To counter a DC/head coach needs to mix up coverages. When you run man 2 man on every play, an OC calls the plays they think will work at critical points.
Case in point with roughly 3 mins to go in the first quarter and Iowa with the ball, we should have been trying to make Iowa use the clock and force them to go into the wind at the end of that drive (force them to punt into the wind or force the drive to continue into the wind). Therefore, IMO, we should not have been in man to man, but playing cover 2 (two safeties deep) which would force Iowa to throw underneath and/or run the ball and consume clock.
So English dials up man 2 man and Petras beats us over the top. So Iowa strikes with a call that our defense has difficulty defending. Now Iowa has momentum. They hit a couple more TE throws, then are going into the wind, but keep throwing (against our porous pass defense) because points were a priority yesterday.
Running cover 2 with safeties deep forces Petras to complete multiple pass and if we were in a zone, those TE crossing routes now have people in position to make hits and tackles.
I am not advocating going full Cover 2 like Diaco on every play, but at some point English has to some a little more unpredictable.
Brohm replaced Diaco’s prevent/cover two that couldn’t stop the run, with the exact opposite man to man safeties in the box to stop the run.
Well, an OC needs to go over the top against that defense (as Brohm has down to many defenses in the past). Obviously it’s a big risk reward play, and one Spencer Petras should have been unlikely to complete…but he did. And I bet that pass was practiced by Iowa 20 times last week. Then Ferentz went to the TE crossing routes to convert the quick TD.
Brohm and English got schooled yesterday. And I assume it was similar to the start of Wisconsin under better conditions.
Every team will keep trying to go deep until it’s not success anymore.
credit to Ferentz calling a couple of TOs early…which looked questionable, but was good TOs given the need to convert with the wind at Iowas back.
we got schooled yesterday, by a coach that Brohm typically schools
