Got almost Giddy when talking about Hawthorne. He had good commennts about Anderson, Cheneke and Epeneda. Iowa's d-line is well stocked.
Coach Bell's Interview About D-line
- Thread starter Hawkangler
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Epenesa is gonna see significant snaps. He was in there a lot and I know Hurkett was not partaking, but still obvious he will get some significant chances.
"Almost too good to be true," was how KB described Hawthorne to me.
Blair, I agree. Interesting he said we had him here, which I assume he meant to camp. We didn't offer but are glad he's here now. Hawthorne admitted he did know much in high school. Was 245 lbs, I believe, back then.
He of course spoke of Hurkett and Llewellan (sp?) but thought Allen and Merrieweather would contribute.
The run is rarely what hurts us. Gave up 4 TDs on the ground last year, 20 by pass. I'm concerned about the DBacks.
Agreed. But if Phil would blitz more, intellligently of course, but more, and if the D-line can get more pressure on the QB, it would take a tremendous amount of pressure off the D-backs. And I would suggest this is the strategy Iowa should employ this season. If Phil continues to sit back and let QBs have all the time in the world, even the best D-backs in the country would get burned--a lot. If you look around the country at the CFP teams and other top teams, they use the blitz far more often than Iowa does. Those D's play bend but don't break too. It's just more effective when you mix in the blitz. So failure to blitz often enough is my biggest fear for this year's defense. I just hope Phil has learned from last season and from what other top defenses are doing these days. He's a great coach, but he has to make that adjustment and blitz more if Iowa's going to make the most of this season. IMHO, of course.
Yeah, that was fun talking to KB about it and then getting to ask Hawthorne why he thought they didn't offer. He quickly said that was on him. He wasn't the same player then that he is now.
All that came up earlier this summer in an interview Tyler Barnes did where he said they had Hawthorne in camp in high school and came close to offering, but didn't quite pull the trigger. Fast forward to this year and Tyler said they had a really similar prospect from the same area in camp this summer and decided to go ahead and offer this time. That would be Sawyer Jezierski.
We've seen other QBs get way to comfortable back there. You can't play prevent all the time, pressure works. It's risky, but it can work.
He's just doing his regular trolling nonsense. Either that or he believes every team we play should be running the same run heavy offense we are, which they aren't. What we should be saying is: Pressure. The. QB.
Most teams we play will be pass happy: ISU, Indiana, USC, Oregon, Nebraska. The more we make the QB uncomfortable, the better.
Pressuring the QB never happens without stopping the run.
Believe it or not, PP's defense is built upon the "trolling nonsense" of stopping the run. That is his #1 objective.
Another failed lesson from 2D.
Stop. The. Run.
Agree. Stopping the run is fine, Iowa is usually pretty good at that. Gotta stop the pass, too. The secondary was a weak spot last season. Let’s hope for improvement this year!