crazzymark
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To bad Zeke didn't come back for a grad year but I like the QB ISU got in the portal. He will do great next season for the Redbirds. Alright!!!
2024 Roster & Season - Prognosis Negative ?
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crazzymark
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Kid has a strong arm just open up the fly route and let it fly
fourthandshort
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Reggie Redbird
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Do you mean Zack?
I’m excited about J Guedet. He looks like he’ll make an impact and seems like a leader too. Keep those Minnesota transfers coming. Same with K-State.
When have they sent WR on a fly route and who has the speed for separation. Um we see that maybe 4x a year
TBS_20
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But, am I wrong?
Dan is adept at fade passes to the endzone, not deep fly patterns.
TIMMY
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Fly, seam, go, fade. Haven't heard fly in a while but I get what he's saying. Mostly fade or seam depending. If you're going to the sideline it's a fade. If you are splitting a zone it's a seam. The kid runs a helluva fade. He really does. Bob Hayes ran a fly because he ummm could.
fourthandshort
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I guess we'll find out next season, right ?
fourthandshort
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Exaggerated but do agree somewhat with your point. I love spreading the field wide in the pass game. But do feel like we did it too much last year .. yet I loved the progress in our pass game, and will admit I'm looking a gift horse in the mouth, relative to the last 7 seasons, since 2016, Kolbe's fist year starting. But still, I wished we used middle/deep ball more than we did with our WRs. Did very well with TE over the middle. But just need more balls middle/deep to our WRs.
Sobkowicz was 2nd in catches, 4 in yards, and 14th in yards per catch at 13.7. That isn't necessarily absolute proof .. but it does say something. Grandy and Kasper were both < 10 yds/catch .. though I'm all good with Grandy at 9.7 yds/catch as TE. But not as much with Kasper was just 8.9 yds/catch - that may be more on him and his skill set/size. Maybe some of that is YAC issue for our WRs, or a product of our Annexstad's arm strength or OL pass protection limiting those play calls. But we had a strong run game, and we barely got sacked, so I'm thinking we just needed to go a little deeper a little more often. Spreading wide and deep when you have a QB like Annexstad .. that is only criticism I have of our offense last fall .. again, I'm looking a gift horse in mouth .. loved our offense last year, and how we kept playing to win/score in 2nd half like no season we've seen since 2014.
And now we're starting to reap some benefits in transfer portal as a viable option to come play offense in the MVFC.
edit: if Rittenhouse keeps the starting position, it will make more sense to me to keep doing lot of spreading wide and very little deep in 2024. That looks like an area Rittenhouse should work on .. arm strength. But he will improvise and run better than Annexstad. Doubt he will ever be pure thrower Annexstad was. But after seeing Rittenhouse step up so well last year, I wouldn't be surprised if he turns out as good or better than SIUs Nick Baker ... Rittenhouse just needs more experience IMO. But right now he improvises just as well, is bigger, and runs better than the Nick Baker I watched in playoffs. I realize it was just 2 games, but still .. it looked legit, he was comfortable and confident. But now he has competition at QB .. a very good thing for Redbird football.
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StLRedbird
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This is just my opinion, but I think people underestimate how badly the program was staggered in '20'21. Dial the clock back to Aug '20. 'Birds are #9 pre-season, but the season isn't played that fall. In Sep, Beathard is fired. The roster erodes until they finally play the FCS schedule in the spring of '21. Spack went into the season depleted, suffered injuries in both lines, and abruptly pulled the plug after a demoralizing 1-3 season. The roster erosion continued. Then the portal doors swung open.
I don't think Spack handled this series of unfortunate events as well as he could have, and I purposely chose that word over should. But in retrospect I think it's harsh to criticize a string of 3 6-5s as the program recovered from it, which is an albatross some are hanging from his head. I'm a cup half full kinda guy. Still, I think the future looks as bright as it has in a while in our two primary sports.
fourthandshort
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Agreed and good add'l points made about headwinds since the 2019 season. Though many will say it is just bad excuses .. whatever you call it, it was a lot to overcome.
Lost a lot of guys to FBS teams, where they started, some doing very well. Plus a handful of key injuries. We were hit much harder than most as a result of not playing fall 2020 season. Which spilled over into ruining the spring 2021 season, resulting in Spack's arguable decision to cancel the season. Which probably left a bad taste in many players mouth. Spack was against playing spring ball as I recall, and reluctantly agreed. Then MVFC allow MoST to cancel opener for clearly BS reason ... "they couldn't clear the field" of far less snow than we had in Normal, IL. It's turf, and it's very easy to clear .. and the sun will do the rest warming the rubber pellets easily. Then Spack saw injuries (and losses) mounting on top of the FBS defections. At the time, I could understand his argument for canceling. And it was going to further ruin the fall 2021 season. Who knows how many saw a program in decline and left after spring of 2021. Yet in fall of 2021, we still had a mostly competitive defense .. but an anemic offense, which wore our defense down each game due to QB problems I've covered ad nauseum.
Yet here we sit looking very promising for 2024, coming off a disappointing 2023. Yet there was clear progress in 2023. As uneven as this 6-5 year was, it was a very competitive season compared to last years. I'll post this again to make the point again ... this years 6-5 showed far more progress than last years 6-5, despite our defense taking a big step backwards until later in 2023 season.
Look at totals, look at consistency by qtr, look at year over year Q3 comparison and H2 comparison. I suppose this is what 4 losses by 8 combined pts to top 15-25 teams looks like.
2023 score by Qtr
2022 score by Qtr
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Virginia Redbird
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I think the word is "should" have. He is the Head Coach after all. He is solely responsible. It is easy to lead when things are rosy, we find out how good a leader is when the times are tough. That is when your leaders need to step up. Add in the two failed Co-Offensive Coordinator experiments and Spack did not distinguish himself at all during that time. If the fallout of those years led to the multiple 6-5 seasons he owns that as well. The injuries of course are not a factor a coach can control and Covid was a difficult time but a lot of other coaches saw their programs through the Covid situation. I give the most credit for the resurgence of the offense to Peterson. Good hire by Spack but I think Peterson's impact on the offense is obvious.
I am not trying to hammer Spack, He has done great things for Redbird football. I am not in the fire Spack camp either. I also will not ignore his short comings. I talked in another post about building a winning program culture. I am not convinced that Spack has the ability to do that. He has been in Normal a long time now. In my view he is a carbon copy (carbon copy...dating myself) of Lovie Smith. A great defensive coach but could not find an offense to save his soul. A solid football coach that will give mostly winning seasons but overall turns out mediocre teams. Not bad teams by any stretch but not great either. Every now and then he may have that magical season where things go great and the fan base uses those memories to hope the next magical season is just around the corner. It has been almost a decade since the Redbirds were the FCS runner up. Since that championship game the Birds opponent, NDSU, has won four more national titles (2017, 2018, 2019, & 2021). NDSU was the national runner up in 2022. They made the semi-finals in 2016 and the quarterfinals in 2020 (if you want to count that year).
A little perspective, Spack's record since that National Championship appearance and 10-3 record the following year in 2015 is:
2016 - 6-6
2017 - 6-5
2018 - 6-5
2019 - 10-5
2020 - 1-3*
2021 - 4-7
2022 - 6-5
2023 - 6-5
I took the records off the GoRedbirds.com site. I am not a Spack hater but how could anyone look at this record and not see it as just mediocre? Maybe next year is the next magical season, maybe not. We will all find out next fall.
Hey, wasn't that Redbird run in 2014/15 great? How about those '85 Bears, huh? Being a football fan in Illinois is NOT for the weak!
RedbirdSoxFan
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How much is Beathard missed?I think the word is "should" have. He is the Head Coach after all. He is solely responsible. It is easy to lead when things are rosy, we find out how good a leader is when the times are tough. That is when your leaders need to step up. Add in the two failed Co-Offensive Coordinator experiments and Spack did not distinguish himself at all during that time. If the fallout of those years led to the multiple 6-5 seasons he owns that as well. The injuries of course are not a factor a coach can control and Covid was a difficult time but a lot of other coaches saw their programs through the Covid situation. I give the most credit for the resurgence of the offense to Peterson. Good hire by Spack but I think Peterson's impact on the offense is obvious.
I am not trying to hammer Spack, He has done great things for Redbird football. I am not in the fire Spack camp either. I also will not ignore his short comings. I talked in another post about building a winning program culture. I am not convinced that Spack has the ability to do that. He has been in Normal a long time now. In my view he is a carbon copy (carbon copy...dating myself) of Lovie Smith. A great defensive coach but could not find an offense to save his soul. A solid football coach that will give mostly winning seasons but overall turns out mediocre teams. Not bad teams by any stretch but not great either. Every now and then he may have that magical season where things go great and the fan base uses those memories to hope the next magical season is just around the corner. It has been almost a decade since the Redbirds were the FCS runner up. Since that championship game the Birds opponent, NDSU, has won four more national titles (2017, 2018, 2019, & 2021). NDSU was the national runner up in 2022. They made the semi-finals in 2016 and the quarterfinals in 2020 (if you want to count that year).
A little perspective, Spack's record since that National Championship appearance and 10-3 record the following year in 2015 is:
2016 - 6-6
2017 - 6-5
2018 - 6-5
2019 - 10-5
2020 - 1-3*
2021 - 4-7
2022 - 6-5
2023 - 6-5
I took the records off the GoRedbirds.com site. I am not a Spack hater but how could anyone look at this record and not see it as just mediocre? Maybe next year is the next magical season, maybe not. We will all find out next fall.
Hey, wasn't that Redbird run in 2014/15 great? How about those '85 Bears, huh? Being a football fan in Illinois is NOT for the weak!
topiarydan
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Historically ISU has an overall losing record in football, I am ok with his overall record. We were picked 6th in pre-season MVC poll and we came in 5th/6th. Anyway instead of some of us ragging on Spack (NOTE - HE AIN'T GOING ANYWHERE for next season) let's see how this team does. We have two nice QB options, we have some solid RBs and WRs and a decent OL. I see us going 8-3 next year and making the playoffs - to me if he doesn't get there then sure maybe you look at options. But I'm high on what we have coming back and coming in
Will you put this in Crosscountry terms Timmy so we can understand?
FYI I get Bob Hayes!!
TIMMY
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Pre ran fades. Hayes ran flys.Will you put this in Crosscountry terms Timmy so we can understand?
FYI I get Bob Hayes!!
