Numbers

Iowa State has played football against 5 Power 4 teams. The offense is averaging 25.2 ppg. The D: 22 ppg

Opponent,  ISU offensive points scored, opponent defensive scoring avg:

Kansas State,  24, 27

TOE, 16, 18 

Arizona, 39, 24

Cincinnati,  30, 21

Colorado, 17, 31 

 

Opponent, Offensive points scored vs. ISU, opponent offensive avg:

Kansas State,  21, 32

TOE, 13, 29

Arizona, 14, 24

Cincinnati,  38, 31

Colorado, 24, 21

 

The best offensive performance to date was scoring 15 above AZ's average, but the game in Boulder was a big, big miss, scoring 14 under their average.

The defense has been much more consistent, contrary to the opinion of many fans. The GoBlas were held 16 under their average, but Cincy and CU both exceeded theirs. But the losses both required the opponent's offense have better than average days.

The offense has only exceeded the opponents defensive average twice, and the game in Cincy was a loss. 

On the whole, the defense is playing winning football, but the offense is keeping games close and giving the other guy a chance. That's a bad place to be.

Prognostication

We at CSJ don't endorse gambling, but we do watch what the bookmakers do. They have money on the lines, so to speak.

Iowa State is at 7.5 football wins for 2024, with the under being the much safer bet.

The rest of the B12 -

Kansas State 9.5

Utah 9.5

Arizona 8.5

Kansas 8.5

Texas Tech 8.5

UCF 8.5

Oklahoma State 7.5

TCU 7.5

West Virginia 6.5

Baylor 5.5

Cincy 5.5

Colorado 5.5

Arizona State 4.5

BYU 4.5

Houston 4.5

Iowa State's schedule, in order:

North Dakota (no line)

at TOE 7.5 

Arkansas State (no line)

at Houston 4.5

Baylor 5.5

at West Virginia 6.5

UCF 8.5

Texas Tech 8.5

at Kansas (Arrowhead) 8.5

Cincy 5.5

at Utah 9.5

Kansas State 9.5

Holy backloaded schedule, Batman. 

It is easy to see how Vegas arrived at the 7.5 number. Assume losses to the four teams with futures of 8.5 or above and the annual rake stepping that is the game against the GoBlas may preserve or ruin your ticket. Yikes. 

The way-to-early ranking of the games by difficulty:

North Dakota

Arkansas State

Cincy

Baylor

at Houston

(huge gap)

at West Virginia

UCF

Tech

at Kansas (Arrowhead)

Kansas State

at TOE (probable score of 3-0 either way)

at Utah

Hitting the over against that schedule will be a big success. The league is going to be entertaining as heck. Grab the popcorn.

Grey Beard Blog

I just noticed that I've been publishing this sucky blog off and on for 11 years. To my 17 readers, thank you.

A few things have changed. In 2004, Van De Velde was AD. Dan McCarney was finding ways not to win the Big 12 North. Wayne Morgan was in his first year, picking up after the Larry meltdown. Nebraska, Colorado and Missouri were all conference foes.

ISU finished 123rd in the Director's cup standings. They were 45th in 2015.

When you take the long view, things have improved tremendously, and Athletics as a whole punch above their weight. But work needs to be done.

This blog can improve, too.

Bring Back Mirrored Schedules

I'm old enough to remember when the Big 8 basketball schedules mirrored opponents for the men's and women's teams, and each team would be home opposite weeks.

Back before TV completely blew up scheduling rhythm,  games were usually played on Wednesday nights and Saturday afternoons. The men might be on the road for two games while the women were at home for that week, then they would switch. The convenient part was that each would play the same opponent on the same day- If the men were in Stillwater, you knew the women were hosting the Cowgirls.

That symmetry gave the season a nice bit of predictability.

"Travel partners" only added to this. In the Big 8 days, OU and Okie State went on the road together, as did KU and Mizzou, K State and Colorado, and Nebraska with Iowa State. If you had a home game week, you would play OU on Wednesday and then OSU on Saturday.  When you traveled south, you swung through Norman and Stillwater in the same trip. With 14 games spread across 8 weeks, you then had a built in night off during the week that you played your travel partner. Symmetry.

These schedules arose in the days of trains and buses, when a trip from Ames to Oklahoma was a project. Now that every road trip involves an airplane and is paid with a TV rights check economizing travel costs is less important. But two-game road trips with your travel partner conveyed, even subtly, that everyone was working together to make lives easier.

That ethic evaporated about the same time as basketball shorts stopped being short.

Parting Gifts, The Sequel

A nice turnaround over a team that pasted Iowa State in Boulder, but more importantly firmly pushes the Buffs off the NCAA bubble.

The result is Saturday's Nebraska/Colorado game in Boulder is essentially a play-in game, in the sense that the winner still has a chance. The loser is done.

The CSJ staff notes that all three of Iowa State's conference wins came against teams currently sitting on the outside looking in.

Heh.

Peter

Filthy

If you have the filthy skills needed to reverse a previous opponent by 50 points, you need to learn how to impose your will on the road.

Bill's team has put together a better season than I expected- but road losses to KU and CU are really going to hurt their seeding in the B12 and NCAA tourneys.

Peter

Banana Peel

All I ask of Cyclone Football is to beat the teams that, at the end of the year, are behind them in the standings and rankings. Barring a dramatic switcheroo, Colorado falls into the "should beat" category.

I am as surprised as anyone that Hawkins didn't work out- I thought his hire was brilliant. He sure loved playing ISU- 20% of his B12 wins came against us. That's 2 of 10. In four and a half seasons. Ouch.

But considering what has gone down in Boulder this week, a collapse by our Clones wouldn't surprise me at all. It's one thing to be loose when you are the underdog.

It's time for ISU to learn to play as the favorite.

ISU 28-24.

Peter

Cash

CU has no cash to fire Hawkins, but enough to can the WBB coach.

Then again, the buyouts are different by a factor of 20, but the income difference is a factor of 50.

Gotta look like you are trying.

Peter

Slumpbuster

Hopefully we don't fill that role for CU tonight.

Peter

CU and the Spread

There is much chatter on the Interwebs about CU's TD as time expired to cover the spread. One poster recalled how Hawkins, with a win over ISU locked up in '02, threw to the end zone to run it up. Up 5 at the time, an pick 6 would have lost the game for him.

It brings back memories of the Neuheisel tenure at CU, and how he made sure to cover, even when winning by a pile.

Some things never change.

Peter

Buff Thoughts

Ralphie Report summarizes the thinking on the front range.

It's not looking good for Hawkins.

Peter

Halfhearted

It's a weak effort- nothing like the classic "FireRonZook.com" in his Florida days, which is still active BTW - but it is worth noting.

http://firedanhawk.blogspot.com/

Peter

Gigs for Hawkins

The best line of the day:

While Hawkins was having a time-out chat with the officials, some clever fans yelled out:

"Coach- they ain't hiring!"

Peter

20

Before the season started, the defense stated its goal was to average less than 20 points per game.

So far, the math is pretty simple- the 6 ISU wins have held the opponents under 17, but in losses have given up 24+, usually 35+.

It seems that either the schemes work or they don't. Today they did.

CU's Hansen seemed to make his best throws on the rollout, which also gave him the option of running. The last few series the defense seemed to focus less on pressure and more on containment, which Hansen was unable to convert as well.

Considering ISU's offense never got into a good rhythm (6 3-and-outs), the win gets bigger. If one more second half possession turns into points the game ends early.

Bowl-eligible has a nice ring to it.

Peter

Check Ourselves

Yes, today was disappointing, but in a "We aren't as good as we hoped two weeks ago" way.

Remember, in August most of us were predicting 4 or 5 wins total. We're already a little ahead of schedule.

Yet after today, CU looks a little tougher, and Mizzou a little easier. Crazy.

Peter

Ruh-Roh Buffs

When your highly rated recruits start leaving the program, things won't be getting better anytime soon.

Peter

Climbing

Iowa State is up to #70 in the latest Sagarin.

CU is close behind at #72. Perhaps there is life in Boulder.

Baylor is #83, and a$m dropped all the way to #99. Nebraska is #20. Gulp.

On paper we have two more probable wins; anything else is homemade gravy.

Peter

Problem

A result like this in the opener is going to make it tough for Hawkins to win his promised 10 games this year.

When you opponent gets the winning score in the first quarter, you've got problems.

Hopefully they will be playing out the string by the time the come to Ames.

Update: It gets worse. Kiszla of the Denver Post ravages Hawkins, both of them.

CU was on the short end in rushing: 168-29

Buff fans roundly booed their team at halftime, down 20-3.

CU was a 10.5 point favorite.

Money quote:

Well, after four lousy quarters, the Buffaloes are already 0-1 and down to 11 chances to meet their coach's expectations, with a rugged schedule including games against West Virginia, Texas, Kansas, Oklahoma State and Nebrask

Ouch.


Peter

Ranking the Games

I think that going down the schedule and assigning a w/l to each one is too much of a crapshoot, so I prefer to rank the games from most likely to be a win to the least.

North Dakota State
Army
at Kent State
Colorado
Baylor
at Kansas State (KC)
Iowa
at Kansas
at a$m
at Mizzou
at Nebraska
Okie State

I put my over/under at 4.

It seemed the biggest problem with the previous staff was game planning 'the perfect scheme' instead of the scheme your players could pull off. I've had more than one commentator use the a$m game as an example of that issue. Since the Rhodes staff seems to understand what it means to coach the underdog, we should be at least 2 games better than '08 based on that alone.

A few random thoughts about each game.

I expect NDSU to be close and sometimes heartburn-inducing. The Bison will score on at least one of the following: Pick 6 INT, totally blown pass coverage on an otherwise ordinary play, or a breakdown in special teams leading to a punt or KO return for 6. Anytime you switch to a new system there are bound to be breakdowns.

Army has moved a 6'10" lineman to tight end. Watching the chess match of that matchup will be worth the ticket. We will all remember how effective the triple option can be when run properly (i.e. Nebraska in the 90's), and what a failure it was under Walden.

If the program has improved at all the fact that this is a roadie shouldn't matter. It did matter on the last road trip to a MAC school, a choke job at Toledo.

We've matched up well against the Buffs the last two years and last two in Ames, so why not?

The effort against Baylor cannot be as bad as last year.

Too many unknowns about either ISU or KSU to have much confidence in predicting a win. Playing at Arrowhead lowers our odds.

As usual, ISU will not win this game- the question will be if Iowa loses it. The Best Program To Never Win A National Championship* has a funny knack of getting a case of tight helmet when they leave Johnson County.

KU will play the whole game this year.

a$m has way too much raw talent to lose this one at home. I think.

The most talented Mizzou team ever lost 4 games last year, and lost a bunch of talent. Exactly how much is TBA.

You don't lose 14 in a row in Lincoln by accident. ISU's chance to break that streak may have closed.

OSU could be the #3 team in the B12 South and #5 in the NCAA. Scary good.

Peter

*According to Iowa fan.