams, they just out executed them.

The last two years we have had an inexperienced QBs making their second start of a young career against one of the best defenses in the nation. Even when we had Brock Purdy, we also had Breece or David. It made sense to be balanced in our attack.

The thought is if we give Iowa the ball at their 25, they can't score on our defense. The issue is we do not execute and give them a short field or a TD on a turnover.

 

[mywayorcyway]

The NCAA FBS record book says the YPP record is 13.47, but it has a minimum 50 play requirement. We had 13.94 last night in 35 plays, 15.59 if you remove kneeldowns. Those are video game numbers.

Defensively we only allowed 4.87 against a top 10-to-20 offense, which is actually pretty good for how much crap they got in the game thread. If K-State runs a normal amount of plays we probably only give up 24 and feel pretty good about it.

The 50 play requirement seems odd. Just thinking out loud here, but shouldn't the requirement be.....completing the game?

 

[mywayorcyway]

So, is the JoeFrog weirdo the actual person that was heckling Matt Campbell earlier this year outside the stadium? Or did he do something important that is worthy of the lofty praise he gives himself?

Apologies if I'm interrupting the Iowa film session.

 

[bozclone]

I've checked Youtube for any highlights or replays and haven't found much. There are some highlights on Cyclones.com but the ones on youtube are horribly edited to the point that they are unwatchable.

Does FOX have some sort of way to watch replays on their site? Maybe the BIG 12 website? Years of K-State trauma scared me away from watching the game live.

If you have the Fox Sports app, the replay is available. I don't have a subscription, so I think I use my cable provider to get access.

 

[SEIOWA CLONE]

The last two years we have had an inexperienced QBs making their second start of a young career against one of the best defenses in the nation. Even when we had Brock Purdy, we also had Breece or David. It made sense to be balanced in our attack.

The thought is if we give Iowa the ball at their 25, they can't score on our defense. The issue is we do not execute and give them a short field or a TD on a turnover.

How did those games work out for ISU? Purdy never defeated them, is the goal here to keep the game close or win the game? Watch any EIU game and you quickly can see their defensive scheme is set up to defeat the run, its been that way for over 20 years. Attack the LOS on 1st and 2nd downs, and then once they are 3rd and long, stunt the lineman and play pass. Its not the number of attempts, you have to come out and throw on 1st down when they are expecting you to run the ball and gearing up to stop it.

Will it be successful every game and ensure a victory, no, but what we have been doing is not getting it done either. The games we lost this season for the most part were to teams that stopped the run, and we kept trying to rush on them. When it worked like it did against KSU and BYU the rushing game is great, when it was shut down by Ohio, OU in the 2nd half and Texas, not so much.

 

[SCNCY]

So, eliminate half our drives and focus on the bad ones? That doesn’t work. Those passes at the end were set up my Sama gashing them. You can’t look at only half.

I think it's more that our offense was unable to move the ball consistently on our other drives. CW said in the post game via another listener that we only had 2 plays in KSU territory the whole game. The fact we won with that kind of stat is crazy.

I will always take points over time of possession, but out offense was really unable to move the ball.

 

[MJ271]

NW and Purdue gave them fits over the years by passing the ball on them. Their defense is set up to guard and stop the run, which is what most teams in the Little 10 do, but defensing the passing game is not what their defense is made to stop. Neither NW nor Purdue out talented those EIU teams, they just out executed them.

Northwestern gave Iowa fits by passing the ball? In Northwestern's last four wins against Iowa (2020, 2018, 2017, 2016), the closest run-pass ratio was 46 runs to 36 passes in 2017. In 2020, Northwestern had 60(!!) runs to 18 passes.

 

[Hill4Cy]

One question I had during this game that I was hoping for an explanation from someone is the botched snap that Rocco had to run back and fall on. Before the ball was snapped, Rocco was walking up and making reads / calls when the ball was snapped. By definition this should have been a player in forward motion and a procedure penalty correct? 5 yard penalty and replay the down??

 

[StLouisClone]

One question I had during this game that I was hoping for an explanation from someone is the botched snap that Rocco had to run back and fall on. Before the ball was snapped, Rocco was walking up and making reads / calls when the ball was snapped. By definition this should have been a player in forward motion and a procedure penalty correct? 5 yard penalty and replay the down??

Wouldn't KSU decline the penalty?

 

[Aclone]

I think it's more that our offense was unable to move the ball consistently on our other drives. CW said in the post game via another listener that we only had 2 plays in KSU territory the whole game. The fact we won with that kind of stat is crazy.

I will always take points over time of possession, but out offense was really unable to move the ball.

How many opportunities was that? Because, y’know, all those 60+ yard TD’s means we never crossed the fifty in the first place. Opportunity cost.

 

[Hill4Cy]

Wouldn't KSU decline the penalty?

Good point. I guess I was assuming that the ref's would call the play dead, but if not line contact then I guess the play would count. Good point. Carry on

 

[HFCS]

Truthfully any defense that played the same teams that EIU played week in and week out would do well against the pass, because no one had even a basically talented QB. The kid from Penn State was the best they faced all year. ISU played against 5 or 6 better QB then anybody they faced.

I stole this idea from Two Guys Named Chris but I really believe it...those 7 teams have allowed each other to morph into a lot of the same ugly football. They enable each other. Iowa is the best at it but they all do it to varying degrees of success.

No divisions plus infusing the 4 west coast teams that all have far better offenses than the B10W is going to hit them like a freight train. They will all need to adapt fast or they'll be some Washington Generals. Minnesota, IL, NW, and Nebraska especially are just guaranteed losers when they travel west unless they modernize their offenses, they already pretty much always lose to the top 3 programs in the east and top 4 before MSU fell off. I think Iowa and Wisc could be ok but the bottom five of that division really are looking at a lot of losing coming at them. Nebraska missing a bowl with a 60th ranked SOS was pretty horrible timing for them when real schedules start soon.

 

[SEIOWA CLONE]

Northwestern gave Iowa fits by passing the ball? In Northwestern's last four wins against Iowa (2020, 2018, 2017, 2016), the closest run-pass ratio was 46 runs to 36 passes in 2017. In 2020, Northwestern had 60(!!) runs to 18 passes.

They are throwing the ball to then run it, not the other way around. You see it happening all the time, but showing the defense we are going to throw the ball down the field, it forces them to not step up when they are running the ball.

You could clearly see that in the TCU game, their LB would come up to stop the run-on early downs, and instead we threw it thereby creating a lane for the receiver to catch the ball and turn up field. It left the LBers in no man's land.