Undone

I'd be willing to bet that the majority of our fans that constantly say "we don't have an offensive identity" don't actually know what they'd change if given the chance. One thing I noticed was that starting in the Wisconsin game, we kind of opened up the field. Seems to me that was because Purdy can actually: A) Hit receivers as they're breaking open with nice, crisp throws. B) Make his reads faster and then scrambles for yards if the pass play isn't there. There was almost nothing I didn't like about what we tried to do against Wisconsin & Iowa...we just turned the ball over when we shouldn't have, and our run blocking was poor against Iowa. How does an offensive overhaul change the turnovers? That's really just a basic "between the ears" thing. I think it's actually largely psychological; these guys just feel so much pressure. The pressure comes from many directions. It comes from being recognized and asked for autographs while you're waiting in line for your Chipotle burrito at 13th & 'Q.' It comes from so many interviews after just a Tuesday practice. It comes from being expected every season to be "a part of something big in turning this historic program around." Rhule is going to have to sort out the psychological aspect of this, IMO.

This is an "end thread" if I've ever seen one. Amazing work.

Yeah. I thought Card was going to do pretty well for Purdue, and even though we beat him/them and he didn't look amazing in that game I definitely would have rather had him over Sims. He can kind of run but is a pass-first guy and at least hits receivers when they're open. The staff obviously was married to the idea of running option & zone read a fair bit and that's why we got Sims. Really funny to think about what was paid for him in NIL just to have him tank games. When I watched what was supposedly his "highlight reels" on YouTube back in March I was like "this guy can't really throw the ball." He wound up even screwing up snaps and turning the wrong way (multiple times) on running back hand-offs.

I think everybody agrees that grabbing Sims out of the portal was a huge mistake. It's hard to say whether we would have really gotten anybody better than Purdy, but it's possible. Seeing Purdy's skills at throwing (at least when he's throwing to a wide open guy and actually hitting his target) and watching his instincts to tuck it & scramble when it's there makes me think if he hadn't had the groin injury at all, we go bowling. Haarberg was no doubt the 3rd string guy at the end of camp if Purdy isn't injured, and probably doesn't see the field at all without Chubba's injury.

I thought if he just lofted it a bit more he makes that throw. Could have made the FG if that play had gone to our guy he was throwing to.

Yeah. One thing that's really crazy to me is that if we had the scoring average of the majority of the Frost years this season, we go at least 7-5. It's super pathetic that three very winnable games were tied at 10 points middle to late 4th quarter in the first place. And the biggest reason for us not having more than 10 points up on the board by that point in those games was typically unforced errors in the previous 3.5 quarters. Rinse, wash, repeat.

I've said for a long time that I believe a major factor to these "B grade" mobile QB's not getting better with their passing is that a good chunk of your practice time is spent running zone read & option run plays. One would assume we go after a QB in the portal. I would hope we'd try to dial back the QB run game and get a guy who has FBS-level film of being a good passer. If we can't do that and Purdy is the guy next year, yes I agree - coaching either comes in big or we're in trouble.

The biggest problems in the Iowa game on offense throughout the whole of the game in order for me were: 1. The two turnovers that Purdy had. 2. Our inability to run the ball. 3. The missed field goal. We had 30 carries for 75 yards. Nothing all that bad about 30 carries for your total - but that's 2.5 YPC. Terrible. If you go back and look at the winnable conference games that we lost in Minnesota, Michigan State, & Maryland, QB mistakes are also at the top of the list of problems. This is why I think it's weird to fixate on scheme and play calling problems. We just need our QB's to not turn the ball over as the starting point.

Actual laughing out loud at people who think a scheme change to a guy whose system is almost exactly the same as what we did this season somehow saves the program. I legitimately want to smoke what you're smoking, not even kidding. The core issue that stood between us and a bowl game this season was turnovers. Over and over again our QB's & ball carriers f***ed up in new and hilarious ways. We ran the option this year. We ran fullback traps. Scheme can't/didn't un-f*** our situation. Not making constant unforced errors will be the biggest thing that does that.

We knew this rhetoric 9 months ago, but thanks for dropping by.

It came out about two weeks ago that he's had a groin injury all year. I definitely don't blame Purdy for this loss. We didn't run the ball well, and the coaches seemed like they just didn't want to try to lean on the run in this one.

I expected 6-6 because of the weak schedule we had. To not make a bowl game with this schedule is just sad. The Maryland game goes down as probably a top 10 program loss for me. Just the clown show of turnovers by our QB's after the defense plays a good game...we should have sealed bowl eligibility in that game and then been able to really let loose in the last couple.

Purdy is better than the other two wildcat QB's we trotted out this year. But, if his playing time this year is any indication, he's a turnover machine. We shouldn't have even been in a situation where we're not up by at least 3 points late in the fourth in this game with how well we kept them from putting points on the board. Purdy shouldn't have even been in a situation where he has to throw a medium distance pass to be in field goal range to take the lead. But the INT he threw on the last drive...just really bad. If we don't get a good QB out of the portal there's really nothing to be excited about for next year for me.

We just couldn't run the ball. 51% run/pass ratio. Not saying we should have ran more, but when we ran we just didn't get good gains by and large.

You just can't out-Iowa Iowa.

Funny you should mention biscuits. He had special training table sessions in the offseason with Mark Mangino himself. Mark uses a very controversial method where he has his athletes superset biscuits & gravy with milkshakes.

Yes! And remember what Frost (read: Alberts) did with like 2 or 3 games left in that season? Fired four offensive coaches and scapegoated the offense in what wound up being a 3-9 year. We wound up losing 3 games to crushing special teams play that year (which is just my own subjective take): -Michigan State --> We punted the ball to the opposite side of the field our wedge is running to and they get a walk-in TD when we were up by 7 middle of the 4th quarter. -Wisconsin --> Opening play of the game we let them run the kickoff back for a TD. -Iowa --> Horrible blocking on a punt that they block and run in for a TD

He's good at saying things in pressers. He also seems to be fairly good at motivating the players. And his defensive coordinator has to be one of the 10 best in the country. But it's in the zip code at least of "s***ing the bed" as a program if we lose this game to make it four straight losses to end the season. I think that can be true and also "we're at least slightly better than we ever were in the last six years" at the same time if we lose to Iowa. Need to win this game.

Good assessment there.

I really think we lose this one. I don't feel good about the three loss skid we're on, whereas Iowa has won three in a row. They're just the better team on paper. The one place they're usually susceptible is when your QB scrambles on them. They're just not built for that on defense. They're built to stop the run and they usually have surprisingly good corners. I can't believe we actually ran toss plays against Wisconsin like we did. I've been wanting to see more of that all year. I hope we run a healthy dose of those and I hope that Purdy tucks it & scrambles after making two quick reads on pass plays/RPO's. Those are the keys to success - aside from not turning the ball over five times like we usually do.

I created a hypothetical situation. I said people would be complaining about the play calling if that last drive had been full of passes that went for incompletions and we don't even tie it up. I talked about this a ton a few posts up.

Totally agree with this. And I said this yesterday - can you imagine the way this board melts down had we been pretty aggressive and we throw a bunch on that drive and don't even get the field goal?

Regarding the rushing yards per carry stat: I'm going to preface this by saying that when I look at our top RB's YPC stats in a lot of our box scores this season versus last season, it's better this year. In my opinion that speaks to Raiola's work and some improvement in run blocking by the guys. But, the numbers get inflated by long QB scrambles. Now one counterpoint in bringing this up is that Haarberg really didn't have a ton of those. But still, they inflate the numbers. Nevertheless, we're #1 on the damn list. That's awesome. I'm not firing Raiola if I'm Rhule and I think he has improved the play of the same players (minus Scott being new). So like, that's super good. I think we can continue on the same trajectory under Raiola. If you would have asked me heading into game 1 "will the offensive line or the QB play be the bigger problem this season" I wouldn't have even thought to say it would be QB play. But it definitely wound up being QB play.