As long as we have all this time off before the next game, and people might be in a slightly better mood...
QB- Thorson continued to make progress. He still struggled with his accuracy a fair amount, though I'm sort of hoping that at least part of that was due to wind as I believe more of his misses were into the wind. Most notably the Skowronek PI call one, though that turned out okay. He only took one sack, did a better job of moving around and out of the pocket, and generally his misses were in the right places (away from defenders). The scramble then sideline end zone through to Carr has to be his play of the game. I'd probably give him a B for the game as he still needs to get more consistent on his passing, but he stepped up and made plays when we needed them.
RB- Not much else to say about JJ that hasn't already been said. Bad fumble, but he found 1-3 yards out of -2 on a number of occasions and flashed some heretofore unseen speed after he juked the Iowa DB senseless on his long TD run. Glad to have him, and stay healthy please. Nice blitz pickup by Moten on the last TD throw, also looked good out of the backfield on the pass he caught, making progress.
WR- Carr A+. I underestimated him coming into the season. Kid catches everything, and seems to have a connection with Clayton. CT finds him when he's in trouble, and for good reason. Reminiscent of Zeke, Peterman, Ebert in how he approaches the game, always moves downhill after the catch. Flynn has been decent too, though I overestimated him some. Hasn't necessarily had drops or bad plays, but it's clear who the #1 option is. Hope others step up, would think that with the renewed talent in those 2 at the shifty possession WR spot we can find some others to slip by and get open over the top at some point (e.g. Duke).
OL- Better against Iowa... wonder how much is the seemingly bad Iowa DL and how much is our improvement? We will find out against MSU to some extent I suppose. But importantly, we also seemed better at being flexible on offense with the calls, and/or Iowa didn't jam the box as much. Whenever we run w 6 OL+TE against an 8-man box we are almost always going to lose, and we didn't force the issue that much against them - I do recall a 3rd and 1 early and one other time, but more often if they stacked on 1st down or 3rd and short we called the quick pass, which I think helped the OL's performance. Only 1 sack! Prob a B+ for this game.
SB- I like Dickerson, would like to see him get the ball a couple more times a game.
DL- IO played great no question. I'm curious to see if he can keep this up, bc all of his sacks were against the same Iowa LT who got burned repeatedly. Also wonder if maybe putting CJ in on run downs helped free him up in part to just focus on pass rushing- ie didn't have the frustration of mixed results in those other situations distracting him. An underrated positive adjustment by Long / Hank / Fitz after week 1. In any event, by the 3rd quarter I was just watching him on every 3rd down, he was that much fun. Also forced the scramble that led to the pick. X Wash was solid, rest of the DL played well too. 6 sacks total. An A effort for them.
LBs still don't seem to be flying around as fast as they did last year, but they were fairly reliable. Prater good instincts, though poor tackle on the Wadley TD run. Walker was fine, but doesn't seem to be at 100%, missing the pop he had last year. Jones I thought had a pretty good game, got into the backfield a few times.
DB- Seems like Godwin is our most reliable defender, he's all over the field. I'll be surprised if he doesn't force a few more TOs before the year is out. The rest though, is a work in progress. McGee seemed okay. The corners are still largely playing the soft version of the quarters, we like to show press then backpedal a couple seconds before the snap. Clearly Hank doesn't trust them as much, and likely with good reason, bc WRs have been getting behind the freshmen a couple times per game. The good news is they are still young, there seems to be potential there. And nice play by Trae to seal the game.
For the D overall I think we all know this, but worth noting once more that they would have given up much less than 31 if put in normal field position (maybe 20?), Iowa had only 283 yards on 68 plays in the game. That was the most we've gotten into the backfield this season by far.
I think 6-6 is a reasonable target from here. We should be favored against IL, Purdue, and smaller favorite against Indy at home. At Minny is likely a tossup (though I like our chances), @MSU will be tough but now looks more winnable, same for Wisconsin though they look better than anticipated, and @OSU is likely a loss.
QB- Thorson continued to make progress. He still struggled with his accuracy a fair amount, though I'm sort of hoping that at least part of that was due to wind as I believe more of his misses were into the wind. Most notably the Skowronek PI call one, though that turned out okay. He only took one sack, did a better job of moving around and out of the pocket, and generally his misses were in the right places (away from defenders). The scramble then sideline end zone through to Carr has to be his play of the game. I'd probably give him a B for the game as he still needs to get more consistent on his passing, but he stepped up and made plays when we needed them.
RB- Not much else to say about JJ that hasn't already been said. Bad fumble, but he found 1-3 yards out of -2 on a number of occasions and flashed some heretofore unseen speed after he juked the Iowa DB senseless on his long TD run. Glad to have him, and stay healthy please. Nice blitz pickup by Moten on the last TD throw, also looked good out of the backfield on the pass he caught, making progress.
WR- Carr A+. I underestimated him coming into the season. Kid catches everything, and seems to have a connection with Clayton. CT finds him when he's in trouble, and for good reason. Reminiscent of Zeke, Peterman, Ebert in how he approaches the game, always moves downhill after the catch. Flynn has been decent too, though I overestimated him some. Hasn't necessarily had drops or bad plays, but it's clear who the #1 option is. Hope others step up, would think that with the renewed talent in those 2 at the shifty possession WR spot we can find some others to slip by and get open over the top at some point (e.g. Duke).
OL- Better against Iowa... wonder how much is the seemingly bad Iowa DL and how much is our improvement? We will find out against MSU to some extent I suppose. But importantly, we also seemed better at being flexible on offense with the calls, and/or Iowa didn't jam the box as much. Whenever we run w 6 OL+TE against an 8-man box we are almost always going to lose, and we didn't force the issue that much against them - I do recall a 3rd and 1 early and one other time, but more often if they stacked on 1st down or 3rd and short we called the quick pass, which I think helped the OL's performance. Only 1 sack! Prob a B+ for this game.
SB- I like Dickerson, would like to see him get the ball a couple more times a game.
DL- IO played great no question. I'm curious to see if he can keep this up, bc all of his sacks were against the same Iowa LT who got burned repeatedly. Also wonder if maybe putting CJ in on run downs helped free him up in part to just focus on pass rushing- ie didn't have the frustration of mixed results in those other situations distracting him. An underrated positive adjustment by Long / Hank / Fitz after week 1. In any event, by the 3rd quarter I was just watching him on every 3rd down, he was that much fun. Also forced the scramble that led to the pick. X Wash was solid, rest of the DL played well too. 6 sacks total. An A effort for them.
LBs still don't seem to be flying around as fast as they did last year, but they were fairly reliable. Prater good instincts, though poor tackle on the Wadley TD run. Walker was fine, but doesn't seem to be at 100%, missing the pop he had last year. Jones I thought had a pretty good game, got into the backfield a few times.
DB- Seems like Godwin is our most reliable defender, he's all over the field. I'll be surprised if he doesn't force a few more TOs before the year is out. The rest though, is a work in progress. McGee seemed okay. The corners are still largely playing the soft version of the quarters, we like to show press then backpedal a couple seconds before the snap. Clearly Hank doesn't trust them as much, and likely with good reason, bc WRs have been getting behind the freshmen a couple times per game. The good news is they are still young, there seems to be potential there. And nice play by Trae to seal the game.
For the D overall I think we all know this, but worth noting once more that they would have given up much less than 31 if put in normal field position (maybe 20?), Iowa had only 283 yards on 68 plays in the game. That was the most we've gotten into the backfield this season by far.
I think 6-6 is a reasonable target from here. We should be favored against IL, Purdue, and smaller favorite against Indy at home. At Minny is likely a tossup (though I like our chances), @MSU will be tough but now looks more winnable, same for Wisconsin though they look better than anticipated, and @OSU is likely a loss.
