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Has Iowa shown how to defend PSU?

royboy

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Nov 9, 2001
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They covered with deep zones and prevented long pass plays.

Statistical highlights (positive for Iowa defense)
  • PSU passing was 9.2 yds per completion, well below Trace's 2016 numbers
  • Longest PSU completion was 23 yards
  • Gesicki had only 25 yards
  • Iowa had 4 sacks, as both of their tall DEs (6'5" and 6'7") were disruptive and also effective in knocking down passes
  • PSU scored only 2 touchdowns
Statistical highlights (not so positive for Iowa defense)
  • PSU gained 579 yards, with a nearly even balance of rushing and passing yardage
  • Saquon Barkley had more room and was able to use his amazing talents both rushing and catching passes
  • Iowa did not stop the key final drive
Will this approach affect the way future opponents scheme?
 
If you're ready to have your defense on the field for 35+ minutes and hope we don't convert in the red zone
well, the 35+ minutes was equally due to the crappy offensive scheme run by Ferentz junior. Don't think we will see such poor offensive game plan the rest of the year (well, maybe Rutgers)
 
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Absolutely. I hope and pray every team out there does exactly what IOWA did and the RT spot gets fixed and McSorley settles down. Then we can look for a lot of 800+ yard offensive performances and scoring to match the yardage.

Are you auditioning for a job with ESPN? Not a good idea, given, they need to fire quite a few more.
 
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If that is the best that has been schemed over a year, penn state is the only one who can beat themselves just like on Saturday night. Iowa, while game, got their ass whooped everywhere but where it counts, on the scoreboard. PSU needs to pickup its short game cause Barkley can't be expected to be superman every week.
 
579 yards total offense. I hope everyone copies them exactly.
Yeah sick of hearing about how great the Iowa D was. They deserve a lot of credit for their red zone play but Trace being off pretty much all night, Nelson looking less than effective, and questionable play calling had just as much to do with the lack of scoring.
 
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Iowa's defensive line was very good and tall. Morehead will adjust. I feel like Pitt did the same thing on defense. Keep Trace in the pocket with some pressure and not let Barkley get in space. Try to prevent anything deep. Barkley is just too good. I agree with the previous post here though. This game became a game because of one ill timed turnover before that half and red zone issues. It should never have been close.
 
We didn't execute in the red zone. McS and the WRs missed several long passes. We had a lot of penalties at key times. We missed one FG and had another blocked.

There were a lot of elements that kept us off the board. One was our poor execution (even getting plays and players in). I am hopeful that will be corrected for future home and away games.

Regardless, we are going to see it against Indy because that is what Pitt did too.
 
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They covered with deep zones and prevented long pass plays.

Statistical highlights (positive for Iowa defense)
  • PSU passing was 9.2 yds per completion, well below Trace's 2016 numbers
  • Longest PSU completion was 23 yards
  • Gesicki had only 25 yards
  • Iowa had 4 sacks, as both of their tall DEs (6'5" and 6'7") were disruptive and also effective in knocking down passes
  • PSU scored only 2 touchdowns
Statistical highlights (not so positive for Iowa defense)
  • PSU gained 579 yards, with a nearly even balance of rushing and passing yardage
  • Saquon Barkley had more room and was able to use his amazing talents both rushing and catching passes
  • Iowa did not stop the key final drive
Will this approach affect the way future opponents scheme?
No, Pitt did. They “contained” McSorley in the pocket and limited his ability to scramble. It looks like they expected this from Iowa and made some adjustments.
 
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They covered with deep zones and prevented long pass plays.

Statistical highlights (positive for Iowa defense)
  • PSU passing was 9.2 yds per completion, well below Trace's 2016 numbers
  • Longest PSU completion was 23 yards
  • Gesicki had only 25 yards
  • Iowa had 4 sacks, as both of their tall DEs (6'5" and 6'7") were disruptive and also effective in knocking down passes
  • PSU scored only 2 touchdowns
Statistical highlights (not so positive for Iowa defense)
  • PSU gained 579 yards, with a nearly even balance of rushing and passing yardage
  • Saquon Barkley had more room and was able to use his amazing talents both rushing and catching passes
  • Iowa did not stop the key final drive
Will this approach affect the way future opponents scheme?
This is why Joe gets paid. It's his job to adjust to what defenses are doing. He will.
 
This is why Joe gets paid. It's his job to adjust to what defenses are doing. He will.
The 'adjustment' will be to clean up the little mistakes. One play, McS his blacknall when he is in stride and behind the corner by a yard that gets Iowa out of their defense and we win walking away v
 
Also, it has to be said. We have got to stop the kickoff return insanity with Barkley. We can't ask that kid to kill himself and do it again next week. 24 is just as good of not better. But we can't overuse #26 as we did Saturday.
 
They covered with deep zones and prevented long pass plays.

Statistical highlights (positive for Iowa defense)
  • PSU passing was 9.2 yds per completion, well below Trace's 2016 numbers
  • Longest PSU completion was 23 yards
  • Gesicki had only 25 yards
  • Iowa had 4 sacks, as both of their tall DEs (6'5" and 6'7") were disruptive and also effective in knocking down passes
  • PSU scored only 2 touchdowns
Statistical highlights (not so positive for Iowa defense)
  • PSU gained 579 yards, with a nearly even balance of rushing and passing yardage
  • Saquon Barkley had more room and was able to use his amazing talents both rushing and catching passes
  • Iowa did not stop the key final drive
Will this approach affect the way future opponents scheme?

I wondered that too. I see everyone below citing how many yards we racked up, but trying to stop us from racking up yards is a waste of time. Nobody is going to stop us from getting our yards. We can blame our play-calling or red-zone execution, but the fact is, we had a lot of trouble punching it in on Iowa.

They played "bend but don't break" against us, and it worked for them.

I suspect other teams are going to try to play the same approach.

Basically, don't let us score on a "big" play. Make us march into the RZ and try to score from there where it much more difficult for us.

Frankly, I think it would be foolish for other teams to play us any other way.

With that said, if it weren't for our stupid blitzes, and stupid decisions to blitz, Iowa would have laid an egg Saturday night and we would have won 21-0 (or 15-0).
 
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I wondered that too. I see everyone below citing how many yards we racked up, but trying to stop us from racking up yards is a waste of time. Nobody is going to stop us from getting our yards. We can blame our play-calling or red-zone execution, but the fact is, we had a lot of trouble punching it in on Iowa.

They played "bend but don't break" against us, and it worked for them.

I suspect other teams are going to try to play the same approach.

Basically, don't let us score on a "big" play. Make us march into the RZ and try to score from there where it much more difficult for us.

Frankly, I think it would be foolish for other teams to play us any other way.

With that said, if it weren't for our stupid blitzes, and stupid decisions to blitz, Iowa would have laid an egg Saturday night and we would have won 21-0 (or 15-0).
I was surprised their defense didn't wear down. They were on the field all night when it was hot.
 
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Also, it has to be said. We have got to stop the kickoff return insanity with Barkley. We can't ask that kid to kill himself and do it again next week. 24 is just as good of not better. But we can't overuse #26 as we did Saturday.

Agree. First three games, I didn't mind it. But if we're going to be riding Barkley's shoulders so much like we did Saturday night, it's ridiculous to have him returning kicks as well. Especially because he doesn't seem any better at it than Sanders.
 
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I was surprised their defense didn't wear down. They were on the field all night when it was hot.

Agree with that too. Though, I think they were wearing down -- Just not as fast as I would have expected.

Must be that magic "juice" that they give their players. :)
 
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24 is not "just as good if not better" in terms of ball security.

1. I don't remember him ever putting the ball on the ground on a kick return.
2. He's going to have to learn ball security anyway, and prove that he's learned it. Have to get him touches.
 
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well, the 35+ minutes was equally due to the crappy offensive scheme run by Ferentz junior. Don't think we will see such poor offensive game plan the rest of the year (well, maybe Rutgers)

What offensive scheme would you expect Iowa to run given their talent level?

In the past you would always see their RB make that cutback away from the zone blocking scheme an succeed. We shut that down. They only scored from defensive players being out of position, which is correctable.
 
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They covered with deep zones and prevented long pass plays.

Statistical highlights (positive for Iowa defense)
  • PSU passing was 9.2 yds per completion, well below Trace's 2016 numbers
  • Longest PSU completion was 23 yards
  • Gesicki had only 25 yards
  • Iowa had 4 sacks, as both of their tall DEs (6'5" and 6'7") were disruptive and also effective in knocking down passes
  • PSU scored only 2 touchdowns
Statistical highlights (not so positive for Iowa defense)
  • PSU gained 579 yards, with a nearly even balance of rushing and passing yardage
  • Saquon Barkley had more room and was able to use his amazing talents both rushing and catching passes
  • Iowa did not stop the key final drive
Will this approach affect the way future opponents scheme?

Had Penn State been able to punch it into the end zone, this game would have been a blowout in the first half. So no, Iowa did not show how to defend the Penn State offense, which racked up insane offensive stats.
 
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What offensive scheme would you expect Iowa to run given their talent level?

In the past you would always see their RB make that cutback away from the zone blocking scheme an succeed. We shut that down. They only scored from defensive players being out of position, which is correctable.
Yeah, their guy Wadley is a very good running back who knows what to do in the open field.

It was mostly PSU's errors that gave him room to run, and he took advantage for two TDs.
 
well, the 35+ minutes was equally due to the crappy offensive scheme run by Ferentz junior. Don't think we will see such poor offensive game plan the rest of the year (well, maybe Rutgers)

Yeah, Iowa's offense was terrible, except on the 3-4 plays that torched us.
Ferentz is a class act and a great coach. Is there another coach who so consistently gets so much out of the talent he's got? Chris Petersen is the other that jumps out to me.
 
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We should have looked more for Gesicki, especially in the red zone. Not sure why we didn't push for a 1 v 1 matchup with him.

Also I think we should use our big WRs as red zone targets - obviously saw a bit of that with Juwan, but I'd like to see more going forward. Not sold on Thompkins or Polk as anything other than "take the lid off the defense" types.

Finally, can we get some more Saeed?!?! IDK if this is about the doghouse thing but he makes us better when he is out there!
 
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Well, for all of the talk about Moorhead's offense taking what they are given they didn't do that in the first half. Iowa had a very good pass rush, part of it due to the fact that Nelson is nowhere near ready to play RT. The DE for Iowa was either pushing him back into the pocket or running around him all night. And when that is happening you can't wait for routes to develop. The deep stuff (aside from Blacknall beating his guy twice and Trace missing him) wasn't there and Trace was waiting for those routes to develop, leading to either bad throws or sacks.

That changed in the second half when they replaced Nelson and they decided that the underneath stuff would work. Trace stopped sitting in the pocket waiting for things to develop and instead starting throwing the ball on time to receiver. He was throwing where they were supposed to be instead of waiting. What you saw was a much more efficient offense. That and he started really getting Barkley the ball in the flats and letting him beat guys in space.

We had the ball inside the 10 enough time that we should have pulled away from Iowa, but we couldn't punch it in. If teams want to take away the deep stuff they can, but all PSU has to do is what they did in the second half and take the underneath stuff where the balls comes out quickly to guys on time in their routes.
 
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It's true, 579 yards, PSU's going to win 95% of the time.

But it's definitely true that Iowa (and Pitt, and arguably USC) have shown what Ds are going to do all year against PSU. We will see the exact same thing from Indiana on Saturday.

They play soft, prevent the shock plays, and not worry about sacks. Just keep McSorley contained, keep your DL in the passing lanes, and he can't see the field.

If you go for sacks and blitz, that's when Trace can do a lot of damage. He will break contain, extend the play, see the field and then you get big plays.

Whether this kind of a defensive game plan will work or not will depend on personnel but I don't think there's a better way to defend PSU.
 
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1. I don't remember him ever putting the ball on the ground on a kick return.
2. He's going to have to learn ball security anyway, and prove that he's learned it. Have to get him touches.
Short memory. Think of last year. Sanders has an an annoying habit of fumbling like it's his job. That issue could derail a really good career.

I have no problem having Barkley back there. None. Get the best 11 guys on the field. When you have a cannon, shoot it.
 
USC did this? Because we scored 49 points on them with plenty of big plays.
 
They covered with deep zones and prevented long pass plays.

Statistical highlights (positive for Iowa defense)
  • PSU passing was 9.2 yds per completion, well below Trace's 2016 numbers
  • Longest PSU completion was 23 yards
  • Gesicki had only 25 yards
  • Iowa had 4 sacks, as both of their tall DEs (6'5" and 6'7") were disruptive and also effective in knocking down passes
  • PSU scored only 2 touchdowns
Statistical highlights (not so positive for Iowa defense)
  • PSU gained 579 yards, with a nearly even balance of rushing and passing yardage
  • Saquon Barkley had more room and was able to use his amazing talents both rushing and catching passes
  • Iowa did not stop the key final drive
Will this approach affect the way future opponents scheme?
Maybe Michigan with that nasty defense can copy them.
Anyway, humor aside they could show teams that Trace's passes may be easier to bat down.

Iowa did some gambling, won some but lost more.
 
579 yards total offense. I hope everyone copies them exactly.
So many uneducated fans think that was because of Iowa's defense. No, it was because of Iowa's poor offensive play and Penn State's good defensive play that allowed you to have that many plays and that many yards.

Iowa defensive philosophy is extremely sound and rarely is there a team that's patient enough to just take what they give you and rarely do they have a quarterback that can consistently complete the passes required to beat that defense. Same iowa D for 20 yrs.

Most defenses don't have the discipline to play their fit and gap and they get torched occasionally. That is why you scored 1 TD for the first 59 minutes and 59 seconds.

Again not taking anything away from Penn State, it's just that defensive scheme is extremely sound in difficult to beat if they have the athletes and the discipline.

Iowa had seven three-and-outs and 11 first downs. You ran 99 plays and scored 1 TD before the buzzer sounded.
 
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So many uneducated fans think that was because of Iowa's defense. No, it was because of Iowa's poor offensive play and Penn State's good defensive play that allowed you to have that many plays and that many yards.

Iowa defensive philosophy is extremely sound and rarely is there a team that's patient enough to just take what they give you and rarely do they have a quarterback that can complete the passes required to beat that defense.

Your unsung heros are your two corners. They played pretty well. we did miss blacknall on an open fly route and Gesicki when Jewell batted down a pass when #88 was as open as 7/11 on a Saturday. But, for the most part they covered and tackled well. Hooker also payed well (16 tackles).
 
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They covered with deep zones and prevented long pass plays.

Statistical highlights (positive for Iowa defense)
  • PSU passing was 9.2 yds per completion, well below Trace's 2016 numbers
  • Longest PSU completion was 23 yards
  • Gesicki had only 25 yards
  • Iowa had 4 sacks, as both of their tall DEs (6'5" and 6'7") were disruptive and also effective in knocking down passes
  • PSU scored only 2 touchdowns
Statistical highlights (not so positive for Iowa defense)
  • PSU gained 579 yards, with a nearly even balance of rushing and passing yardage
  • Saquon Barkley had more room and was able to use his amazing talents both rushing and catching passes
  • Iowa did not stop the key final drive
Will this approach affect the way future opponents scheme?
It's pretty simple, you just need guys like Josey Jewell, Anthony Nelson and AJ Epenesa and you've almost got it. I don't think it was the scheme. We'll be OK.
 
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