The Ken O'Keefe Challenge Week 1 is officially over. Here's a look at the play calling on each drive and how a coin flip, KOK Bot, and I did on guessing run or pass correctly.
Drive 1: 13 plays - 52 yards - 5:43 - Field Goal Play Calling - 6 Runs, 7 Passes Prediction Results -
Drive 13: 5 plays - 17 yards - 2:12 - Punt Play Calling - 1 Run, 4 Pass Prediction Results -
Me: 5 (perfection!)
Coin: 2
KOK Bot: 2
Final Results:
Me: 42 (out of 65) - 64.6%
Coin: 29 - 44.6%
KOK Bot: 33 - 50.8%
I think I did pretty well guessing what Ken O'Keefe would call today, especially in the second half when we moved to throwing the ball the majority of the time. I think the KOK Bot was off today because it was calibrated last year when we had Shonn Greene running the ball all day long. But, this was just one game, so we'll see how the year pans out.
Play Calling: In terms of actual play calling, I thought it was mediocre today. The first half was way too conservative. I'm sure the coaching staff wanted to see what they could do with just a shell of the offense, but it was obvious fairly quickly that running inside zones all day was not going to work.
In the second half, things opened up a little bit more. We saw the stretch play in the run game, and some play action. We also we running more vertical routes and Stanzi was throwing it down the field. I think this is the offense that KOK is going to have to use this year. Let Stanzi make some plays and move him around in and outside of the pocket. And of course, run the ball enough to keep the defense honest.
Numbers: On the game on a whole, there were 27 runs called and 38 passes (4 sacks). That's 41-59% run to pass, almost exactly opposite of last year.
The 34 passing attempts by Stanzi was the most in his career (the previous high was 30 against Northwestern) and his 22 completions were also a career high. Iowa only passed the ball this many times once last year (against Pitt).
On the 3 scoring drives, Iowa ran it 11 times and passed 15, which is the same 41-59% ratio as the overall play calling.
Surprise, Surpise: Iowa no longer in the top 25 After struggling with UNI, the Hawkeyes have dropped out of both the AP and USA Today Top 25. I'm sure all the voters heard about the game due to the unique ending and decided that Iowa must be terrible since they barely beat a team from the lowly FCS.
Ferentz Presser Coach Ferentz addressed the media yesterday in his weekly Tuesday Press Conference as well as the Big Ten Coaches Conference Call. I think the biggest news of the day was that Vandervelde is back practicing well and could see some playing time on Saturday against Iowa State. This is definitely good considering the struggles along the o-line in game 1. I expect his amount of playing time to depend on how well Doering is playing. If the line is dominating all day long, then there's no need to rush Vandervelde back.
New 2-deeps The new depth chart is out for the Iowa State game. There are not many changes, but here are a few things to note:
DJK is still number 2…some people are still upset about this, but I think McNutt showed last week why he's the starter. I'm guessing that DJK will be the first to come in off the bench this week instead of Chaney (though Chaney played well too).
Robinson has jumped Paki, deservingly so.
Calloway is back and listed as the starter at left tackle, thankfully.
Richardson is listed with an "or" at each guard position. I have to think Gettis is the one that loses out.
Murray is no longer an "or" with Mossbrucker (redshirt?)
Castillo is the starter again. Micah Hyde and Lowe are the backups. Hopefully he can play better now that he has a game under his belt.
The Big Ten had a fairly good week in terms of the over all record (10-1), but a lot of games were too close for comfort. We know that Iowa struggled mightily, but Indiana, Ohio State, and Minnesota also had games that were too close for comfort.
Indiana 19 - Eastern Kentucky 13 Indiana held on to win against the Hilltoppers on Thursday night. EKU had a shot at the win with a hail mary, but the pass ultimately fell to the Memorial Stadium FieldTurf. The Hoosier struggled to establish a run game (even though that was the whole point of switching to the Pistol) but QB Ben Chappell was able to do enough through the air to lead Indiana to victory.
Prediction: Correct. (Indiana tops the Hilltoppers)
Michigan State 44 - Montana State 3 Michigan State may not have settled the quarterback competition, but I think they can feel confident with whoever comes out on top. Kirk Cousins threw for 183 yards and 3 touchdowns and Keith Nichol added another 135 yard and 2 touchdowns as the Spartans dominated the Bobcats. This game was just a case of the good FBS team beating down a bad FCS team.
Prediction: Correct. (Michigan State wins big)
Northwestern 47 - Towson 14 Another complete mismatch. The Towson defense had no answers to anything Northwestern did offensively. Northwestern scored touchdowns on its first 4 possessions with relative ease then just put it in cruise control.
Prediction: Correct. (Northwestern wins big)
Ohio State 31 - Navy 27 This was definitely one of the more interesting games in the Big Ten on Saturday and it certainly adds fuel to the "Big Ten sucks" fire. OSU can redeem itself and the entire Big Ten next week against USC and you have to think that the Buckeyes might have been looking ahead a little bit. They struggled to figure out how to defend Navy's dynamic triple option and the Midshipmen were within a 2-point conversion from tying the game with 2:23 left. However, Navy inexpeciably decided to drop back and pass instead of use the option that gained over 180 yards on the Buckeye's defense, and the pass was picked off and returned for 2 points the other way.
Prediction: Kind of right...much too close for comfort. (The Buckeyes win comfortably)
Penn State 31 - Akron 7 PSU put up 339 yards in the first half to take a 31 point lead into the break. The Nittany Lions then just shut it down and cruised to a victory. This one was never in question as Akron was completely over matched.
Prediction: Correct (The Nittany Lions continue their streak of blow out non-conference games)
Purdue 52 - Toledo 31 Though the Boilermakers gave up 31 points, this gave was never really close. Purdue came out firing and found itself up 21-0 early in the second quarter. Toledo did get with in 7 again after back-to-back score, but it was never really close again after that. Purdue's running back Ralph Bolden tore apart Rockets defense rushing for 234 yards and 2 touchdowns.
Prediction: Kind of correct, a little less close than predicted (Purdue squeaks by with a win)
Minnesota 23 - Syracuse 20 (OT) Greg Paulus had a good debut as Syracuse's quarterback, but threw an interception in overtime that led to the Gopher victory. Defense was the key for the Gophers. Minnesota didn't give up a point in the second half or overtime allowing the team to come from behind to win.
Prediction: Barely correct. (Minnesota wins by a couple scores)
Michigan 31 - Western Michigan 7 Michigan debut two freshman quarterbacks that put on a show in the first half going up 31-0. Tate Forcier threw for 3 touchdowns and 179 yards. He also gained another 34 yards on the ground. Denard Robinson did much more with his feet, running for a team high 74 yards. This one wasn't close from the start.
Prediction: Kind of correct. (Michigan pulls away late for the win)
Illinois 9 - Missouri 37 Illinois...what the heck happened? I thought this was supposed to be a high octane, super talented offense, possibly the best in the Big Ten. Yeah, there were some injuries to Benn and Ford, but the offense wasn't do much before they went out either. Maybe my thoughts of Illinois challenging for one of the top spots in the conference was a little premature.
Prediction: So very, very wrong. (Illinois wins in a high scoring affair)
Wisconsin 28 - Northern Illinois 20 Wisconsin scored an 80 yard touchdown on its first play from scrimmage and never looked back. NIU scored to late touchdowns to make the game look closer than it was. Badger fans can feel good about the QB situation for now as Scott Tolzien had a very good game going 15 of 20 for 257 yards. He did have 2 picks however.
Prediction: Correct. (Wisconsin takes care of business at home)
There is nothing original about assigning grades to the team's performance, and I'm tempted to give everyone besides Tony Moeaki and field goal blocking unit a D-. Despite my cynicism, I tried to rank the units fairly.
The Offense
Running backs: D When the best runs of the day are by a receiver and a fullback (who never, ever run in Iowa's offensive scheme) you know it was not a good rushing day. The running backs only accounted for 81 yards on 24 carries. Adam Robinson was the lesser of two evils as he averaged 4.2 yards per carry and scored a touchdown. Paki O'Meara did not have a good day. He didn't even average 2 yards per carry and fumbled the ball after appearing to give up on the play. It turns out all the people saying replacing Shonn Greene was going to cause Iowa majors problems was right. Somebody needs to step up, big time.
Quarterback: C+ Ricky Stanzi was not terrible yesterday. He had a somewhat shaky first half, and he admitted he was trying to do a little too much when the team went down early 10-3. After he settled down and decided to just keep throwing it to Moeaki, he had a good second half going 16 of 21 for 179 yards and 1 touchdown. He showed his ability to thread the ball between traffic and had nice tough on a couple of deep balls (too bad the one to Chaney was called back). If Stanzi hadn't fumbled in the first half, I would have probably given him a B. I still think he's going to have a good year.
Tight End: A Tony Moeaki is the man. He led all players on the field Saturday with 10 receptions. He had 9 receptions in the second half alone and caught the game winning touchdown pass. Allen Reisner also had a nice game and pulled down one pass for 12 yards. The tight ends accounted for half of the total receptions (11 of 22) and 40% of the receiving yards (95 of 242). Wide Receivers: B I was very pleased with the receiver play yesterday. McNutt looked like he deserved the starting spot with 5 catches for 55 yards. Stross and Chaney also played particularly well getting past their defenders deep down the field. Chaney actually caught the ball in the long called-back TD pass late in the 3rd quarter (thankfully Iowa still drove down and scored on a great catch by Moeaki). DJK also got in a made a nice 22 yard grab. The down-field blocking was also pretty good (though not really necessary as the running backs rarely got by the first level of defenders) especially on that run by Chaney.
Offensive Line: D+ I should probably separate this out into the inside of the line and the tackles, because the tackles played pretty well...but as a whole unit, it was not good. The line gave up 4 sacks (though one was probably Stanzi's fault) and opened very few holes for the running backs. The line did look a little better in the second half, but still not great. Also, the only 2 penalties on the Hawkeyes (I was pleased to only see 2 penatlies) were on Doering for jumping early and Gettis for holding (that was the called back touchdown). We really need Calloway and Vandervelde to come back.
Offense as a whole: C+ It was mostly the running game that was lacking, but the offense just looked very flat in the first half (only 104 yards of total offense). The second half was better, but there is still a lot of work to do. I hope the coaches really light a fire under the players in practice this week, because this type of performance will not win many games.
The Defense
Defensive Line: B- I thought the d-line looked pretty good, especially during the middle of the game. They were putting a lot of pressure on Pat Grace and got to him twice really slowing down UNI's momentum after scoring early in the second half to go up 13-3. However, the unit looked tired at the end of the game and were out matched by the Panther's all-senior offensive line. I think the d-line will be pretty good this year and UNI's o-line is probably better than 3 or 4 of the other teams we'll see this year.
Linebackers: C+ Early in the game the linebackers were missing tackles and letting receivers get open. The tackling improved as the game went on and sure they combined for 30 tackles, but the play overall was kind of rocky. I just did not have the general sense that they were flying all over the field making plays.
Secondary: C+ If it wasn't for Amari Spievey, the defensive backfield may be getting a D or worse. Castillo looked like a freshman out there and I'm surprised Grace didn't try to throw his directions even more. Hopefully with a game under his belt he'll be better against ISU. The safeties were okay today. Both got beat on the one long ball to start the second half. They did tackle very well however. UNI got very few yards after the catch, and the safeties were also good in run support and combined for 22 tackles. Spievey was a stud as expected. He had 6 solo tackles (8 total) and broke up 2 passes.
Defense as a whole: B- It is certainly not the defense's fault that this game was close. They played okay as a whole giving up only 16 points. The one touchdown was an amazing catch UNI's tight end Mahaffey. The rest of the game the defensive game plan worked pretty well...bend but don't break.
The Special Teams
Special Teams as a whole: A- Ryan Donahue gets an A+ with 4 of his 5 punts downed inside the 20. The field goal blocking unit gets an A+ for the two blocked kicks at the end of the game. The return game was fine...UNI's punt were so poor there really wasn't a chance to do much there, and the kickoff returns were fine. If it wasn't for Murray's missed 48 yard field goal there wouldn't be anything to complain about.
Let's step away from worrying about the poor performance by the Hawkeyes yesterday and look to the future. All 13 commits for the 2010 class were in action over the last couple of days.
Marcus Coker - DeMatha 38 - Riverdale Baptist 0 Coker had a good day as the Stags rolled over the Riverdale Baptists. Coker ran for 173 yards on 20 carries and had 1 touchdown. You can see a highlight video at DCSportsFan.com of Coker running the ball.
Andrew Donnal - Anthony Wayne 24 - Start 21 I couldn't find anything on this game but the final score.
Anthony Ferguson and Jim Poggi - Gilman 43 - Bear Creek 36 Gilman holds on in a shootout against Bear Creek. Poggi had a big sack on 3rd and goal late in fourth quarter that preserved the win.
Mike Hardy - Kimberly 6 - Appleton North 12 The Kimberly Papermakers saw its 29-game winning streak come to an end against Appleton North on Friday. Only word I heard on Hardy is that he boomed a punt that resulted in a fumble and great field position for Kimberly.
Matt Hoch - Harlan 24 - Bishop Heelan 6 After giving up an early touchdown, the Harlan defense shut down Heelan for the rest of the game. Hoch ran the ball 6 times for 29 yards, caught 4 passes for 23 yards, and helped hold the Crusaders to only 6 points.
James Morris - Solon 41 - Sigourney-Keota 0 James Morris once again dominated as Solon destroyed Sigourney-Keota. Morris finished the game with 4 rushing touchdowns and ran for 94 yards on 10 carries overall.
Brandon Scherff - Denison 17 - Atlantic 3 I couldn't find anything but the score on this game too.
Louis Trinca-Pasat - Lane Tech 7 - Glenbrook North 28 Lane Tech could not get its offense going in a loss to Glenbrook North. Trinca-Pasat sat out the game with a back injury.
Austin Vier - Ballard 21 - ADM 14 Vier was injured last week, but I'm not sure if he played this week against ADM...I'll keep researching and see what I find.