I’ll start with the Hawkeyes. This is much more what I was expecting out of the Hawkeyes. They played pretty well but they shot themselves in the foot from time to time and killed drives. Weisman is being leaned on a little too much and it’s going to cost them down the line when he breaks down. No one can average 30 carries a game and last all season. The defense played well with a few big plays they gave up being the exception. For once the Hawkeyes took some chances on defense with blitzing, unfortunately it backfired. Let’s get something straight, they did not get beat because they were playing prevent they got roasted a few times when the blitz didn’t get to the QB. If you think I can’t blame the coaching staff for the failure of the players not executing just give me a second. We have blitzed so little in the past that the players aren’t used to it and that’s why they aren’t very good at it. They should get better in time if the coaching staff keeps working at it, please Coach Ferentz don’t give up on it because of a few big plays, you still won the game.
Just a few of notes
– BJ Lowery did not blow the coverage on the first big TD they gave up, he blew the tackle. He was right where he needed to be (maybe slightly out of position) but he had the guy and he missed the tackle, that’s not normal for him. He is forgiven after making one of the best catches I’ve seen on his interception. ESPN is not forgiven for not making Lowery’s pick a top play.
– We have 4 tailbacks the coaches supposedly like but Weisman gets 30 carries? I understand that Weisman’s style was working against the Cyclones but LeShun Daniels is fairly similar and when you have a 20 point lead it’s okay to give Weisman a break.
– This team has to find an edge pass rush. If playing Quinton Alston at DE or bringing Nate Meier in more is how you do it fine but someone has to get pressure off the edge. Drew Ott played his best game as a Hawkeye but he still wasn’t getting to the QB. Kudos to Darian Cooper for finally getting a sack for the defensive lineman, it still counts even if it was against the Cyclones third string center. I’m just glad Cooper realized the mismatch and took advantage.
– I would like to say the Hawkeyes finally got a win against a quality opponent but the Cyclones are not very good. I’m glad the Hawkeyes finally didn’t make the Cyclone QB look like a Heisman trophy front runner early in the year, that’s a nice change from recent history.
– Jake Rudock went on the road to a very hostile environment where the Hawkeyes have struggled and he played a pretty good game. However, he needs to start keeping the ball on the read option because everyone is selling out on the RB because they don’t believe he’ll keep it. Keep the ball Jake and make everyone pay.
– The two deeps were released for the Western Michigan game this week and the one notable change is that WR Tevaun Smith is now listed as a starter and Don Shumpert is listed as his backup. Yay! And so begins Shumpert’s descent down the depth chart, this is about the time it started last year and by my count he ended up about seventh on the depth chart. That would be about right.
College football thoughts (mostly Big Ten related)
– Oh those mighty Cornhuskers of Nebraska, thank you for the most entertaining weekend and beginning of the week I could ask for. The meltdown of the Nebraska faithful is hilarious after the complete meltdown of their team against UCLA (sorry guys but you lost to a better team, UCLA is pretty good). And thank you Coach Pelini for throwing gasoline on the fire, getting into a pissing match with Tommy Frazier coupled with the timely release of the two year old audio tape of Pelini isn’t helping matters. Obviously someone was sitting on this tape waiting to use it when it would make splash and it has. Nebraska is “reviewing” Pelini’s job status and my guess is he keeps his job until he loses 3 or 4 Big Ten games and then he’s toast at the end of the year. The Nebraska faithful has never been completely behind Pelini and while he does win about 9 games a year that isn’t enough given his personality. You can only come off as a jerk if you win at least 12 games a year and win national championships, you know like Nick Saban does.
– Obviously as an Iowa fan I don’t particularly like Wisconsin but what I hate more is when a Big Ten team gets screwed by Pac 12 officials against a Pac 12 team in a Pac 12 stadium. If you didn’t see what happened Wisconsin ran a play and knelt down in the middle of the field to set up a shot at a game winning field goal with 15 seconds to play. QB Joel Stave knelt down, giving himself up, and set the ball down but apparently Pac 12 officials are unaware of this “knee down means your down” thing in college football and they let an Arizona St. player lay on the ball for about ten seconds. Then if that weren’t bad enough when the umpire finally set the ball for play with about 4 seconds to go he stood there stopping the Wisconsin center from snapping the ball until time ran out. This was not poor clock management by Wisconsin, they had plenty of time to run these plays and kick a game winning field goal if the refs had done their job correctly. Oh don’t worry the refs have been “reprimanded” by the Pac 12, lot of good that does when they just handed Wisconsin a loss.
– QB controversy at Ohio St.? Okay probably not but back up QB Kenny Guiton is playing lights out in place of Braxton Miller. Maybe if we talk about it enough we can start a controversy. By the way Guiton is a better passer right now than Miller.
– Mack Brown is living on borrowed time at Texas, Lane Kiffin is a dead man walking at USC and Nebraska’s Bo Pelini should start polishing his resume. Texas, USC and Nebraska are three big jobs that look like they will be open by the end of the year and we are only 3 weeks in.
NFL Thoughts
– Rob Gronkowski needs to get back on the field for the Patriots because they can’t keep winning this ugly all year.
– Two weeks into his second season and the Greg Schiano experiment looks like it’s blowing up in Tampa Bay. Schiano may win the battle against Josh Freeman but if the Glazer family is smart they will keep Mark Dominick the GM and send Schiano back to college. Dominick has done a good job stockpiling talent in Tampa. There are some cushy landing spots (cough…Nebraska…cough) that Schiano might fit into.
– I didn’t think it was possible but the Jacksonville Jaguars are worse than I thought they would be. There are at least a dozen Jags fans that want the team to sign Tim Tebow, that might not sound like a lot but it’s about half of their fan base at this point.
– The Philadelphia Eagles offense is everything it was advertised to be but I seriously underestimated how bad their defense was going to be. I said their run defense was going to be bad but I didn’t think the pass defense would be just as horrible. Chip Kelly is an offensive genius too bad this isn’t the Pac 12 where you can beat people by running up the score every week. The truth is Kelly would kill to have a defense in Philly as good as his defenses at Oregon and that’s a very sad truth.
– EJ Manuel is way better than I thought he would be this quickly. He was my favorite QB in the draft class in terms of potential but I didn’t think he would be ready but he’s playing pretty solid football. Of course it helps if the defense doesn’t cover your best WR when you need to make a play to win the game.
– Congrats to Andy Reid and Alex Smith in Kansas City they are playing well to start the year and they are two deserving guys. Reid took a lot of flak in Philly and Smith was a whipping boy in San Francisco but they are good men doing their jobs well and Kansas City finally has guys they can cheer for.
– Kansas City looks like they might actually be a team and San Diego doesn’t look nearly as bad as I thought they would so far, those are the good surprises. Tampa Bay looks like a sinking ship and Pittsburgh looks like a mess. The Steelers could always turn it around, a solid coach and QB are a good starting point, but the Buccaneers are the Titanic and Greg Schiano isn’t the captain he’s the iceberg.
The Hott Read 