12-12-2015, 09:42 AM
Since MSU kept coming up as the team most similar to us that Iowa has faced, I decided to watch the game. Took a while to find a replay, but there's one on youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jrEXA_CSWx4
There are a couple spots where it's missing plays, but they seem to just be a couple downs leading up to a punt so I think overall it's fine.
First, a look at the box score for the game. MSU had nearly 100 more total yards, with all of that advantage coming in rushing. MSU had more first downs, way more third down conversions (though ~half were on that epic final drive), more TOP, more YPC (though it was still pretty bad at <4). In short, from the box score it's hard to believe this game was as close as it was.
So, what happened? For starters Cook was clearly hurt and overall played a poor game. He threw a ghastly interception that lead to Iowa's first FG and probably would've been grounding had it not bounced off his lineman into the DL's hands. (Though, to be fair, Iowa threw a similar circus interception in MSU's end zone, so I guess those mistakes evened out.) He was also chronically underthrowing balls and before that last drive was something like 4/14 in the second half. I think it's fair to say that with a healthy Cook this game looks a lot different.
Second, I definitely saw BrewHawk's summary of Ferentz as stubborn. Like our Rose Bowl against MSU Iowa could do nothing on the ground, and they waited until the end of the 3rd quarter to really test MSU's DBs. But once they did, it worked! They got an 85-yard TD on a beautiful throw by Beathard, drew at least one holding/PI penalty, and IIRC were running better after that too. They had a chance to blow the game open, but Ferentz opted to punt on 4th and 2 from the MSU 47. Hard to say that was the wrong call at the time, since it did give MSU pretty bad field position, and you can never really expect a 9.5-minute, 22-play drive, but if you're going to roll the dice on 4th down that seems like the spot to do it. He also punted earlier on 4th and inches from the Iowa 48, which doesn't seem super defensible to me but was at least early in the game so you don't have as good of a sense of how it would play out.
Third, MSU clearly wore down Iowa's defense as the game went on. The OL was blowing open holes in the second half, but Iowa's safeties did a great job tackling. I saw at least 5 runs where I thought "McCaffrey would take that for at least 50" because the MSU RB couldn't get past a safety after gaining 5-10 yards. Also, I'm not sure whether this was excellent play for the Iowa corners or horrible play from the MSU WRs/OL, but runs to the edges were repeatedly very poorly blocked. Instead of being an RB with one defender to make miss and blocked defender, it was an RB on two defenders and a WR/OL standing there looking for someone to block. Hard to tell who to credit/blame there but I noticed it multiple times.
Fourth, Iowa is really good at tackling. They got worn down in the 4th after being on the field for forever, but for most of the game the first guy to the ball wrapped up and the ball carrier went down. Not many YAC for MSU in this game.
It's harder to evaluate the other side of the ball because MSU is better than us. Beathard made some great throws and overall had a pretty good game, with a Hogan-like line of 18/26 (69%) for 216, 1 TD and 1 INT, where the INT was definitely not his fault (the ball bounced off the receiver, landed on someone's back, and the DB scooped it up off the guy's back). A good chunk of that yardage came on the 85-yard TD bomb, but that throw was absolutely perfect. He made a number of solid throws all game, and seemed poised in the pocket, though he took a few sacks that might have been avoidable. We're going to want Harris and Holder healthy for this game, because while Beathard isn't as scary as Goff or Adams, he seems like a Kessler type to me (give him time and he'll find someone, and he can make the throws).
But Iowa is going to want to run the ball, so it'll probably come down to how well we defend that. Canzieri went down early in the game (and so far is questionable for the Rose Bowl), after that Iowa just couldn't get anything done on the ground. Even without Beathard's sacks they were only just above 3 YPC. Now, MSU's DL is better than ours, so we're probably not going to replicate that, but it's hard to evaluate the game when Iowa's RBs were routinely going down after gaining only 3. It's not like MSU's runs where there were clear holes that the RBs were hitting, it was just tough going (which we can relate to). I might want to watch a game against a worse defense to see what Iowa looks like when they're clicking.
So, what can we take away from this game? I think we have the ability to significantly outperform MSU on offense, and we have a chance to replicate the pass defense. We probably can't do as well against the run, but if we can bottle up Beathard and stop the big plays, we might not need to. It's going to come down to protecting the ball, blocking well, getting McCaffrey into the second level, having Hogan complete some timely medium-to-big passes, while tackling well and disrupting their O on defense. So, basically like every other game.
There are a couple spots where it's missing plays, but they seem to just be a couple downs leading up to a punt so I think overall it's fine.
First, a look at the box score for the game. MSU had nearly 100 more total yards, with all of that advantage coming in rushing. MSU had more first downs, way more third down conversions (though ~half were on that epic final drive), more TOP, more YPC (though it was still pretty bad at <4). In short, from the box score it's hard to believe this game was as close as it was.
So, what happened? For starters Cook was clearly hurt and overall played a poor game. He threw a ghastly interception that lead to Iowa's first FG and probably would've been grounding had it not bounced off his lineman into the DL's hands. (Though, to be fair, Iowa threw a similar circus interception in MSU's end zone, so I guess those mistakes evened out.) He was also chronically underthrowing balls and before that last drive was something like 4/14 in the second half. I think it's fair to say that with a healthy Cook this game looks a lot different.
Second, I definitely saw BrewHawk's summary of Ferentz as stubborn. Like our Rose Bowl against MSU Iowa could do nothing on the ground, and they waited until the end of the 3rd quarter to really test MSU's DBs. But once they did, it worked! They got an 85-yard TD on a beautiful throw by Beathard, drew at least one holding/PI penalty, and IIRC were running better after that too. They had a chance to blow the game open, but Ferentz opted to punt on 4th and 2 from the MSU 47. Hard to say that was the wrong call at the time, since it did give MSU pretty bad field position, and you can never really expect a 9.5-minute, 22-play drive, but if you're going to roll the dice on 4th down that seems like the spot to do it. He also punted earlier on 4th and inches from the Iowa 48, which doesn't seem super defensible to me but was at least early in the game so you don't have as good of a sense of how it would play out.
Third, MSU clearly wore down Iowa's defense as the game went on. The OL was blowing open holes in the second half, but Iowa's safeties did a great job tackling. I saw at least 5 runs where I thought "McCaffrey would take that for at least 50" because the MSU RB couldn't get past a safety after gaining 5-10 yards. Also, I'm not sure whether this was excellent play for the Iowa corners or horrible play from the MSU WRs/OL, but runs to the edges were repeatedly very poorly blocked. Instead of being an RB with one defender to make miss and blocked defender, it was an RB on two defenders and a WR/OL standing there looking for someone to block. Hard to tell who to credit/blame there but I noticed it multiple times.
Fourth, Iowa is really good at tackling. They got worn down in the 4th after being on the field for forever, but for most of the game the first guy to the ball wrapped up and the ball carrier went down. Not many YAC for MSU in this game.
It's harder to evaluate the other side of the ball because MSU is better than us. Beathard made some great throws and overall had a pretty good game, with a Hogan-like line of 18/26 (69%) for 216, 1 TD and 1 INT, where the INT was definitely not his fault (the ball bounced off the receiver, landed on someone's back, and the DB scooped it up off the guy's back). A good chunk of that yardage came on the 85-yard TD bomb, but that throw was absolutely perfect. He made a number of solid throws all game, and seemed poised in the pocket, though he took a few sacks that might have been avoidable. We're going to want Harris and Holder healthy for this game, because while Beathard isn't as scary as Goff or Adams, he seems like a Kessler type to me (give him time and he'll find someone, and he can make the throws).
But Iowa is going to want to run the ball, so it'll probably come down to how well we defend that. Canzieri went down early in the game (and so far is questionable for the Rose Bowl), after that Iowa just couldn't get anything done on the ground. Even without Beathard's sacks they were only just above 3 YPC. Now, MSU's DL is better than ours, so we're probably not going to replicate that, but it's hard to evaluate the game when Iowa's RBs were routinely going down after gaining only 3. It's not like MSU's runs where there were clear holes that the RBs were hitting, it was just tough going (which we can relate to). I might want to watch a game against a worse defense to see what Iowa looks like when they're clicking.
So, what can we take away from this game? I think we have the ability to significantly outperform MSU on offense, and we have a chance to replicate the pass defense. We probably can't do as well against the run, but if we can bottle up Beathard and stop the big plays, we might not need to. It's going to come down to protecting the ball, blocking well, getting McCaffrey into the second level, having Hogan complete some timely medium-to-big passes, while tackling well and disrupting their O on defense. So, basically like every other game.