**Official Illinois vs. Iowa Football Thread - 1:00pm - FS1**

The Dad

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wrt to jet sweep, wtf was the play where we motioned the slot with traditional jet sweep action and then motioned him back to the strong side and gave it to him? it didn’t work and appeared tremendously dumb
They made it as obvious as they possibly could.
 

Thomas Wolsey

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wrt to jet sweep, wtf was the play where we motioned the slot with traditional jet sweep action and then motioned him back to the strong side and gave it to him? it didn’t work and appeared tremendously dumb
They hit it for a good chunk early.
 

Whatever

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wrt to jet sweep, wtf was the play where we motioned the slot with traditional jet sweep action and then motioned him back to the strong side and gave it to him? it didn’t work and appeared tremendously dumb
It wasn't to the strong side but that action did work earlier in the game.
 

howler

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It's dumb, but I think it is a bit understandable. The last 5 games over 6 weeks have been really hard to watch and enjoy as a fan.

I love winning, but the second half of the season has been some of the ugliest, most boring wins that you can have.

Maybe we are spoiled, but the reality is Iowa is not a lot of fun to watch.
Said the exact same thing on page 9, but I got bowed.

Iowa football 2021 provides very little entertainment value.
 

Alan Lomax

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I don’t know, I kinda like how they win a bunch. It has been ugly, and I wish Goodson ran more decisively, and the receivers would fucking catch the ball, but I like when they win.
 

scottsdalehawk

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Brian can take a head coaching job at a MAC school in a couple of years when Kirk retires. If he does well at a MAC school, maybe at some point it comes around and he gets the Iowa job. He just won't be the guy after Kirk (which will be a pretty tough spot for anyone).
 

howler

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I don’t know, I kinda like how they win a bunch. It has been ugly, and I wish Goodson ran more decisively, and the receivers would fucking catch the ball, but I like when they win.
Nothing beats winning but it's a combination of a few other things. Playing doormats Illinois, Northwestern, and Minnesota have colored my perceptions a bit. Yesterday was not Illinois 1991, and frankly this matchup hasn't really felt consequential in 30 years. These are games I always expect to win, yet were all predictably closer than we wanted. (I guess there's entertainment value in the proverbial barn burner?) But the taste of Purdue and Wisconsin lingered as you kinda felt this team's ceiling was a lot lower than imagined. Those were exceptionally difficult games to stomach.

I spent well over a thousand bucks to take my dad to the Penn State game. That Maryland road blowout was exciting fool's gold and you sensed the team was about to rocket into uncharted territory. Then the script quickly changed back to Wisconsin in charge of its own destiny in the West, once again. I guess if a NY6 bowl is on the table, then I want to see more potential, and not see shitty jet sweeps inside the RZ and truly awful 90mph fastball overthrows from the QB in Week 12.

But I digress: 9-2 is historically pretty great.
 
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howler

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Shut the fuck up
lol. Have no idea why I picked on Keagan. He's exactly the kind of guy I want to see more of.

I'm the first to acknowledge a truly terrible post.

Don't drink and drive, folks.
 

Saul Berkley

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Goodson is an average back. Missed holes all day yesterday. I thought that was the best the OL has looked all year.
I actually thought Gavin WIlliams looked better. He is slower but has much better vision and more power. Brian should use him more often as I actually think we could have a pretty solid running attack if we actually committed to it.
 

howler

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I do think with an average offense, they beat Wisconsin. Purdue was a failure to stop one fucking guy.
Purdue has a respectable defense but nothing earth-shattering (43rd in country) so it's not unreasonable to imagine that Iowa could've scored more than 24 points with even a competent offense. They gave up 30 to Wisconsin and 29 to a highly overrated MSU team.
 

The Full Monte

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I felt like early on in Brian's tenure there was way more KOK influence (which is why they brought him in), but the last 2 years nearly all of that has been removed in favor of whatever the fuck Brian has been trying to do.

The microcosm of yesterday was that they spend the entire game avoiding taking shots down the field, most likely because they are deemed too risky, and then finally late in the game when you don't need to take a risk due to your own design, suddenly they call a risky down the field throw in the wrong area of the field at the wrong time.

It is also crazy how one little mistake can destroy an Iowa drive that is rolling. Brian was actually calling a bunch of good plays on one of the drive, and then Goodson tripped with a giant hole in front of him (after he wildly missed another earlier in the drive that would have had a 30+ yard gain but still got 8 yards) and then Brian's next 2 play calls sucked. Drive over.
I’m positive that it’s a stat that isn’t tracked… But it is rather amazing how one play seems to completely end a drive
 

Gushawk

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Any bad first down (2 yards or fewer) basically kills a drive for Iowa. 90% of the time the second down play is then a stuffed short side run, followed by general incompetent fuckery on third down.
 
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The Full Monte

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I can answer that.

Kirk was forced to become "New Kirk" after the 2014 season and became far more aggressive. They started going for it a lot more on 4th down, opted to go for a TD instead of FG, were willing to run a bunch of trick plays on special teams and in general played with much more abandon.

It worked and the program also rose to another level in that time, but it feels like the last 2 years Iowa has slowly reverted back to the previous ultra conservative "Old Kirk". This year they opt to settle for a FG even before the drive starts. If they do run a trick play, like they finally did yesterday, it is usually half assed.

My guess is because of all of the success, Kirk feels a lot more comfortable just going back to what he is comfortable with, and that is playing a brand of ultra conservative football that he adores deep down.
There’s a massive gulf between conservative and allergic to (sometimes miscalculated) risk

Kirk is firmly on one shoreline at the moment
 

WCFHawkeye

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This is the worst group of TEs we’ve had in a long time too.
LaPorta can't catch and doesn't block worth a shit, and he is the best we have right now. This may be the worst group of TEs in not just recent memory, but 20 years or more.
 

WCFHawkeye

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Goodson is an average back. Missed holes all day yesterday. I thought that was the best the OL has looked all year.
The line did look much improved, and there were holes. Part of that was because of the sweeps that people are bitching about. Illinois decided to be more disciplined and respect the misdirection than crashing every play. The result is the sweeps became less effective late, but the holes for the traditional zone runs were open.
 
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I actually thought Gavin WIlliams looked better. He is slower but has much better vision and more power. Brian should use him more often as I actually think we could have a pretty solid running attack if we actually committed to it.
Goodson is pretty much poison inside the 10. Or maybe it's just the deep handoff zone that's poison.
 

Dr. Zaius

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Goodson is pretty much poison inside the 10. Or maybe it's just the deep handoff zone that's poison.
That’s because he rarely runs hard to the hole. His first move is to hesitate or move laterally
 

Wanderer

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LaPorta can't catch and doesn't block worth a shit, and he is the best we have right now. This may be the worst group of TEs in not just recent memory, but 20 years or more.
Weird that it may be near the top in recruiting rankings for a TE group.
 

CamelTones

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I remember that guy making like 2 plays only because of his last name.
 
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