Ok, let’s hear from all the sunshine and rainbow people who still believe that KF and his entire crew are the absolute best that Iowa could EVER get and how if even a single change were ever made to KF or his staff then Iowa would be guaranteed to return to the Ray Nagel years instantly and permanently. Please tell me how Iowa fans are supposed to be pounding this staff on the back with adulation after another no-show offensively and then the inevitable defensive breakdowns and weaer downs. Please tell me how 7-5 is exactly the best that Iowa can expect on a regular basis, because “we’re just Iowa….” I’m curious to hear how this is so acceptable.

The current football coaching staff is close to making me feel as “warm and fuzzy” as I did when I attended the U in the mid 60′s. They may take us back to the Evy, Jerry and Ray days, when we didn’t have any illusions of having a good season!

Let me know when the hawks cross the 50 yard line, I am trying to figure out if they ever had a game plan to win? Ferentz and his coaching staff should be embarassed for their lack of enthusiasm for this game. It seems to me that the Gazette were the only people who were looking forward to this rivalry game.

The coaches provide explanations, not excuses. Next year will be phase II of our coaching staff’s “rebuilding year”. As fans our patience is appreciated, I’m sure.

Good lord… the bandwagoners come out again. Its so utterly pathetic. If the Hawks aren’t going undefeated, they’re screaming for people’s jobs and acting like they know how to coach better than anyone else.

What happened yesterday was very simple. A failure of execution on both ends of the ball–period. The defense couldn’t stop Nebraska from engaging in long, drawn out drives. The Iowa offense couldn’t stay on the field for more than 3-5 plays.

That’s a recipe for a loss everytime, Mike and you know it.

The coaches aren’t the ones out there playing..the players are. If they don’t execute the plays–this is what happens.

So, people claim that the coaches are just “terrible” and they don’t know what they’re doing, etc, etc, etc.

How many teams in the Big Ten has an offense with a QB that’s thrown for over 2800 yards, a RB with over 1300 yards, and a WR with over 1200 yds receiving?

Answer: One—Iowa

Yes..those coaches just don’t know what they’re doing.

Iowa’s problem this entire season has come down to one thing–consistently executing on the field. That’s a sign of a young team–which Iowa has this year on both sides of the ball.

Even with all the ranting and raving that Mike is doing up there, what right Iowa fan expected to be better than 8-4 or 7-5 (I didn’t). No one looks at there are 14 (at least) new starters on both sides of the ball, that the teams that wanted it more won (Iowa State), better teams (Nebraska, Penn State) threw their weight around. But, if Mike wants to be particular, JVB got better at the play action, throwing on the run, going through his routes, not forcing the ball (only 5 INTs I think). Then you look at the offensive line, there seemed to be less sacks and holds this year than last year. The defensive side of the ball, which everyone knew would be a soft spot compared to past years was more of a bow, then snap defense had half a new secondary, 2 new DTs and two new linebackers. The argument that last years 7-5 was a disappointment, those games were lost by I believe 24 total points.

I attended this game. It was conducted and managed with all of the excitement of a scrimmage, the day after half the team was suspended for something heinous, like, I don’t know, posting on Facebook.

I also attended the OSU game three years ago. The VDB I saw at that game was a gunslinger, a confident, happy, aggressive teenage QB. The guy I watched yesterday had figurative worry lines boring halfway through his forehead.

The sophomore Drew Tate was the most confident QB I have seen in IC, and that includes Long. The senior Drew Tate was squeezing the air out of the ball.

Anyway, this is a highly paid, very secure, very accomplished staff. Whatever game they are playing, it’s not the one that is enjoyable to watch on Saturdays. It’s not the game that reminds one of the joy and abandonment of playing football in one’s youth. It’s certainly a very useful activity for anyone who wishes to play in the NFL (more of our guys from yesterday will be in the NFL than their guys), but these NFL audition tapes — scrimmage tapes, not real games where we are doing whatever we can imagine to win — are no argument for going to Iowa games any more. I traveled to three away games this year (PSU, Minn, Neb) and Iowa did not even show up at any of them. I work too hard to try to make something fun and pleasurable out of watching a $300K/year (plus hidden benefits) OC teach his quarterbacks to squeeze the air out of the ball.

Anyway, my prior post is misleading. I know who KOK works for, and I know who calls the shots. It’s not reasonable to dump on the subordinates because the HC wants to tell the world to “Go jump in a lake, this is how we’re going to do it.”

It is odd, though, that we could be so completely outclassed, and yet have 10 guys on the field who are going to be in NFL camps. (Plus one guy who, apparently, we’re in the process of running off.)

I would prefer to watch a football team play football, not an NFL Development League scrimmage.

Todd-Where do you get off questioning my veracity, my name is my name. I’ve been on a Hawkeye ” bandwagon” since I was ten years old, how about you? Also, I did not mention any coaching changes as you suggest, just a call for improvement in the coaching. Improvement is what they talk about, incessantly, why shouldn’t that apply to the staff as well? As to the NFL, I hope every player makes it and makes mega bucks, I am an Iowa Hawkeye fan, not an NFL fan, so what happens in Iowa City is of concern to me but what happens in NFL cities is of no interest, period!

Let me be the first to thank this team for playing hard every game and giving it maximum effort even if the results were often spotty. I will also say I am very frustrated and disappointed in a 7-5 campaign, but in all honesty I’m not as upset now because quite frankly after three losses it’s all more of the same to me. I feel like a team like Iowa should be able to skate through a year with 9 plus wins every year, but here is the thing, only those with poor insight perspective and ability to deal with frustrations get on message boards and cry foul over and over and over again…….

A couple things that need said for those that have good cognitive thinking skills…….

When Iowa wins they had a good game plan and made good adjustments, but when they didn’t…..let that sink in for a minute. There are changes and adjustments happening in every game, because you don’t see them doesn’t meant they aren’t there…as far as that goes many of us see them, only those with agendas seem to always miss them…..

Iowa’s kids rarely seem to give up (Minne game last year not withstanding) as I see many others do.

I see people say things like if I was in charge this is what I would do……when the truth is, if it were easy the job wouldn’t pay what it does, so quite frankly forgive us, when we say were not really interested in what you would do. You are a message board jockey and for all we know you have had 5 jobs in 6 months. We aren’t concerned with what you would have done.

Speaking of money, for those who aren’t far sighted enuff, the fact that Iowa pays KF what they do is a GOOD thing. It shows we have lots of money and we are a national brand.

It’s funny really……Nebbie somehow beats us fairly easily, yet gets crushed by Michigan and loses to Northwestern….I wander what their fans said about game plan and adjustments and the like in those games……funny how that works eh……

Here we are yet again in a season where college football’s royalty…Texas 4 losses, Florida-5, Tenn-6, Miami-6, FSU-4 etc, etc……last years national champ has 4 on their way to 5, tOSU now has 5 on their way to 6……does this make our failures “okay”…..absolutely not, but it puts things in perspective for sure……

Bobby Stoops still after all these years has 1 NC and a slew of pretty stupid losses…..wonder what his fans think of L’s to 6 loss TT and Baylor…..?!?! Hmmmmmm…..

Mack Brown, what’s he make………5 mill, one Vince Young….one NC…….11 losses last 3 years…..

See here’s the thing…..people don’t take this more seriously than I do, in fact I’m PO’d at myself for taking it so serious. It would be difficult to be more competitive than me or higher strung than me……yet hollering about coaching on a message board is one of the top 5 least productive or insightful things a person can do. Especially when in reality what people say is typically so short-sighted and wrong it isn’t worth even responding too…..

I’m upset about 5 losses, I REALLY AM. You’ll find c0me draft time, this year and next and next, this team still has plenty of talent. So why do they keep losing……well I don’t know, but I do know this……

This staff is well respected by those who actually “look”……..

Also if you guys were actually watching….you’d have seen multiple drops, bad penalties, missed assignments, or rather “execution” that caused us to lose momentum and ultimately games…… so is that coaching….?! Sure……. it does at the end fall back on them of course, but you guys keep talking about dumb things like game plans and scheme and why we didn’t do this or that, when in reality if they players had executed, we’d have been 12-0 and in fact if they had executed only marginally better we would have been 9-3 at the least and probably 10-2…..

No a “better” scheme would not have changed anything….more often than not the play was there to be had, yet horrible execution blew the play up. If you look, the scheme was actually very good…..the playing on the field sadly was not.

Chad

A request and a comment. One, please specify which “Mike” you mean in responses. Two, Happy College Football Saturday!

Honestly…I don’t think I could expect the Iowa defense to play any harder or better yesterday. The defense was on the field for 2/3′s of the game and played the hearst out.

I am most disaapointed in our offense. Have been for years. I don’t think it’s expecting too much for the offense to be able to make adjustments and be successful against a Nebraska defense that has given up allot of point at home this year.

It seems that if the offensive game plan put in during the week does not work, the OC cannot make adjustments on the fly. Heck, KOK had two weeks to prepare for the Penn State defense. Not only was the offense ineffective, it never had a plan B.

Parker, for the most part, seems to be able make affective adjustments during the game. If the KOK could make adfjustmenst at halftime like the Parker, we would not be having these negattive posts.

I live in Council Bluffs, and no one is more dissapointed that Iowa did not win yesterday, but it was more dissappointing to watch my Hawkeyes not even be competitive offensively.

I think Ferentz has done an outstanding job at Iowa, but I also think he is so close to the situation that he does not evaluate the job his staff does objectively. I would hate to see Ferentz fall on his sword for KOK.

I realize I may get crusified for this post, but I don’t think the the program is in big trouble, but it needs some offensive improvement.

Thanks for listening!

Here is some more perspective……

We have been watching the Joliet Catholic/Montini game here at work today. JC has a Jr TB who has run for over 500 yards himself and 6-tds. Yet it was his two BIG fumbles in the 2nd half that changed the perspective e of the game and was ultimately very instrumental in his team losing. He isn’t alone of course, but it is wise for coaches to be wary of ball security issues. You’d have thought 500 yards and 6-tds would have outweighed a couple fumbles, but not in this case.

Also I was on a posting moratorium last week, but how about that Baylor/OU game……Baylor looks like they are pre4aed to go to OT. Bobby and OU call an “aggressive” Timeout and viola…Baylor says screw you and marches down the field for a score……..amazing how that works out…..hindsight (or “fan”sight as I like to call it) is always twenty-twenty

Chad

“Todd Johnson”, if that’s your real name, you are rude and arrogant. Please read what I wrote, you attribute statements to me which I did not write or imply!

Hey everybody, with Ohio State (6-6) and Northwestern (6-6) losing, and Illinois behind Minnesota and Purdue struggling against Indiana, Iowa’s 7 wins doesn’t look so bad after all!

Chad,

All wise and all knowing Chad. Please educate me on when it is appropriate to question a coaching staff?

Since when is voicing one’s opinions “doing something wrong”?

Chad,

I just grow a little tired of you coming on here and pretending to be the voice of authority, as if you somehow “know more” than all the rest of us on here. As if no one has the right to ask questions like, why does the same thing keep happening over and over.

In my opinion, and I am entitled to have my opinion, I believe it is appropriate to question a coaching staff when their team consistently underachieves and does not play up to their potential.

So, I again ask you, when do you feel its appropriate to question a coaching staff and or scheme?

Todd Johnson,

“I guarantee you this–if people like Mike and “Harry” got their way and fired Coach Ferentz and his staff…”

I have not heard Mike or Harry calling for anyone to get fired. That is one of the strange things I don’t understand — no one is saying fire Ferentz, what they are saying is “isn’t time to change something?” Those are two very different things.

Stop playing not to lose…

If you play scared of losing…you are not playing to win

Iowa has scheme that is reliant on them being bigger, stronger, and more agressive. By 2002 Iowa was ahead of the whole country in strength in conditioning. And as a result sustained a measure of success from 2002-2004. However, the rest of the country took notice and quickly caught up. By 2005 Iowa was no longer the bullies of the Big Ten. Since that time Iowa has had difficulty maintaining any success. The scheme needs adjusted to the types of players that are on the field. What we saw in 2002-2004 will not repeat itself in today’s football with Iowa’s current scheme.

What needs changed, maybe not a complete overhaul, but there are serious deficiencies that will not be fixed by continuing with this same philosophy. There are times when a coach has to have the ability to examine the direction the program is headed. If something is not done to change it, it will continue to digress.

I would love to be optimistic, but that is difficult when a team does not progress during the season. The defense progessed as much as it could with the personnel that it had. But the offense seemed to get worse as the season progressed. There is an issue when that happens. They lacked rythm for long periods of time. The problems on defense could have been masked a lot easier had the offense taken care of business.

Agreed, Norm Parker has to retire or show him to the door, he can not travel to recruit, look at the man he should be in florida sunning himself, O’Keefe,I wonder about, boy is the Iowa ‘s attack perdictable. Vandenberg did not improve as the season went by very sad. We need a great recruiting class & need some new coaches!!!

Chad,

You obviously see things the way you want to see them. You want to be optimistic and say everything is good. Go for it.

Me, I will just be realistic and say that unless something changes…we won’t have much to look forward to. Good night…sleep tight in your KF pajamas and hugging your KOK picture.

Few more stats for your paradigm:

Total yards the last four games (in which you claimed Iowa had improved)
vs Mich 302
vs Mich St 349
vs Purdue 282
vs Nebraska 270

Definitely wouldn’t say they played their best offense down the stretch.

Chad,

A few more stats, these are Bob Stoops stats since you brought him up. (I guess Oklahoma has a lot to show for all those players they put in the NFL)

Stoops has a combined record of 130–31 (.807). He also has the most wins of the decade of any BCS school with 109 (2000–present).

He led the Sooners to the 2000 BCS National Championship and finished the season undefeated, outscoring 13 opponents by a combined 481–194. His Oklahoma teams again earned the opportunity to play in the Bowl Championship Series National Championship Game in 2004, 2005 and 2009.

Oklahoma under Bob Stoops has played in more BCS National Titles games (4) than any other school.

Stoops’ teams have finished the season ranked in the Top 10 of the polls for 9 of 10 seasons, 6 of those 9 being in the Top 5.

Run Jesse Ru!!! You & Mike Miller seem to be the only one’s here that aren’t Homers with rose colored glasses. This team underachieved this year considering the offensive talent. Under-performance seems a near constant with Iowa football. We pay KF way too much for this sort of mediocrity.

This was an interesting debate to read, not often that a message board keeps my attention long enough to read the whole debate. That said, I think a couple of points were not completely connected as to comparisons with Texas, recruiting, players in the NFL etc.
Here is the point:
Because Texas/Oklahoma/etc. recruit game-ready (we call them 5-star) players, they are able to have a great amount of consistency in execution at every position. Iowa builds players, which creates inconsistency. For example, Iowa might have half of a team of Seniors (say 5 on offense 6 on defense), These players have been built mostly from 3-star, 2-star, or walk-on “talent” that our coaches have “built” into NFL “talent.” The problem is that these players are complemented by a combination of players, including freshmen and sophomores who are still “in the building process” from 2 or 3 star high school talent, while those from Texas are complemented by 5-star high school talent. Not a single freshman who is lower than 4 or 5 star ever plays for Texas, yet Iowa has those positions on the field where the talent is still “raw.” Is this the coaches fault?

Some may say that it is, it is recruiting… but seriously, once a person has a taste of the south, its hard to move to Iowa, this can be seen easily. How many Oklahomans, Texans, Californians, Floridians move to Iowa when they retire? How many Iowans move to the south. Do you think its easy to take a high school senior away from the warm and the beaches of their home states, not to mention the big cities where they can get lost have fun and no responsibility, to be put in a cold, snowy, no-big city, and under the microscope scrutiny of Iowa City, No we will not get many 5-star recruits, and because of that reason we will rarely execute as consistently as those who are in the perennial top 5… we have to wait for the right kids to get into the right positions for everything to come together, and that will only happen SOME years, others will be like this year…

Purple rainbows, friendly unicorns, twinkies, nike pegasus shoes. Phew, now that I got that out of my system- I am more than glad that Pam Ward was no where near an Iowa football game this year! I do believe the missing ingredient this year was Bob Davie and Mark Jones. If you look at the previous successes of Iowa football-especially the 02 season-there is a direct correlation to who is in the booth and the performance on the field! Now if we could just get Beth Mowins on D3 games, Saturdays would be good again.

Mike,

Glad you enjoyed (most) of the post. Anyway the point still stands, if you have any weak(er) player on the field, especially freshmen/sophomores who still play like high school kids, the other team is going to find them, exploit their inexperience and the strength and conditioning that they haven’t built yet.

Maybe my argument about recruiting would have been better served if I had instead written that I was a high school teacher in Texas for 4 years before returning to Iowa and in that time I only found one student who actually knew where Iowa was on the map (of course when I told them I was from Iowa they wanted to learn about it), most (more than 50%) thought our football team (and the high school guys in Texas love to talk football) was the Buckeyes! The next greatest percentage thought that Texas played Iowa every other year (of course getting the Hawkeyes mixed up with Iowa State). I also had students who thought the state of Iowa was “Ohio” or “Idaho,” the usual stuff…
This is definitely a recruiting deficit when the 2 most-watched conferences in Texas are the Big 12 and the SEC. No one wants to go play football in a state where the games aren’t even televised. And in the south, it is long weeks between televised Big Ten games. Here, we see SEC games, Big 12 games, and Pac-12 games every week; there, they only rarely televise any Pac-12 or Big 10 games. The psyche of a kid coming out of one of those states is that the Big 10 is a minor conference, or is a basketball conference, or they “don’t play real football.” This is what northern recruiters are up against when they try to recruit Texas. When southern states recruit the north (if they ever decide to) they find a much more balanced, knowledgeable, fan base of high school kids who know the Big 12, SEC, and even the Pac-12.

Maybe that will correct the talk about retirees lol,

Sanji: “But here’s the thing: WHERE was Iowa’s no-huddle offense Friday?” — good question! i thought that was the plan the rest of the year? My guess is it was too “low of a percentage”….you know how KF is when it comes to being conservative…he can be read like a book, and apparently, the other teams have copies of that book and have read it….at this pace, pretty soon Iowa will become the next Indiana. Everyone beats them (even us – but barely). We’ll start being the other team’s count-on ‘W’ and most of the lemmings won’t understand why.

Kirk Ferentz: “Where were we, on the 30 or whatever it was? No, it wasn’t like we did anything at that point. I seem to get asked that a lot. . . . That’s pretty low percentage, but anyway.” –Kirk, you must be a liberal. Talk about one of the best non-answers to a direct question!

Memo #1 to KF: You get asked that question a lot because you have yet to ANSWER IT!

Memo #2 to the “4-million-dollar-man-for-mediocre-results” coach: even a ‘low percentage’ opportunity to score is better then a ZERO PERCENTAGE opportunity in kneeing the ball! There is simply NO EXCUSE for not playing the game until the clock has triple zeros. None. Nada. Zip. A team should always TRY to score. Kneeing the ball should only be done when the outcome of the game has already been decided and NEVER EVER when you are behind! Either that or you are up by 30 and showing mercy (but no Iowa lead is safe we have seen and I don’t think any other team would show Iowa mercy).

To knee the ball when you are behind at any time is merely an act of submission. You are giving up. You are telling the other team we cannot beat you, we just want to limp to the locker room to lick our wounds and maybe give us a chance to heal. The other team knows they have you at that point. Even if you are ahead as you approach the half, you keep trying, because with a half of football in front of you – there is a lot of time until the clock reads 0:00, and with Iowa – we’ve already seen that no lead is safe.

Here is a question I would like to see Marc or Mike ask ‘the great one’ when they have a chance….”Kirk. You have given half-rear-ended answers for kneeing the ball to go into halftime when you are down as being ‘low percentage’. So if there are 30 seconds left in the GAME and you are down by say one score (just to use an example), and you are 80 yards away from victory, or even 40 yards if you need a field goal – why in THAT situation do you go for it? It is still ‘low percentage’ of probability of changing the outcome – is it not? Using your logic, in that situation, you should simply knee the ball and call it a day. So why going into the half is it ‘low percentage’ and you just GIVE UP and roll over like a lamb ready for slaughter, but yet the same situation at the end of the game becomes “4 down territory”? Iowa fans would like to know. We’re awaiting your answer”.

Think about it. THAT is a brilliant question! A question to demonstrate the hypocrisy of the head man. There is no answer to that question because you have him dead to rights! How is he going to answer? “Well at the end of the game we are going to lose if we don’t go for it” – huh? The scenario is exactly the same. You’re behind and you need a score. So if KF answers it honestly, he stands there with egg on his face because he’s busted. I am sure he would answer it with another famous ‘non-answer’. I hope they have a call-in show this week. I think I have a question to ask.

Memo #3 to KF: You play the game to WIN IT. not to ‘build character”. Not to prepare a mere fraction of your players for the NFL. You play the game to bring positive exposure to the university – not yucks and chuckles. If you don’t take advantage of every opportunity you have the ball to try to score (with the exception of being up by 21 and time is running out) then you are playing to lose. Simply put.

Chad, Todd, Matt, Jesse, etc.:

We’re never going to agree on the Iowa program, other than we’re all Hawkeye fans (though some are obviously better fans than others). So let’s make this easy:
- Some believe that Iowa is what it is, and regardless of staff, schemes, recruiting, etc. making changes large, medium or small won’t make a difference Iowa maintaining a larger level of excellence.
- Some believe that Iowa should be more like the Iowa of 2002-04 on a regular basis with years like this as blips on the screen; others view 02-04 as overachievement and 7-5/8-4 as “normal”.
- We all agree that execution is the key to victory for Iowa – or any team. This is where the fork in the road divides us: some believe that it’s pretty much the players’ faults because they’re usually put in the right position to succeed (per coaches/schemes) but don’t make plays, so staff/scheme/etc. issues are nonexistent. Others believe the “lack of execution” is due to coaches not putting the right players in place to make plays, and that after a number of years of similar (disappointing to some) that it’s time for changes/adjustments (though very few actually have called for a change at the top) that lead to better results.
- Some fans’ football knowledge levels are well above others

In the end, do you all know who the biggest winner is here? Mr. Hlas of course, who by virtue of having the most-commented-on articles throughout the football season (edging out Morehouse), has won an all-expense paid trip to Hawaii for the month of February. Right Mike?

Nebraska, and the other teams Iowa played, had a BIG advantage over the Hawks. They didn’t have Ken O’Keefe running their offense.

I’ll cut right to the chase. I saw no one on the offensive side of the ball who could be bothered to make an effort. It is a good thing civilian treason is no longer a capital crime, or the entire offense would be on death row today. Something has GOT to change.

LOL You all crack me up! I just got on the blog today (it took me a few days to recover from the loss) but I missed a lot of discussion apparently.

I don’t wish to side with any viewpoint here but I will say that I’m glad that apathy has not set in yet. Anyone want to talk hoops?