The defense is clearly growing up quickly (though Jantz being even less accurate than JVB was overall on his deep throws helped!); what exactly is the offense’s excuse(s)?

don’t get to up on Iowa’s Defense ISU is not a very good team, so we beat a small conference team (NIU) and lost to a middle of the road big 12 team. Granted in the two games it appears the D has improved, but they really have not faced a good Offensive football team. Speaking of Offensive football team did the Hawks play on offense today? I must of missed it.
How sick. How long before Capt Kirk puts in another QB.
Vandy is not a good passer.

this game was terrible on both sides of the ball. I won’t dump on JVB. i saw a LOT of dropped passes – an’t fault him for that.

after ISU waltzed down the field for a TD on the opening drive – i thought it was going to be a long day in IC. I predicted ISU would win the game and it would be close. but after the opening drive, i thought it might turn into a good old-fashioned butt-blistering. never happened.

so many opportunities on both sides for both teams. BOTH teams better learn from this one or both will have long seasons and be staying home for the holidays

I bleed black and gold but lets really be honest – receivers got behind our secondary all day, Jantz just couldn’t hit them. We couldn’t pressure him even when we brought the blitz, no sign of any pass rush for two games. This was not a good team we played and they beat us soundly (even if the score didn’t show it). Am I being too hard on the defense? Maybe, but with our offense and return game (we can’t seem to reach even the 20 on kick returns), defense has to be able to carry us.

I will dump on JVB – horrible decisionmaking – forcing the ball into places it doesn’t belong. This is not the same guy we saw last year. I think the new offense has him confused. Defense is mediocre at best. Marquis will run us over unfortunately.

Wow! Tough crowd.

First off, we’re talking about an Iowa State squad that didn’t really lose many key guys from last years squad. Thus, it’s safe to say that Iowa State is better than they were last year. I’m not going to say that Iowa State is great or bad, but what I will say is that they’re good enough to beat decent teams this year. We saw last year that they were good enough to not only beat us, but they also defeated Oklahoma State. Parity in college football, as it is, implies that you have to come to play every week because the opposing team will not just give you the game. Anyhow, Iowa State deserves credit where credit is due.

Also, let us not forget that when you’re used to doing things one way and that is where nearly all your experience lies … it’s the rebuilding/transitionary experience to get used to doing things the “new way.” That’s precisely the challenge that Iowa’s O is facing right now. The Hawks have only had a chance to execute a completely new system on O through two games. The O has shown some positive flashes, however the group has yet to sustain consistency. That’s what happens to just about EVERYBODY when they learn something new.

When you don’t “know” something down to almost an instinctive level … it’s not necessarily going to be automatic for you. The old addage of “paralysis by analysis” really is applicable. In the first game, I think that we saw a lot of guys “thinking” while they were playing … and as a result they didn’t play fast. When you don’t play fast in the trenches, you get beat. When you don’t play fast at QB, you hold onto the ball too long or your decision making is thrown off a bit. When you don’t play fast at WR, you don’t get open … or you potentially drop balls.

I sincerely hope that the players don’t pay attention to some of the emotion-driven bellowing of the fans. From what I’ve seen, essentially all of the ails of the O are correctable. While fans are incorrectly asserting that the O lacks talent … I’ve seen much less talented Iowa offenses pummel the opposition simply because they executed better. If the current Iowa O can keep a positive attitude, continue to gain quality game experience, and simply get to a point where they can play faster and more cleanly … then we’ll see them execute at a level that will help them win games.

As for Ryan’s comments about the D. Let us not forget that the D is featuring a lot of youth and first-time regular-starters. There will certainly be plenty of bumps along the way for the D. The D simply benefits from not having to learn all-new schemes and lingo. It’s true that Iowa still needs to do a better job of mustering a pass rush. However, given the fact that the D has generated a good many tackles-for-loss … that does suggest that the D is flowing to the ball well and getting more penetration than many of us would intially have anticipated. After all, we have A LOT of new faces on the DL. Heck, our returning “veteran” in Alvis doesn’t even have a whole season of starts under his belt.

The point of the above is to highlight that just as the O can improve, so can the D. The D will certainly improve. Furthermore, as we get deeper into the season, the coaches and players will have more film from which to teach and strategize. That will allow for the players to learn more from this mistakes and it will make it easier for the players and coaches to know what to expect from opposing Os. For instance, if you paid attention, you would have likely noticed that a contributing reason why the Iowa State receivers had gotten behind the Iowa defenders is because the Hawks were expecting Iowa State to run more. When you’re expecting run more, that impacts the reads you make … and for a defensive back who is trying to make sure he does his job in run-support, it can sometimes lead from him to lose a step in coverage. Fortunately, as we get deeper into the season, the secondary will have fewer of those lapses.