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RE: Drake 17, Upper Iowa 13

LurkingDog — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 22:04:01 GMT

Wednesday, October 22, 2008 8:15 PM CDT

Upper Iowa football: School officials refuse to say why Knoll was fired

By MATT COSS, Courier Sports Writer

FAYETTE — Upper Iowa University officials refused to divulge any details today on why football coach Mike Knoll was fired Tuesday afternoon.

“All we’re saying at this point publicly is, Coach Knoll is no longer our football coach,” school president Alan Walker told The Courier.

http://www.wcfcourier.com/articles/2008/10/22/news/breaking_news/doc48ff20009ea37216686611.txt

RE: Drake 17, Upper Iowa 13

Herdman — Sat, 06 Sep 2008 05:33:07 GMT

[quote]Homer (8/29/2008)

The defense should be ahead of the offense. Several starters back, especially at LB. And Andy Green makes any defense good. I thought kickoff and punt coverage was pretty good. The 89-yard TD was a bad one, but after that they were pretty good. There was a long punt return that was called back. It wouldn't have been a long return without the block in the back. So I would throw that one out.

Offense needs work. I think it will get better. But it's not going to be all that powerful. It wasn't all that great last year. And consider Scott, Willie, some of the receivers, and Dave Pammer from the line are gone from that team.[/quote]Homer, Drake's kick teams gave up over 200 return yards and that doesn't count the first punt of the game that went for 76 yards by a true freshman for UIU. Drake's punter needs to learn to get the ball up higher if he is going to consistantly out kick his cover units, that's why UIU had so many return yards. He kicks a great ball, don't get me wrong, it's just too deep for his coverage guys to get down be in position to make tackles. Teams will set up good returns all year if something doesn't change for the bulldogs in that regard.

That being said I was impressed with Drake's FG kicker. The one kid was hitting 52+ yards at halftime very consisantly and even hit a 57 yarder, but didn't really get to show his stuff during the game.

RE: Drake 17, Upper Iowa 13

Herdman — Sat, 06 Sep 2008 05:26:04 GMT

[quote]BlueDawg (9/5/2008)

I'd say it is a combination of both. UIU has always had more athletic players at the skill positions than Drake, but they also tend to be undisciplined (for example, someone tees off on one of Drake's kick coverage guys on a touchback on the opening play -- stupid, just someone amped up to start the season). Thus they tended to give up big plays, when Drake was hitting on all cylinders it is easy to exploit this.

[b]This is particially true. #1 for UIU should have been benched for the PF on the kick-off. However, Drake also had three PFs that were not called..one hit on UIU's QB 20 yards behind the play after an INT by a D-Linemen was a total job no call. Then the bext series #90 for UIU is called for pancaking Drake's FB...as a football fan the two calls/non-calls did not make sence. UIU does have good talent were Drake's talent usually found on their line play.

I'm not sure what you're talking about though..."give up big plays" what big plays did UIU give Drake...the blocked punt was a muff that got worse as the punter began to think...and the "Drake hitting on all cylinders"...is Drake running a one cylinder offense because UIU had their number.[/b]

Secondly, they were never the opener before. Drake usually saw them after playing UNI, SMS, Il St., etc.. thus these guys didn't seem so big or so fast in comparison and Drake had at least a game to get early season stuff worked out. If the offense had been on, it would have been a much different game. As it was, Drake did just enough to get the W, but it wasn't pretty.

Remember this is the first time the new offense had been out against full speed defense. Beating on the scout team just isn't the same, you can't simulate speed & size.[/quote]..

RE: Drake 17, Upper Iowa 13

BlueDawg — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 14:31:23 GMT

RE: Drake 17, Upper Iowa 13

LurkingDog — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 09:23:10 GMT

Has UIU improved a lot?

That's a hard case to make at this point. The NSIC is limited to about 24 scholarships, and UIU was picked to finish 13th.

http://www.northernsun.org/Sport.cfm?SportID=6

RE: Drake 17, Upper Iowa 13

DUBulldog — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 10:36:03 GMT

Herdman (8/31/2008)

I was at the game and Upper Iowa was the better football team on the field Thursday night.

Has UIU improved a lot? Or has Drake just gotten worse? Both?

RE: Drake 17, Upper Iowa 13

LurkingDog — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 10:48:22 GMT

The bigger question is why has Drake gone away from their traditional Light Blue and White school colors all together?

I'm not convinced Drake has a "traditional" light blue. Dark blue was used for some teams in the 60s/70s, for example.

http://www.geocities.com/lurkingd/Wallace.html

And Chuck Shelton's teams used silver helmets.

One shade darker than Columbia Blue is what I prefer, but there hasn't been any consistency with colors.

RE: Drake 17, Upper Iowa 13

Herdman — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 00:18:40 GMT

I was at the game and Upper Iowa was the better football team on the field Thursday night. Drake was lucky to win. This could be a long season unless things get better.

RE: Drake 17, Upper Iowa 13

Herdman — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 00:12:46 GMT

[quote]Homer (8/29/2008)

RE: Drake 17, Upper Iowa 13

Herdman — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 00:09:41 GMT

[quote]bigturk (8/29/2008)

Agree. Offensive and special teams looked bad. I can understand the offense being off a bit since they are still learning a new system, but some things can't be forgiven. They just looked flat. Examples? One for sure, the tight end ran a route and Ingle threw a nice pass to him. The tight end didn't even look for the ball and it sailed right past his face. Not a mistake to be blamed on a new system. The O did improve as the game went on, but it is still a work in progress. Special team coverage was not good. The return for a touchdown was horrible. Drake didn't even touch the guy and a number of players had shots at him. I can forgive a return for touchdown if the player did some amazing athletic feat with juking and jiving, but all he did was run straight up the middle.

Lastly, why did they change the uniforms? I am not a fan of the blue jersey and pants. Call me old fashioned.[/quote]Now they just look like Butler. The bigger question is why has Drake gone away from their traditional Light Blue and White school colors all together?

RE: Drake 17, Upper Iowa 13

Herdman — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 00:07:20 GMT

[quote]DUBulldog (8/29/2008)

I didn't have a chance to go to the game yesterday, but I was able to listen to the last half of the third quarter, and all of the fourth quarter.

A question about end of game strategy....Drake had the ball, 2nd and about 10 on their own 15 (approx) with 29 seconds to go....UIU only had one time-out left. If you take a knee, UIU calls their final time-out, then you take another knee and run out the clock after the 3rd down play.

Instead of taking a knee, Drake ran a regular play....luckily, Lahart got a first down on the play, but I guess I don't understand why you'd take even a minimal fumble risk in that situation.

I guess the other possibility is that the radio guys were wrong and UIU really had two time-outs left.[/quote]UIU had only 1 TO left, but with the new 40 sec from the first touch by a ref rule some coaches may get a little nervous. Creighton did the right thing by running a play, IMO...but I could be wrong.

RE: Drake 17, Upper Iowa 13

DUBulldog — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 13:11:18 GMT

RE: Drake 17, Upper Iowa 13

bigturk — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 11:25:03 GMT

I will add, however, that Upper Iowa did look better than the previous few seasons. I once talked to a coach from a team in the Iowa Conference who played Upper Iowa every year. The coach told me Upper Iowa is always loaded with great players, but can never put things together. They are a much different team from the beginning of the season to the end. He thought it was because they have high player turnover. They've got some good players there this year.

RE: Drake 17, Upper Iowa 13

bigturk — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 10:42:01 GMT

Agree. Offensive and special teams looked bad. I can understand the offense being off a bit since they are still learning a new system, but some things can't be forgiven. They just looked flat. Examples? One for sure, the tight end ran a route and Ingle threw a nice pass to him. The tight end didn't even look for the ball and it sailed right past his face. Not a mistake to be blamed on a new system. The O did improve as the game went on, but it is still a work in progress. Special team coverage was not good. The return for a touchdown was horrible. Drake didn't even touch the guy and a number of players had shots at him. I can forgive a return for touchdown if the player did some amazing athletic feat with juking and jiving, but all he did was run straight up the middle.

Lastly, why did they change the uniforms? I am not a fan of the blue jersey and pants. Call me old fashioned.

RE: Drake 17, Upper Iowa 13

Homer — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 10:34:05 GMT

RE: Drake 17, Upper Iowa 13

BlueDawg — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 00:44:08 GMT

Unfortunately, yes.

Defense started out just flat. They did make adjustments fairly quickly and stood up pretty well after the first series. If the offense can't give them more rest better teams will wear them down.

Special teams need work. A couple times they were getting the last player on the field a bit late. Kicking was solid, but the punt & kickoff coverage needs work.

Offense never really clicked. It was ugly, but a win.

It was not a hot night, and we had several guys go down with cramps. Something is wrong there, nutrition, hydration, whatever it is need to get it figured out and corrected.

It isn't unusual for the defense to be ahead of the offense at this point in the season, but they need to improve a whole lot pretty quickly or this will get ugly.

Drake 17, Upper Iowa 13

LurkingDog — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 21:01:18 GMT

Was it as unimpressive as it sounded on the radio?