I know that you guys were looking for talking points, but I was honestly surprised at some of the conclusions that were being drawn during the pod-cast.

- You talk about improved recruiting … but then you don’t acknowledge that Iowa has really seen an upswing in recruiting in recent years. Specifically, on paper, both the ’10 and ’11 classes looked great.

- Following up on the above remark, if you pay attention to Iowa’s recruiting approach, Iowa used to be a lot more laid back in their recruiting approach. Recently, they’ve been doing a lot more hand-holding and they’ve also been a lot more aggressive. This “improved approach” has contributed to Iowa’s more recent recruiting successes.

- The OBVIOUS problem that Iowa has had is attrition. You guys noted this, but you didn’t seem to recognize that this is part of the reason why Ferentz purposely tries to place such emphasis on recruiting the midwest. Ferentz has already commented before how they attempted to cast a wider net earlier in his tenure as a coach … however, he also noted that it was only with limited success. The further away a guy lives … the more likely you’re going to lose him to attrition. One of the ways that you can get such guys to “stick” is if they’re playing a lot … however, that leads to a different problem (that’s the next item).

- An equally OBVIOUS contributer to the attrition at Iowa is a 2-fold problem. FIRST off, the outside perception of Iowa is that our program lacks talent. Thus, kids who Iowa recruits often wrongly assume that they’re going to be able to play A LOT and potentially even start right from the get-go. AJ Edds remarked about this before when talking about how Bruce Davis was completely humbled after joining the Hawks. And, what is particularly interesting about the case of Bruce is that he wasn’t all that highly touted of a recruit. However, Bruce was from Glenville, a D1 football factory, and he simply assumed that he’d have superior talent to those guys already on the roster. The SECOND factor is that Ferentz simply doesn’t play guys if they don’t work hard during practice OR if they don’t show adequate consistency in practice …. in other words, many of these highly touted kids are further shocked because they feel as though they have superior talent to the guys who are playing. Many programs are willing to play such “gamers” … Ferentz clearly resists doing so. Maybe I’m old-fashioned, but I like the fact that Ferentz wants guys to EARN their playing time. What’s particularly frustrating to me, as a fan and an outsider, is that the Iowa staff clearly tries to recruit guys who “fit” our program … guys who seem like they are “no frills,” guys who seem like they understand that they’re going to have to bust their tail, guys who seem like they’ll stay out of trouble … but then, all the same, some of them come across as having entitlement issues (and don’t understand that they need to EARN playing time).

- Lastly, you guys speak about the need to develop depth at RB … almost as though you assume the coaches aren’t trying to do that very thing. However, if you look at how the season unfolded … the coaches clearly intended on playing McCall early and often … they clearly had their eggs in that basket. Unfortunately, McCall got injured and derailed that plan. Thus, the coaches had to get another guy ready to do the job … and Canzeri emerged as though he was going to “be that guy.” However, what happened to Canzeri? To my knowledge, he was struck by injury issues (hamstring issues if memory serves). And, let us not forget that DeAndre Johson was injured in the pre-season and that limited how much and well how he could contribute early on too. Then, when it seemed like McCall had come back “online” from injury … Coker really emerged in a big way. As Marc had argued through the season, given how Coker was playing and given how close some of the games were … a strong argument could be made supporting the RB personnel-decisions made by the coaches.