Hawkeye Football
I really don’t want to talk about it but I guess I will. In what has to be the worst display of offensive football I’ve ever subjected myself to watching the Iowa Hawkeyes lost to Iowa St. in a game that will set back the game of football 50 years. Go ahead and celebrate Cyclone fans but neither team deserved to win that game your team just happened to have more points when the game ended, you shouldn’t have, but you did so enjoy it. The Iowa offense is putrid and no it isn’t the new coordinator or the new scheme. I counted 10 drops by Iowa players on offense and that is being nice. Keenan Davis, Kevonte Martin-Manley, Don Shumpert, Mark Weisman and CJ Fiedorowicz all dropped easily catchable balls from James Vandenberg some of them dropped more than one. Vandenberg was inaccurate many times during the first game against NIU but for the most part he was right on the money against ISU. The Hawkeye fan base is losing its collective minds over another loss to ISU (Ferentz is 6-8 lifetime against the Clones) and trust me no one hates losing to ISU more than I do but I try to look at the games objectively after I have watched them as a fan and I can say this; Ferentz’s concerns about the WR group during spring practice were well founded. As both a fan and an objective observer my take of the receivers on this team is this…they suck. Keenan Davis drops more routine passes than any starting WR I can remember and apparently Kevonte Martin-Manley has decided that that is the trait of Davis’s he most wants to emulate, bad choice. The scouting report on Don Shumpert coming into the season was that he is fast but has trouble catching the ball…talk about hitting the nail on the head. My report about Mark Weisman from the open practice talked about how he looked good except trying to catch the ball deep down the sideline and I said as long as throwing deep to our fullback wasn’t a major part of the offense we were okay but apparently short quick throws at the goal line are not his strong suit either. Weisman looked like a grizzly bear swatting at a fly trying to catch that pass. Even Fiedorowicz dropped a pass late that would have picked up a first down on a 2nd and long, luckily for him Shumpert dropped an equally easy pass on the resulting 3rd and long that made everyone forget the pass he dropped. The good news is that the receivers did a better job of getting open in this game than they did against NIU the bad news is being open doesn’t do you any good if you can’t catch. I’m not as worried about Fiedorowicz and Weisman as I am about the WR group as a whole, Fiedorowicz and Weisman can positively affect the game in other ways but the principle job of the WR is to catch the damn ball. I don’t know what Davis’s problem is but this problem began before this season, it is a problem he has had as long as he’s been here. I follow Iowa Hawkeye football recruiting very closely and I can tell you that Don Shumpert was originally recruited to be a safety and you don’t have to be an expert to see why. There is an old saying among football scouts; defensive backs are just wide receivers that can’t catch…Mr. Shumpert you missed your calling. The late John McKay, a coaching legend who once coached the terrible expansion Tampa Bay Buccaneers was once asked after his team’s less than impressive performance what he thought of his team’s “execution” he said he was “all for it.” That is exactly how I feel about the Hawkeyes WR corps after the first two weeks of the season. Kirk Ferentz held his weekly press conference on Tuesday and a reporter apologized for asking him if the receivers that are playing are better than the freshmen receivers that haven’t seen the field. Ferentz said obviously that’s the case but that leads me to wonder something else…how bad are our freshmen receivers? I understand that it seems preposterous to ask a coach if he is playing the best players but after witnessing the past two games I am questioning our WR recruiting if this really is the case. Catching a football is like any other skill, you can get better with repetition, but some of it is just natural instinct and we have a few guys that lack that natural ability…cough …Shumpert … cough, cough… Davis. How much worse could the young guys be? How about some accountability for the guys playing? If you can’t perform the most basic part of your position what good are you to the team? I’ve seen people blaming the new offensive scheme and I’ve heard people using the new offense as an excuse for why we are struggling but the truth is there is nothing wrong with the new offense and the guys have been practicing it long enough to make it work it’s our fundamentals that are lacking. There is talent on the offensive line but we aren’t blocking well enough, our quarterback is experienced and talented but he can’t seem to put it all together and all our receivers pass the eyeball test just as long as you look away when they try to catch. Kirk Ferentz has one more game this week against UNI to get this figured out or he’s going to lose the fan base but it’s not the fan base he needs to worry about losing. UNI gave Wisconsin all it could handle in week 1 (that looks like less of an accomplishment after Wisconsin lost to Oregon St. in week 2) and if the Panthers can put up 17 points against the Hawkeyes this weekend I’m not sure this Hawkeye offense can outdo that. Lost in all of this was a fantastic game by the Hawkeye defense and if Ferentz can’t get the offense straightened out he may have to worry about losing his defense. Going against the same QB that shredded them last year in Ames the Hawkeyes turned in an impressive defensive game. Despite not generating much of a pass rush the first two weeks of the season the Hawkeye defense has been stingy and they forced 4 turnovers by the Cyclones. Any defense that forces 4 turnovers and holds its opponent to 9 points expects to win and if the offense doesn’t start putting points on the board Ferentz may have to worry about his team being divided, one side doing their job while the other side doesn’t. There were other issues during the game and one that I have pointed out numerous times in this blog came up again. After Keenan Davis actually made a play and got us down to the 3 yard line it was first and goal and we ran out 195 pound tailback into the middle of the line of scrimmage twice and that led to the aforementioned Weisman bobble on third and goal. I’ve said it many times Damon Bullock is not an inside runner. If you are going to use Bullock in a tight formation close to the goal line why not fake the inside handoff to the fullback and then toss it to Bullock wide I bet he can beat everyone to the pylon. If you are dead set on getting the tough yards inside than use an inside runner, I don’t think Brad Rogers was busy and I’ve seen him carry the ball before. My other suggestion this close to the goal line involves a certain 6’7 TE who unlike our WR actually knows how to use his body to shield the defender. Both Ferentz and Greg Davis have referred to Fiedorowicz as a weapon but they don’t seem to know when to use that weapon. This is definitely nitpicking as one bad offensive play calling series wasn’t the problem but in a close game where your defense is playing great and your offense isn’t one series can change the outcome of the game, literally. The Hawkeyes can put minds at ease if the offense comes out blazing against UNI this weekend but if they don’t I’m going to start asking the same question every other Hawkeye fan will be asking…When does basketball season start?
NFL Quick Hits
-I’m a Patriots fan and even though I didn’t get to watch their game this last weekend it was obviously a very business-like win over the Titans. I always believe the Patriots will be in the Super Bowl and I probably always will as long as Belichick and Brady are there but after the first week the best teams in each conference are the Ravens and the 49ers. Two unbelievable defenses with vastly improved offenses.
-6 QB’s threw 3 picks or more. Ryan Fitzpatrick, Matthew Stafford, Andrew Luck and Ryan Tannehill each had 3 while Michael Vick and Brandon Weeden both threw 4. Tough opening week for three rookie QB’s and Vick and Weeden played each other, I think they were having a contest to see who could complete more passes to the other team.
-That clicking noise you hear is all those experts out there that picked Philadelphia to make the Super Bowl hitting their delete button.
-The Bears looked good but they were playing the Colts.
-Atlanta and Kansas City played a great game for the first half then KC fell apart. The Falcons are tough and Matt Ryan looks like a different player.
-Peyton Manning is back and the Broncos no-huddle offense is scary. They had the ball for a total of about 36 seconds in the entire 2nd quarter and they went 80 yards and scored a TD.
The Hott Read 