The #1 reason the Hawkeyes will lose: 117 out of 117 teams in one particular key offensive stat. Trust me too, that stat is truly offensive!
By comparison, LSU missed four field goals in the red zone, which hurt their percentage.... and I misquoted, sorry, on the SEC's record on red zone D.... Alabama was 69% and there were a few others in the 70's. LSU gave up 17 TD's and 8 FG's in the red zone, finishing at 83%.
We'll figure out the best way to attack Tate. I really believe we will pout more of a run blitz package together than an all out get to the QB blitz with Tate's propensity to roll out and make plays. We defense Matt Jones incredibly well the past 3 seasons and will employ a similar scheme. If you base your opinion on who will win this game on stats than LSU would win convincingly as we have the better stats in about 90% of the categories. And Iowa fans keep saying, "they just kept finding ways to win". Well, so did LSU, even though our QB play was not what we wanted for most of the games. And redzone %'s don't mean as much to me as points scored or given up relative to how many points your opponents usually scored or gave up. Also, how you got in the redzone and where how your opponent got there is also a very important part of the equation. When a team like Forida starts 3 possessions inside the 10 with 2 of them inside the 4 then you are going to give up a few more points. LSU put 4.83 points on the board everytime they got into the redzone, scoring TD's 61% of the time. Iowa put up 4.48 points for every time they were inside the 20, scoring a TD only 45.7% of the time. Seems to me like Iowa had trouble putting the ball in the endzone.
And Gradin, we Hawks have had to use all of our coping skills to accept our 117 ranking.... but when injuries get you down to a practice team walk-on with the mobility of a drunk Tiger fan, you learn to improvise... and we have done that quite well.
Very true, Cajdav... all good points. I only looked at the stats to see if there were any trends. I don't know our numbers for the last few games, but I know we got better at scoring as the season went on. In the Wissie game (Wisconsin), they had two picks early in the game, I think both were inside our 35, and they came away with nothing to show.... and that's kind of how our season has gone. This was by far Ferentz's best coaching job... no question.
Most of you're points are good, but they do show a lack of knowledge about LSU because we can counter every strength that your team has. No. 5 on the list is also an uninformed statement. Iowa may travel well, but so does LSU. 2-1 ratio in your favor is unlikely.
Iowa knew for a week or two before LSU that they were heading to Orlando and they were able to get a jump on tickets. Tiger fans should be outnumbered reguardless of how well each teams fans travel, however they will not be nearly as rowdy as the Tiger fans just ask Tennessee.
Skip said that Iowa knowing before LSU only meant the difference of a few hundred tickets. Every ticket given to LSU has already been bought, not to mention a few who probably hope to buy tickets in Orlando. It should be close to 50-50, but Iowa may have more like 60-40, only because they knew far before we did that they were going.
Yeah, I shouldn't have backed off my previous point. 2-1 ratio is still high even if they knew ahead of time; given how well we travel and to what extent the fan base will go to to get tickets.
