Looking Farther Ahead - Jackrabbits

[CaliRdBrd]

Most teams would kill to have a running game like we have. Even if you stack the box, the running game should be able to get three yards per play. Either the line is not as good as some indicated or the rb’s are not that great.
Once again, I fear I have overdosed on the off-season Kool Aid (like I do for basketball every year).
We’re a middle of the road team in a great conference.
Take away the Roberson season and we’re so mediocre over the last 10 years, it’s laughable...just like basketball.

 

[cpacmel]

Question for Timmy and others:

3:28 left in the game. ISU scores a TD to make 38-20.

What’s the point of kicking the XP?

Math was never my best subject but doesn’t a 2 Pt conversion make much more sense?

I didn't see any of the game. Went to Happy Valley. If you've never been...GO.

My pocket chart says go for 2. Kicking makes it a 3 score game. Sounds like throwing in the towel. Did they onside kick? I would guess not.
My pocket chart is 40 this year. Got it from Frank Chiodo. It's kind of a keepsake.

Thanks Timmy

We did onside kick (twice more actually).

We also used time outs on defense after that as well.

The whole thing left me bumfizzed.

 

[cpacmel]

Most teams would kill to have a running game like we have. Even if you stack the box, the running game should be able to get three yards per play. Either the line is not as good as some indicated or the rb’s are not that great.
Once again, I fear I have overdosed on the off-season Kool Aid (like I do for basketball every year).
We’re a middle of the road team in a great conference.
Take away the Roberson season and we’re so mediocre over the last 10 years, it’s laughable...just like basketball.

Mediocre teams don’t go to the play-offs, not from the MVFC. Give credit where credit is due.

We got whipped by their D-line. Period. We had to throw. Rabbits front 7 was better than the Bison from 7. At least it was when we played them both.

Gotta beat UNI!

St. Xavier lazyiness is totally front and center now too.

 

[fourthandshort]

I think the jumbo formation works just fine ... but mainly against weaker run defenses, like we we were playing up until WIU, NDSU, and SDSU. So agree we need to disguise our run game much better than we did.

Our problem is we (coaches and fans) annointed Davis too fast. He was unproven and hadn't taken meaningful live games snaps since HS. He got off to a good start against weaker competition. But teams scout and learn tendencies about players and offenses. They figured us out ... Davis is too inaccurate and doesn't run like anyone hoped he would. He needed to be brought along more slowly. OC Beathard can't lean on his occassional deep ball capabilities .. that won't move the chains.

We have great RBs .. all we need is a QB who can keep defenses honest and spread out. Kolbe does that, Davis does not. Coaches are responsible for annointing Davis too soon. I hated the comparisons to Roberson ... he was a proven player at Indiana who saw meaningful game reps in Big 10. He was worth the gamble ... and even as he struggled his first 8 games in 2014, he could run and throw a deep ball .. plus we had a very talented senior oriented WR/TE group. I love Schnell (one bone headed play does not discourage me in the least), and love the upside on Edgar and Haley ... but they are all small with small catch radius Betting on an inaccurate QB because he "looks" more comfortable in the pocket was a risky bet. Good defenses were bound to cause us problems. And now our run game is suffering because we are playing much better defenses who have had a chance to scout us.

By the way, I didn't think Kolbe looked at all in sync yesterday. He gutted out some impressive runs, and made some throws. But he was not hitting people in stride and he threw to no one twice ... so someone missed a route adjustment (Kolbe or WR ?). Give him a full week of reps with the 1's .. and he'll start to get his accuracy back. And yes, he will "look" more uncomfortable than Davis in the pocket. But he will gut it out and he will hit open receivers in stride in short to intermediate pass game .. this will take pressure off OL and run game.

Going to platoon now would look foolish as a program. After SIU, I stopped talking about platooning Kolbe because I do agree we need to pick one. Now I don't know what the answer is. I do know Davis needs more time to figure this all out.

Even if Kolbe becomes the starter it does not mean that the coaches made the wrong decision in starting Davis. Players play their way in and out of the lineup.

I hoped that Davis would have played better by now, but he still gives us the best chance to make it to Frisco this year. His best is better than Kolbe’s best. Unfortunately, we might not see his best often enough.

I was not strongly opposed to them going with Davis ... I half got it, even though I didn't buy into the "it" hype at all. But I did believe Kolbe won the the right to keep his starting job ... there is big difference between hitting on 50% vs 70% of passes .. even if it was only 3 scrimmages in August .. it was 70+ passes. Now we're seeing a guy who only connects on 50% of his passes. He needed more time .. I thought the team needed a game manager who could take pressure off our run game.

But I also wondered if Davis had more upside too, given he hadn't played serious downs in a game since HS ... 3 year experience gap. But I did strongly believe a platoon system made the most sense given everything ... I still believe that today ... even more than before game 1.

Maybe we try platoon and make this a tryout for playoffs. I just wish we would have had this figured during first half of season ... not the last 3 games.

 

[redbirdfan04]

I 100% agree we played our worst game Saturday. It was tough to watch. But, by know means am I about to give up on this team being a playoff team. They have as good of chance to go 8-3 or 7-4 and get in the playoffs. This game is huge for both us and UNI. This team is filled with talent, the question is can they put it all together on the field? I still believe they can. If at the end of the regular season this team is 8-3 no one should be complaining. We play in the best conference in all of FCS year in and year out and we have a chance at 8-3 i'll take it. I have heard a lot of coach bashing and player bashing this week. That does no good at all for anyone. The QB talks naturally have started back up but calling out Spack and players is just terrible IMO.

 

[fourthandshort]

I 100% agree we played our worst game Saturday. It was tough to watch. But, by know means am I about to give up on this team being a playoff team. They have as good of chance to go 8-3 or 7-4 and get in the playoffs. This game is huge for both us and UNI. This team is filled with talent, the question is can they put it all together on the field? I still believe they can. If at the end of the regular season this team is 8-3 no one should be complaining. We play in the best conference in all of FCS year in and year out and we have a chance at 8-3 i'll take it. I have heard a lot of coach bashing and player bashing this week. That does no good at all for anyone. The QB talks naturally have started back up but calling out Spack and players is just terrible IMO.

It was certainly our worst run game of the year by far - even WIU game was better (1st half anyways) .. that and 3 plays that led directly to 21 points ... the 2 uncharacteristic fumbles gave them ball on our own 19 and 5, plus our DB falling down on their 80+ yards TD pass. So it wasn't like our defense didn't show up. Granted, they would argue they went into prevent in Q4 when we got our 21 points .. and they would be mostly right .. so figure we got half those 21 points for that reason.

SDSU gets full credit for stuffing our run game ... but we have needed our pass game to take more consistent pressure off our run game. I think Kolbe does that better than Davis. Not sure how comfortable OC Beathard is putting the entire playbook in Davis's hands .. but we look limited against teams with a stout run defense.

 

[cpacmel]

We should be looking for a new AD anyways, but if they don't make the playoffs because of the St. X game, Larry should be given his walking papers immediately.

Spack doesn’t schedule who he wants to schedule? Pretty sure Dan does most of his own scheduling.

RedbirdSoxFan - this was already discussed extensively before and right after the St. X game. This was 100% scheduled by AD Lyons period. In fact, Spack has little input into the schedule - 8 conference games, 1 non-con vs EIU, usually one FBS - that leaves only one other game. Lyons wanted 6 home games no matter what - end of discussion.

https://www.pantagraph.com/sports/college/football/isu-needs-strong-finish-for-playoff-berth/article_e3be89da-7e0b-56f9-afa4-269a19ce921c.html#tracking-source=home-the-latest

“We thought we should play a game,” Spack said of filling an 11-game schedule“That’s the only game, I guess, we could find. That’s what I’ve been told.”

 

[fourthandshort]

Spack doesn’t schedule who he wants to schedule? Pretty sure Dan does most of his own scheduling.

RedbirdSoxFan - this was already discussed extensively before and right after the St. X game. This was 100% scheduled by AD Lyons period. In fact, Spack has little input into the schedule - 8 conference games, 1 non-con vs EIU, usually one FBS - that leaves only one other game. Lyons wanted 6 home games no matter what - end of discussion.

https://www.pantagraph.com/sports/college/football/isu-needs-strong-finish-for-playoff-berth/article_e3be89da-7e0b-56f9-afa4-269a19ce921c.html#tracking-source=home-the-latest

“We thought we should play a game,” Spack said of filling an 11-game schedule“That’s the only game, I guess, we could find. That’s what I’ve been told.”

hmmm .... now that is first time I'm aware of that Spack has publicly expressed any disappointment in the STX game. Dare I say ... shots fired ???

 

[Metamoron]

I am surprised at this comment for a couple reasons.

1. Never a good idea to throw your boss (or someone) under the bus publicly.

2. It shows that he wasn’t at all involved in the attempt to schedule the game. Had he said “we tried like hell to get anyone else to come here to play us” or “we made all the calls we could make” etc. But by saying this the way he did, it shows he didn’t get involved.

I know how important and how involved Muller is on his schedule and to think that Spack isn’t involved in this one game is interesting.

However he did say that the win over CSU should put record back at 7-4 and I agree with that.

 

[cpacmel]

Football scheduling and basketball scheduling is completely different. AD’s usually let basketball coaches do the majority of scheduling. While football scheduling is done almost extensively by the AD’s.

 

[Adunk33]

I am surprised at this comment for a couple reasons.
1. Never a good idea to throw your boss (or someone) under the bus publicly.

Aaron Rodgers has subtly been doing this for the past couple years with McCarthy in Green Bay. The fan base sided with Rodgers... same goes here.

Muller has 100% more wiggle room with his schedule than Spack. Spack gets what? 1 game or 2 games a season that he gets to "choose?" I don't put this on Spack. I think Spack trusted his administration enough not to let something like this happen and they proved they did not deserve the trust.

 

[fourthandshort]

WIU was in identical situation with same St Xavier game ... though bought out of it and took a road game. Granted, they don't draw a lot at home, so they had less to lose than we did giving up a home game for 2nd year in a row. But that shouldn't have matter .. 6th home game should have been a strong preference, FCS road game (assuming bus distance) should have been 2nd preference, way way way over non D-I home game ... not even close.

That said, a close loss at UNI and 2 somewhat convincing wins should put us squarely on the bubble with strong consideration at 6-4 .. with 3 of 4 losses to highly ranked teams .. UNI will be close to top 10 by end of season. If they beat us, odds are they win out. They would be 7-4 with FBS loss and #1 ranked SOS I believe .. so 7-3 against toughest FCS SOS. Their FBS loss is by 24 to Top 20 Iowa.

I don't want to be on the bubble ... soooo ... let's just beat UNI.

 

[MadBird]

Trying to make some very weak "kool aid" from lemons . . . . St. Xavier has turned around their season and is ranked #18, and playing this weekend to close out their season 8-3 with a conference championship. They lost opening weekend to Marian, to ISU, and then later to #1 ranked St. Francis of Indiana. Since the St. Francis loss, St. X is on a 5 game winning streak.

So, you know, they're not the bottom of the barrel NAIA team this year . . . .

That's the best I could come up with :roll:

 

[fourthandshort]

Trying to make some very weak "kool aid" from lemons . . . . St. Xavier has turned around their season and is ranked #18, and playing this weekend to close out their season 8-3 with a conference championship. They lost opening weekend to Marian, to ISU, and then later to #1 ranked St. Francis of Indiana. Since the St. Francis loss, St. X is on a 5 game winning streak.

So, you know, they're not the bottom of the barrel NAIA team this year . . . .

That's the best I could come up with :roll:

that and 2 bucks will actually get you thrown out of Starbucks.

 

[MadBird]

Trying to make some very weak "kool aid" from lemons . . . . St. Xavier has turned around their season and is ranked #18, and playing this weekend to close out their season 8-3 with a conference championship. They lost opening weekend to Marian, to ISU, and then later to #1 ranked St. Francis of Indiana. Since the St. Francis loss, St. X is on a 5 game winning streak.

So, you know, they're not the bottom of the barrel NAIA team this year . . . .

That's the best I could come up with :roll:

that and 2 bucks will actually get you thrown out of Starbucks.

:lol: I tried!!

 

[CaliRdBrd]

The issue really isn’t that we scheduled St Xavier, it’s that we shit the bed against NDSU, SDSU and Mo State.
You want to get to the upper echelon, you win those games.
Simple as that.

 

[ekeyfanclub]

I look at it this way. Going into the season, I thought we were anywhere from the 3rd to the 5th best team in the conference. NDSU and SDSU were the top and then it was ISU, UNI, and WIU for that 3rd position. We beat WIU and now we face UNI. Win out and we are probably 3rd best team in the conference based on our head to head win over WIU.