Let me offer a little bit of perspective from the other side of the fence — from a die-hard Iowa State University fan and alum:

If Iowa fired Kirk Ferentz, ISU fans would be dancing in the streets — even though KF has a losing record against ISU (6-7), we would RELISH IT. It would be a truly great day. Why? Because KF is a great coach and a great fit for you guys and he overachieves a heck of a lot more than he underachieves. Is he overpaid? Perhaps, but you can’t put it back in Pandora’s box now. He’s still the right fit.

You guys are going to win at least 7-8 games most years, go to a “January” bowl game more often than not (thanks to the strength of the Big Ten’s bowl agreements), and send a ton of guys to the NFL.

When all the parts and pieces come together every 2-3 years, you’ll win 10-11 games, and have a shot at divisional titles and beyond.

Iowa’s not going to win divisional titles every year. You’re just not. Particularly your first year after losing your 3+ year starting QB and sending a few guys to the NFL draft. You guys don’t reload every year — you do actually have to REBUILD. This is a rebuilding year for iowa. That’s the nature of college athletics.

Iowa football is what it is: blue collar, conservative, grind-it-out, tough, smart football. You take 2 star recruits and turn them into NFL caliber players. You out-work the other teams in the weight room. You play smart, conservative football. Here’s the simple fact of the matter: Iowa’s doesn’t win by outsmarting or tricking the other team. Iowa wins by OUT-EXECUTING the other team. KOK and NP aren’t trying to be unpredictable. They’re going to do what they do, and they’re going to execute it so well you can’t stop it. That’s Iowa football, take it or leave it.

So again, take it from an ISU fan: if you guys want to run Kirk Ferentz out of town, be our guest — we’d love to see it and would cheer the move wholeheartedly. You’ll be reminiscing for the good ol’ days of Capital One Bowls and Outback Bowls before you know it.

I’d gladly take constant 7-8 win seasons with an occasional shot at division / conference titles. Maybe you guys should be more appreciative at what you do have. Last time I checked, you sent SIX GUYS TO THE NFL IN APRIL and are starting a FIRST YEAR QUARTERBACK, and you’re still going to win at least 7 games this year and go to a bowl game.

You can drop the NFL development crap. I would gladly take 2-3 more wins a year consistently and see one guy a year get drafted then live on a rep of developing NFL talent while winning 7-8 games per year.

OK. let’s look at that. Iowa sends a lot of players to the NFL. alright. you’d think then that could be a recruiting tool to bring in more talent to Iowa City. The coaching staff could say, “look at the numbers we send to the NFL. come to Iowa, and you have a greater chance of playing on Sunday”. and a recruit could think, “you know what? Iowa DOES put a lot of the players in the NFL. I wanted to go to Texas A&M or some SEC school, but you are right Kirk, i stand a greater chance of playing on Sundays if i go to Iowa just based on the numbers of your players moving on to the NFL”.

see where that is going? If Iowa is such an NFL player generator, you’d think then there would be NO TROUBLE getting the 4* and 5* recruits to come to Iowa City, because those recruits WANT to play on Sunday, and hence, having those 4 and 5 star players should translate into more wins a season, Rose Bowls, and into consideration for the NC – which judging from the current trend in Iowa City, we won’t be ‘sniffing’ either any time soon.

I guess we should consider ourselves lucky. We could be in the “leaders” division (arguably the ‘tougher’ of the two). Playing like we are, we’d be near dead last in that division.

Todd:

1. How many times since 2004 has Iowa even SNIFFED a conference title? Once.
2. KF is in his 13th season at Iowa – with ONE season of 10 wins or more since 2004 – not just “a little over a decade”.
3. Demanding more from our staff doesn’t make us bandwagon fans – quite the opposite, actually.
4. I’ve never called KF a genius – even in the good old days of 02-04.
5. Not many “fools” call for his head – just an honest inner assessment of his program and staff.
6. KF’s teams calling card USED to be smart, physical play and consistent improvement throughout the season, with peak performance the last 3-4 games. Since 2004, how many times has that held true? Just 2008 (and you could even drop 2009 in there since Stanzi was hurt) – so just TWICE over the past SEVEN years has KF’s teams even performed to the “standard” that he established in 02-04.
7. Best knock off the name-calling – just because others point out the fairly obvious flaws in KF’s approach the past several years doesn’t mean we’re not Hawk fans – it just means we really DO care. If we didn’t, we would have quite watching after 2006 – you know, Tate’s senior season when they wasted the final year forcing him to be a pocket QB instead of moving him around and letting him make plays? Oh wait, that was all TATE’S fault, and his stats were MUCH better in the pocket – even though the team’s record suffered.

Todd:

One final thought: you know why Wisconsin has passed Iowa as far as quality of football programs? It has nothing to do with the fact that they have a larger state population garbage – it’s because they win the games they’re supposed to win. They’re 31-0 in games in which they’ve been favored by 10 points or more since 2006. KF’s record? 19-9. The rest of the Big Ten COMBINED has lost 14 games when those schools were favored by 10 points or more – yet KF and crew have lost NINE all by themselves!

Oh wait, you’re sick and tired of hearing facts. Sorry!

Gee Mike, i guess we’re bandwagon fans. I think the REAL fans are the ones to hold their coaches to a higher level, expect results in exchange for the pay check. that makes us bandwagon? i see Todd couldn’t refute anything that has been said. so the typical resposne is to discredit the messenger – or try to. i for one have never ONCE said KF was a bad caoch. not once. I have only said that for the money being paid, to at least be competative in the NC hunt isn’t that much to ask for.

real fans are not afraid to speak out when something is wrong. many fans appear to be no more than lemmings, just blindly following the others off the cliff. To put a “far Side” spin on it, You would just as soon follow the sheep in front of you into the slaughter house….but once and a while, one of them says “wait a minute! we’re being lead into a SLAUGHTER HOUSE! does anyone see a problem with that?”

Great stats on being favored by more than 10 Mike. impressive!

Mike H – nice Iowa weather? mid 40′s? spentthe day in the mid 80′s here. Hey, weren’t they supposed to get that dog ‘Hawkeye” to lead them onto the field? maybe i mnisread that.

hardly a fair weather fan.

but using your own words: “more NFL players means better recruits”. so where are the better RESULTS on Saturdays? Using your logic, we should have better players. If that is true, then the shortcomings we see on Saturday must be a failure on the coaching staff to get the most out of those better players, which re-enforces my argument that the staff is paid too much given the results achieved. thank you!

anxiously awaiting your analysis….

Eric:

We’ve NEVER had a national championship, and very few conference championships.

Go ahead and explain: with all these NFL guys, how are we NOT winning more games each year? You can’t brag up the coaching staff’s ability out one side of your mouth and then dismiss their overall record out the other. You need to raise your head out of the brush and see the WHOLE picture rather than just what you want.

And again, I’ve never said he wasn’t a good coach. He just needs to make honest assessments of his staff based on actual production vs. loyalty.

That was one game, and the team clearly wasn’t ready to play at all anyway outside of McNutt. Again.

No one else faked injuries during all the other losses since 2004. Please explain THOSE losses (at least 5 per year since 2005 save 2009). That had nothing to do with coaching? I mean, we had all those NFL guys too…….so please explain that because I can’t figure it out.

the ‘play stalling’ injuries you really can’t coach against. but, if you ahve all your plays set up and work them to perfection, it doesn’t matter if you can go bang-bang, or if there is a 30 second delay between them. use the time to go over the play, call an audible, consider alternative. was it cheap of MSU to ‘fake it’. absolutely. but that is no worse in my eyes than making a ‘substitution’ after the second free throw to try to nullify the opposing teams ‘fast break’ opportunities – but all coaches do it.

Thanks for responding.

I agree with you about comparing Hayden vs. Kirk with one qualification: there were 10, then 11, then finally 12 games per year when Hayden was on the sidelines, so he had fewer chances for victory.

Next, I’ve NEVER said Iowa should be National Title contenders annually – that’s unrealistic for all but the elite few programs. Iowa barely sniffs the CONFERENCE title most of the time.

I’ve never advocated putting NFL talent in positions they’re ill-suited to play – that’s a ridiculous notion. However, if the staff is good enough to “coach up” some players to NFL levels, why can’t they coach up the others to at least average level – or a level high enough to consistently keep teams from winning? Or just recruit and retain a few more higher-rated players that need less coaching, freeing up more time to coach up your weakest links instead? Yes, it takes 11 men to play well together to be a winning team; so why is it seemingly more difficult for a team like Iowa that prides itself on clean (few penalties), tough and simple schemes to win more consistently.

Your last point about tough losses is interesting. Do you mean close games against clearly superior teams that we can’t always “out-execute” and lose? Or do you mean those close games against weaker teams (in which we’re double-digit favorites) that we just don’t “out-execute” and lose too? Yes, the first ones are tough, but I can accept losing to a better team if we play to our potential and just get beat by a better team. However, we’ve lost a number of those games AND games that we had NO BUSINESS losing = Minny, NW, Indy, ISU, etc. = much more often the last 7 years than before. And yes, Iowa (and KF) is only 19-9 in those heavily-favored (double digits) games since 2006; the REST OF THE BIG TEN has lost a COMBINED 14 games. Is that acceptable to you because “we’re just Iowa”?

Those are the games that have put Wisconsin ahead of us program-wise – they’re 31-0 vs. our 19-9. Yes, Bielema has earned a semi- earned reputation for running up the score on weak teams, but I’ve actually watched some of those games and they’re running I-powers almost exclusively with backups a majority of second halves and keep scoring – perhaps their starters and second string should just come out in sweats in the second halves of games? Would that be better?

Whether you agree or not with myself or others, that’s fine. But telling us to just go cheer for another team because we dare to demand more from our staff is unnecessarily flippant. We just don’t believe that KF has done a good enough job assessing his never-changing staff and schemes and for awhile now it’s been a significant part of the teams’ performances on the field and in the W-L column. But like I said: you’re free to accept KF as is – just don’t expect everyone to follow your lead (although it’s clear your groups is far larger than us “whiners” group!).

Jesse:

One thought on the McCall issue: KF’s been saying for two weeks in PC’s that McCall is physically ready to go. I’d assume that most 19-year-olds would take that as “I’m going to get to play”. Then the past two weeks we haven’t seen him a single play – or Canzeri – on offense AT ALL (Canzeri on a few KOR’s). So they go back to class on campus and have people asking “why ain’t ya playin? I thought Coach said you could play?”

So now we’ve burned two redshirts (maybe not McCall’s yet) on true frosh that haven’t been given much of any chance to contribute on-field (yes, McCall WAS injured, but hasn’t been for a few weeks). In the meantime these two get questioned daily as to why they’re not playing when it’s clear that there’s been some opportunity to put them in to relieve Coker and change the pace of things. With those types of mindgames being played by the staff, what’s to say either one of them will be back next year? Who’d want to return to the exact same situation next year – except with a weaker passing game minus McNutt? Is this the type of stuff that goes that went on with some of the players who left the program the past two years – players we desperately needed this year, especially on the defensive side?

Jesse:

You need to stop writing about your wife being unsexy in baggy sweatpants – or anything else she chooses to wear. Either that, or you should have a good divorce attorney’s number handy…..