Yet many of our brilliant board experts have already surmised that the defense and secondary are complete trash.
If Iowa gives up ANYTHING, the defense is trash in the eyes of Iowa fans. I totally blame Phil for that. He created this monster of unrealistic expectations with all of the dominant defenses he's produced.
It seemed better at the time because your brain was comparing it to what Gronowski was doing in real time. On a relative basis the guy was totally killing it.
So I will start off by saying that the defense shut down Albany in the 2nd half, but IMO that has as much to do with the offensive time of possession as it does the defense. Iowa had the ball for over 13 minutes in the 3rd quarter, along with a 7 minute drive in the fourth.
2nd half adjustments shut him down. They had like 2 decent drives in the first half.
This ^
have to say they are good at knowing when to take the deep shots. and their TEs are a load, arguably better than the current crop we have or appear to be due to passing prowess.
Right. They did what they should have done. My post was targeted at people who were stating that they didn't.
This is still a good defense. It's not elite like a few years ago when it had NFL quality personnel all over the field, but it's good enough to keep Iowa in games if the offense can do its part.
It will be fine as long as they keep playing poor teams from the FCS tier of college football. Alas, the schedule has only one more patsy, UMass, coming up, so let's see how the Iowa D handles a real big boy offense before we decide that just because Phil Parker is still around, everything will magically be fine.
I thought Sharar looked excellent. Harrell had some struggles, but linebacker at Iowa takes some time to settle in to. Phil asks a lot of that group. I remember Nick Jackson having a rough outing his first time out against I think it was Utah State and people were all over him. A few games later they were in love with him. I hope Harrell can take that same trajectory but we'll have to see.
Is it? South Dakota State beat a far better Albany team in the national semifinals a couple years ago 59-0.
Ok Little Miss Sunshine. I think ISU will get yards and points. No one is shutting them down completely including Iowa. I think what Iowa can possibly do is make them one dimensional by taking away the run game. If they can do that and Phil dials up some blitzes to make Becht uncomfortable they have a great shot at holding them to 20-23 points. The offense needs to finish some long sustained drives of their own and the Hawks can win.
I'm not sure they did much adjusting, except remind the guys of the obvious point their QB can run.
