DannyCooksey
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Not sure if this has been said but it’s gonna be a LONG year if we can’t run block better. I saw very little movement by our OLine
Valpo Home Opener
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Redbirdwarrior
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You guys complain about wins a lot. I never understood complaining about a W.
I’m going to take a win and move on to this weekend, but I’ve got a few questions for those with more technical expertise or that were more observant.
1) did it appear that Redbirds played 2nd/3rd line personnel more than Whisky game- I wondered if this was a game they wanted to give some of those players game time?
2) I don’t really recall Spack’s former Off. coordinators on the field activity(maybe in the booth), I may be mistaken- Appeared to me that Peterson(OC & receivers coach?) was on the sideline for the game and only Regular dialogue with players seemed to be with defensive backs. A bulk of the time on offense, it looked to me like he had his mic up and was not participating in play calling or in any sideline offensive huddles during any TO or when they were off the field. Is this common? Quarterbacks coach seemed to be most involved in coaching/play calling offense on sideline. Does Spack call offensive plays himself?
1) did it appear that Redbirds played 2nd/3rd line personnel more than Whisky game- I wondered if this was a game they wanted to give some of those players game time?
2) I don’t really recall Spack’s former Off. coordinators on the field activity(maybe in the booth), I may be mistaken- Appeared to me that Peterson(OC & receivers coach?) was on the sideline for the game and only Regular dialogue with players seemed to be with defensive backs. A bulk of the time on offense, it looked to me like he had his mic up and was not participating in play calling or in any sideline offensive huddles during any TO or when they were off the field. Is this common? Quarterbacks coach seemed to be most involved in coaching/play calling offense on sideline. Does Spack call offensive plays himself?
Manchester Matt
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What’s the point of a message board if you can’t have different opinions and express them?
MadBird
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Can't really address #2, but as far as personnel, I would say more back-ups played at Wisconsin than vs. Valpo. At UW, Rittenhouse played at QB, seemed to me most of the Wisconsin natives played (some on OL and LB for sure I know), several guys on DL that are younger/newer.
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I agree with Madbird that we played more reserves at Wisconsin. Against Valpo there was the normal player rotation on defense and the starters played on offense.
I believe OC Petersen calls the offensive plays from the booth and they are signaled in to the QB from the sideline.
TIMMY
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Congrats to your wife 4th. Not easy in that weather. Or any weather. My daughter's friend did the ironman in Madison yesterday with a team called My Team Triumph. He's got CP. It took them 16 hours but he got through it. Constant pouring rain. He's a pretty courageous guy.
MadBird
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Not to veer off the topic, but we've watched several of the Madison Ironman's - quite the spectacle. We've watched the start of swimming at 7am Sunday morning, sun coming up over the lake downtown, some poor folks don't even make the first couple hundred yards swimming, have to be fished out. Then drive out to the "country" to watch the cycling. Go back to the finish line around 4-5 pm, crossing the line some folks look fresh as a daisy and others are draggin'. The start of the run and the finish kind of "overlap", the course, you know, some people are just starting their run while the top people are coming in for the finish. Have to admire them pushing thru. I think the course is open until 11pm or midnight, and there's still folks pushing on from 7am. Courageous is the word.
probably confusing him w/someone else -this was the guy I noticed on sidelines- looked like Petersen from at least distance - he was talking with D here.
That's Safeties Coach Cody Deti who's in his 12th year at ISU. He's the on-field DB coach as CBs Coach Mike Banks is in the press box with DC Travis Niekamp.
fourthandshort
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Agree Spack doesn't get a free pass forever .. but IMO he gets a pass for all of 2021 ... spring and fall. Lot of transfers, injuries, graduations after a very good 2019 year .. even with a bad pass game.
This year, that free pass is over, though I am giving Team a month to put things in position to compete by the 10.1 MVFC and home opener against SIU. Defense should be ready. Offense is work in progress with OL and pass game .. can't expect too much too early. But do expect at least a solid year passing and good year running (sans Mueller), and a very strong year on defense.
Valpo is just one game, but as i said before .. zero excuses for 4 flat quarters of play .. 1 or 2 maybe, not 4 ... football starts with energy and physicality. Players have 100% control over that, even while things may be out of sync. We haven't had a close patsy game in a long time. EIU looks to better than recent history where we have blown them out every year since 2016 I think.
Valpo was wake up call .. I know Spack got it. Let's see if players get it. Let's makr that game the anomaly, even THE triggering game for rest of season. If not, it will be a long year.
This year, that free pass is over, though I am giving Team a month to put things in position to compete by the 10.1 MVFC and home opener against SIU. Defense should be ready. Offense is work in progress with OL and pass game .. can't expect too much too early. But do expect at least a solid year passing and good year running (sans Mueller), and a very strong year on defense.
Valpo is just one game, but as i said before .. zero excuses for 4 flat quarters of play .. 1 or 2 maybe, not 4 ... football starts with energy and physicality. Players have 100% control over that, even while things may be out of sync. We haven't had a close patsy game in a long time. EIU looks to better than recent history where we have blown them out every year since 2016 I think.
Valpo was wake up call .. I know Spack got it. Let's see if players get it. Let's makr that game the anomaly, even THE triggering game for rest of season. If not, it will be a long year.
fourthandshort
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So this was first time Madison hosted the the Half Triathlon on Saturday and Full on Sunday.
Mrs Fourth alternates years with Full and Half. Luckily, this was her Half year. 58 degrees at 7am is actually ideal for a triathlon or marathon, if that is all your dealing with. Water was 71 degrees, and most wear wetsuits, so that is considered good conditions for swim. Rest of Saturday weather was near perfect and my wife had a great day, as did many doing the Half on Saturday in great weather.
But ..... Sunday weather was awful. The voice of Ironman said he thinks it was worst overall conditions ever. Over a third did not finish on Sunday. Basically went from near ideal on Sat to near worst ever on Sun.
56 degrees for swim start was actually ok on Sunday as well, water was still 71 degrees .. though bit more chop to deal with. The issue on Sunday was everything else sucked. For bike, the wind was constantly swirling between 10 and 15 mph, plus nonstop rain made the bike awful and dangerous. Madison bike is considered tough, very "technical" with many hills and turns .. so much tougher with rain and wind.
And if you were able to survive the swim and bike, your reward was a full marathon with little feeling in your legs and no feeling in your arms from the bike, still with all the rain and wind. Most were out there for 12-16 hours in that sh-t.
crazzymark
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Oh stop
I have been beating this drum for a while and here is my post from a few months ago. Its time......
This will be Spack's 14th season here. We are picked 9th in our conference which means a losing record and no playoffs. You people don't want to hear this but if we finish any worse than 5th and/or don't make the playoffs then he should be gone. Only 1 playoff appearance in the last 5 seasons with a 27-25 (15-21) record. This team has been headed in the wrong direction since Trey and Marshaun left. Remember when we were a sleeping giant? Well we fell asleep again after the 2015 season.
Right now, this is our team after 14 seasons. This is his team and this is what we are and what we have to show for it.
This will be Spack's 14th season here. We are picked 9th in our conference which means a losing record and no playoffs. You people don't want to hear this but if we finish any worse than 5th and/or don't make the playoffs then he should be gone. Only 1 playoff appearance in the last 5 seasons with a 27-25 (15-21) record. This team has been headed in the wrong direction since Trey and Marshaun left. Remember when we were a sleeping giant? Well we fell asleep again after the 2015 season.
Right now, this is our team after 14 seasons. This is his team and this is what we are and what we have to show for it.
fourthandshort
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when you play a middling team who has a good day on your not-so-good day .., yes, this mindset applies. But not against a Valpo.
fourthandshort
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if you fire our best Football coach ever by far .. who just went to quarters in 2019 and played the Bison tougher than anyone else did in playoffs, despite no pass game at all ... then you better have sure thing waiting in the wings.
Not so small point .... we play in the MVFC. If our Redbirds had been playing in the Big Sky or Colonial all these years, you could add 1-2 or more wins to each year. If they played in the OVC, Southland, or Southern, you could add 2-3 wins to each season. Point is we play in the very best conference in FCS. A conference with 2 teams that are top 2-5 almost every year, and regularly get 4-6 Teams in playoffs. SOS kind of matters .. a lot ... when looking at overall record.
Here's another related point .. Ive crunched these numbers before but not in last couple years. If you look at the MVFC playoff record win % since 2010 fully excluding NDSU who has about a 95% win %. Then of course remove trhe head to head MVFC playoff games, since someone has to lose. The rest of the MVFC (i.e. ISUr, UNI, YSU, etc) still has a .650 playoff win % since 2010. No other conference is close even including their best team, much less excluding their best team. That says 2 things ... one, MVFC is still the best conference excluding NDSU; and two, MVFC should be getting even more playoff bids.
Basically, 4-4 in the MVFC is 5-3 or 6-2 or better in most other conferences. o I think we have to view Spack's performance thru this lens.
Grass aint always greener. So if the AD fires Spack, and the next guys does worse, Then President needs to think about firing the AD for a bad hire, or maybe a bad fire .. and we're back to square one longing for Spack days.
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Again, I like Brock and I'm a fan. But I can't deny the program is stale. Forget Covid, everyone had to deal with it. Here's the thing that always confused me and for which I never heard a real good explanation:
The Co-Offensive Coordinator setup in '17. For as strong a personality and leader that Brock IS, that was very surprising. I feel like things haven't been the same since. JMO.
Very much looking forward to seeing the real ISU this weekend.
The Co-Offensive Coordinator setup in '17. For as strong a personality and leader that Brock IS, that was very surprising. I feel like things haven't been the same since. JMO.
Very much looking forward to seeing the real ISU this weekend.
Bird Friend
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Caveat to this: your assumptions about records in those other conferences are only true if you maintain the same type of recruits. But if we’re in those other conferences, do we get the same recruits?
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That situation began with the sudden and unexpected departure of OC Beathard. I don't have any inside information on this, but I think that event was followed by pressure to make a minority hire at OC, preferably from within. One half of the Co-coord position went to a minority. I believe it was one of those compromises that satisfied no one.
Does that mean that the Redbird teams under of the direction of Co-Coordinators on offense weren't real Redbird football teams? I'm slow to align myself with those types of statements. I'm from the Bill Parcells school of thought - "You are what your record says you are."
Having said that, I'm glad that the Co-coord era is over and I'm really hoping for an offensive breakout against Eastern.