K- It looks more and more like Murray will keep this job all season and Mossbrucker will red shirt. Nothing to speak of here, he made his PAT's and had no FG attempts.
P- Donahue is a weapon for this defense. He only averaged 39 yards per punt, but 3 of his 4 were downed inside the 20 and that leaves a long field for the opposing offense.
Returns- Chaney had a long punt return snuffed out by a block in the back and his other one was for only 2 yards. He brings some explosiveness to the return game and hopefully we will see him get into the open soon. Kick return wise Spievey got the only return of the day for 20 yards, if the defense keeps playing like it did last week we won't see too many of these again this season.
Coverage- Iowa kept the dangerous Leonard Johnson in check, holding him to an average return of 17 yards. The punt coverage unit only allowed three return yards, so once again last week they did a great job of covering kicks. Shout out here for Bruce Davis who covered the ill-advised onside kick attempt by Iowa State in the first quarter. Who needs a hands team?
Coaching- One of the better called games for both O'Keefe and Parker. Had Stanzi hit his open receivers there would have been a lot more points on the board. Parker was the puppet master of Austin Arnaud, you would have thought that he knew what plays were coming and he called defenses that baited Arnaud into throwing into coverage. Seemed that Kirk also had the team ready to play on Saturday, they came out and withstood the early ISU emotion unlike the past couple of trips to Jack Trice
Showing posts with label Ken O'Keefe. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ken O'Keefe. Show all posts
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
Sunday, March 15, 2009
Pre-Spring Practice
Over the next two weeks I will be assessing the depth chart in detail and by position. Starting today with the most pivotal position on the field, QB.
This is one of the positions that one would hope won't be up for grabs this Spring. Sophomore Ricky Stanzi played sparingly in the Hawks first four games and took the starting job for good in game 5 of last season. For the most part of the season he was told to hand the ball off to Doak Walker award winner Shonn Greene and get out of the way. At times last season he showed flashes of being a solid quarterback, throwing for over 150 yards 7 times on the season. He ended up being extremely efficient as he only threw 25+ passes 4 times in 2008. He showed lots of guts and reminded me of Drew Tate, the way that he seemed to have eyes in the back of his head and avoid the sack and make plays with his feet. On the season he completed just short of 60% of his passes, which by itself doesn't sound that good, but after the 2007 season that Iowa fans suffered through, 60% is a welcome stat. For a good part of the season it seemed as if Rick was only seeing half the field, whether that was by design or just the inexperience of a sophomore quarterback in the Big Ten. What you have to remember is the Jake Christiansen had taken the lion's share of the snaps with the first team all spring and fall. A full off season of being the starter will do Rick's confidence the most good. He knows he is the starter going into the season and you have to hope that offensive coordinator Ken O'Keefe will open up the playbook a little bit more and let Rick show us what he can do with a full compliment of plays. Let's just say that this Hawk fan is hoping that Rick has a better outcome than the last sophomore to start as QB. He is going to have to do better and stay healthy for that matter, behind Stanzi used to be Marvin McNutt, but late last season he made the switch to WR. Granted that if push came to shove Marvin would probably be able to move back if needed, but if he is moving positions, there is probably a reason for it. That leaves the backups as two untested and unproven redshirt freshman. While they are wet behind the ears, they came to Iowa with lots of expectations and talent. James Vandenberg came to Iowa after a record setting career at Keokuk high school, where he holds 12 different state records, including career passing yards and touchdown passes. The other redshirt freshman is John Wienke, a product of Tuscola, IL, who himself had a stellar high school career where he was named to the Elite 11 quarterback camp and only threw 9 INT's in 620 attempts. The only QB is Iowa's 2009 recruiting class in Micah Hyde out of Ohio, while it is not set in stone that Micah will play QB while at Iowa, he more than likely will spend the season running the scout team. That is a review of what Iowa returns at signal caller, check back to see other position breakdowns.
This is one of the positions that one would hope won't be up for grabs this Spring. Sophomore Ricky Stanzi played sparingly in the Hawks first four games and took the starting job for good in game 5 of last season. For the most part of the season he was told to hand the ball off to Doak Walker award winner Shonn Greene and get out of the way. At times last season he showed flashes of being a solid quarterback, throwing for over 150 yards 7 times on the season. He ended up being extremely efficient as he only threw 25+ passes 4 times in 2008. He showed lots of guts and reminded me of Drew Tate, the way that he seemed to have eyes in the back of his head and avoid the sack and make plays with his feet. On the season he completed just short of 60% of his passes, which by itself doesn't sound that good, but after the 2007 season that Iowa fans suffered through, 60% is a welcome stat. For a good part of the season it seemed as if Rick was only seeing half the field, whether that was by design or just the inexperience of a sophomore quarterback in the Big Ten. What you have to remember is the Jake Christiansen had taken the lion's share of the snaps with the first team all spring and fall. A full off season of being the starter will do Rick's confidence the most good. He knows he is the starter going into the season and you have to hope that offensive coordinator Ken O'Keefe will open up the playbook a little bit more and let Rick show us what he can do with a full compliment of plays. Let's just say that this Hawk fan is hoping that Rick has a better outcome than the last sophomore to start as QB. He is going to have to do better and stay healthy for that matter, behind Stanzi used to be Marvin McNutt, but late last season he made the switch to WR. Granted that if push came to shove Marvin would probably be able to move back if needed, but if he is moving positions, there is probably a reason for it. That leaves the backups as two untested and unproven redshirt freshman. While they are wet behind the ears, they came to Iowa with lots of expectations and talent. James Vandenberg came to Iowa after a record setting career at Keokuk high school, where he holds 12 different state records, including career passing yards and touchdown passes. The other redshirt freshman is John Wienke, a product of Tuscola, IL, who himself had a stellar high school career where he was named to the Elite 11 quarterback camp and only threw 9 INT's in 620 attempts. The only QB is Iowa's 2009 recruiting class in Micah Hyde out of Ohio, while it is not set in stone that Micah will play QB while at Iowa, he more than likely will spend the season running the scout team. That is a review of what Iowa returns at signal caller, check back to see other position breakdowns.
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