This is more of a stream of consciousness list:
1. Shout out to Julian Good-Jones for doing something stupid enough during game week to get suspended for what should have been his first start. Fett battled, but he's not a Tackle.
2. The weather was flat out perfect. We can go years without seeing that type of weather on a game day. The fans showed up really well.
3. Lanning had a couple really nice passes, but other than that, he was bad. If the coaches have 50% of the blame for that loss, Lanning has at least 25%. That fumbled snap was the turning point in the game.
4. Injuries - What happened to Payne? Is Daley hurt? Harvey?
5. TE - No catches. I don't even remember any targets. Don't think that Chase Allen played. Heard nothing from Fernandez either. So much for getting the TE involved.
6. Penalties - The holding calls were just killers. The offense just isn't good enough to pick up 1st and 20's. Just dumb penalties all the way around. And then refs swallow their whistles when DBs are hanging all over Lazard. Campbell saw this team last year in Toledo and has not changed it.
7. Playcalling - Why pass on 1st down with the lead and the clock ticking on UNI? Or at least why pass deep? There's being aggressive and there's being stupid. Same thing on the safety play...there's nothing wrong with running the ball and punting there.
8. OL - About what I was expecting when it became known that JGJ was out. No movement in the run game and pass pro was spotty at best. You would think with someone like Schult that we wouldn't leave our LT on an island.
9. DL - Played decent, but got worn down (again). Tucker is an enigma. I thought that the S&C staff could get his stamina up to where he could play with a high motor more than a quarter, but they did not. During UNI's long TD drive, I saw him stroll off the field to go use the kybo by the Jake and then he just walked back to the sideline while his teammates on the DL were getting pushed around.
10. KCM - Did he even play? I've seen people say that he's ISU's best player. I thought he'd have a big game but we hardly heard from him. Lazard IS ISU's best player and he played like it (although the one drop killed a drive). BTW, I do think that Payne could have really helped contain the UNI QB some.
11. Recruiting - For this year's class, it is going to be increasingly harder to keep some of these commits. But on top of that, last night really showed how bad CPR did at evaluating and securing talent. Guys like Poock at Minny and Twait at UNI wanted to come to ISU and would be starting here. ISU didn't want them. I remember Hezekiah Applegate at Johnston...big kid with quickness and a motor. Started at DE as a RSFR for UNI and got a sack. Nope, we'd rather have some kid from TX that thinks he's better than he is and transfers after a couple years. I've said it for years now: when it gets toward January and you have a couple of spots to fill, take a long hard look at the commits for UNI and NDSU...especially the linemen. Recruiting is constantly filling the pipeline, not scrambling and oversigning WRs just because you miss out on your top DL targets.
12. TRFR - I thought that Bailey did OK and Montgomery and Jones looked good. Still disagree with playing Nwangwu.
13. QB - I thought that we had a good foundation with Lanning, but now I'm leaning more toward him being another in a long line of ISU QBs that play their best in their first few games only to be unseated by an underclassmen later on. I expect Park to start by mid year and we'll have a full on QB controversy in the spring.
Overall, I thought that it was a Chizik-esque cluster of game management, playcalling and players not knowing where they are supposed to be. The timeout usage was eerily familiar. Campbell always talks about how you don't need talent to control attitude and effort. Well, you don't need to be a coaching genius to make sure the players know their assignments and are lined up correctly. Twelve men on a kickoff and needing to call a TO after UNI just called one because you're not organized is freaking ridiculous. Add in Lanning doing his best bad Steele Jantz impression and you get the L. If I could be guaranteed 2 wins this year, I'd sign up right now because it sure looks to me like Campbell's first season is going to be an O-fer.
1. Shout out to Julian Good-Jones for doing something stupid enough during game week to get suspended for what should have been his first start. Fett battled, but he's not a Tackle.
2. The weather was flat out perfect. We can go years without seeing that type of weather on a game day. The fans showed up really well.
3. Lanning had a couple really nice passes, but other than that, he was bad. If the coaches have 50% of the blame for that loss, Lanning has at least 25%. That fumbled snap was the turning point in the game.
4. Injuries - What happened to Payne? Is Daley hurt? Harvey?
5. TE - No catches. I don't even remember any targets. Don't think that Chase Allen played. Heard nothing from Fernandez either. So much for getting the TE involved.
6. Penalties - The holding calls were just killers. The offense just isn't good enough to pick up 1st and 20's. Just dumb penalties all the way around. And then refs swallow their whistles when DBs are hanging all over Lazard. Campbell saw this team last year in Toledo and has not changed it.
7. Playcalling - Why pass on 1st down with the lead and the clock ticking on UNI? Or at least why pass deep? There's being aggressive and there's being stupid. Same thing on the safety play...there's nothing wrong with running the ball and punting there.
8. OL - About what I was expecting when it became known that JGJ was out. No movement in the run game and pass pro was spotty at best. You would think with someone like Schult that we wouldn't leave our LT on an island.
9. DL - Played decent, but got worn down (again). Tucker is an enigma. I thought that the S&C staff could get his stamina up to where he could play with a high motor more than a quarter, but they did not. During UNI's long TD drive, I saw him stroll off the field to go use the kybo by the Jake and then he just walked back to the sideline while his teammates on the DL were getting pushed around.
10. KCM - Did he even play? I've seen people say that he's ISU's best player. I thought he'd have a big game but we hardly heard from him. Lazard IS ISU's best player and he played like it (although the one drop killed a drive). BTW, I do think that Payne could have really helped contain the UNI QB some.
11. Recruiting - For this year's class, it is going to be increasingly harder to keep some of these commits. But on top of that, last night really showed how bad CPR did at evaluating and securing talent. Guys like Poock at Minny and Twait at UNI wanted to come to ISU and would be starting here. ISU didn't want them. I remember Hezekiah Applegate at Johnston...big kid with quickness and a motor. Started at DE as a RSFR for UNI and got a sack. Nope, we'd rather have some kid from TX that thinks he's better than he is and transfers after a couple years. I've said it for years now: when it gets toward January and you have a couple of spots to fill, take a long hard look at the commits for UNI and NDSU...especially the linemen. Recruiting is constantly filling the pipeline, not scrambling and oversigning WRs just because you miss out on your top DL targets.
12. TRFR - I thought that Bailey did OK and Montgomery and Jones looked good. Still disagree with playing Nwangwu.
13. QB - I thought that we had a good foundation with Lanning, but now I'm leaning more toward him being another in a long line of ISU QBs that play their best in their first few games only to be unseated by an underclassmen later on. I expect Park to start by mid year and we'll have a full on QB controversy in the spring.
Overall, I thought that it was a Chizik-esque cluster of game management, playcalling and players not knowing where they are supposed to be. The timeout usage was eerily familiar. Campbell always talks about how you don't need talent to control attitude and effort. Well, you don't need to be a coaching genius to make sure the players know their assignments and are lined up correctly. Twelve men on a kickoff and needing to call a TO after UNI just called one because you're not organized is freaking ridiculous. Add in Lanning doing his best bad Steele Jantz impression and you get the L. If I could be guaranteed 2 wins this year, I'd sign up right now because it sure looks to me like Campbell's first season is going to be an O-fer.
