Were they out-coached, out hustled and out motivated in this game? Hard to say “continually” if they weren’t. And how is out hustled not at all the fault of a player?

Define “continuously”. 2009 wasn’t that long ago. Iowa is a developmental program, so young teams are going to have a hard time. This year that’s exacerbated by new coordinators.

Do you think Ferentz should have been fired in 2007? The situation isn’t much different today. I think his staff has earned a chance to prove that they can put together another run at the big ten title in the next year or two. If Iowa doesn’t win 9+ games by 2014, then a serious discussion is in order.

Also, milk toast sounds delicious.

Jimmy Cracker:

I find Dochterman (and Hlas and Morehouse) to be among the best Hawkeye sportswriters in the biz. If you want milquetoast writing, there are plenty of places to find it. The Gazette ain’t one of them.

Jimmy Cracker -

Precisely what are Iowa’s chronic issues, at least, as you perceive them?

One issue that I’ve observed through the past 5 to 10 years is that Iowa suffered terribly due to attrition. Part of that was due to Coach K, part of that was due to leaning a bit too much on experience, part of that was due to a rash of poor decisions made by the players (usually the young ones), and due to the perception (not the reality) that Iowa’s schemes were somewhat out-of-date.

What has happened at Iowa subsequently? Coach K is gone (he’s a fine coach, just not a good fit at Iowa). Iowa now regularly plays A LOT of young players every year. The Hawks had a bit of a team “implosion” in ’06, and the coaches responded with a renewed level of competition between players at ALL positions. The coaches still value experience, however they’ve been giving young talented players more opportunities as well. In response to bad decisions made by the players, Iowa now has a full-time life skills coach to help guide the young players on the team. And lastly, with O’Keefe now gone, Iowa has been implementing a lot of new changes on O … and, at least in the short term, the passing game is suffering as the guys get acclimated to getting on the same page with one-another. In the long term, however, the addition of Coach Davis will certainly give the perception of Iowa’s O a bit of a shot in the arm. As it is, Iowa’s O now utilizes everything from the “power I” to shotgun looks with 5 wide. Heck, there are rumblings in the background suggesting that Coach Davis is leaning towards Iowa implementing more “spread” elements in the future. That’s not exactly my cup of tea … however, it certainly will get plenty of other fans excited.

Lastly, as for comments on Iowa’s recruiting, Iowa did have some recruiting issues in ’08 and ’09. However, since ’10, Iowa has been a bit more aggressive in how they’ve been recruiting and it has reaped rewards. In recent history alone, Iowa has landed increasingly more of their top recruiting targets. If you’ve tracked Iowa’s recruiting over the long-term … it’s been more the exception than the rule that Iowa lands their top targets. While Iowa hasn’t landed 5-star guys, the fact of the matter is that there simply haven’t been many 5-star guys within Iowa’s most proven recruiting grounds. Heck, take a gander at Boise State’s recruiting and start commenting about how they’ve gotten out-recruited by everybody else.

How exactly do you consider Iowa’s playcalling yesterday “sitting on the ball.”? It wasn’t at all.

sanji -

Transitive arguments don’t work in sports, particularly in football.

Paul -

The biggest issue that faces the Hawks right now is that the players need to keep on learning and improving. Fans, particularly those who get caught up in the whole “fantasy football” world … they forget that these young men have their football world turn on its head when they transition to being an every-down player. We’re talking about young, often immature people who are being asked to essentially hold down the equivalent of 2 full-time jobs … all the while ALL of their mistakes on the field end up getting scrutinized by hundreds of thousands of people (or more).

Such aforementioned fans often perceive players as “ready made” talents that simply are plug-and-play components … nearly like the plug-and-play gizmos that they attach to their smart-phones or tablets. If a guy plays poorly … then the young man often gets statically tabbed as “sucking.” Never mind that learning is a continual process … something that we continually do … and something that we can often get better at. Similarly, players improve as they continue to learn and execute technique, they improve as they get more comfortable within the system, and they improve as they get used to knowing what to expect from all the other players flying about around them.

It wasn’t that long ago when Tobin was the whipping boy on the offensive line … the guy that many folks on these here internets would decree as “sucking.” Now Tobin in an integral part of the left side of Iowa’s offensive line … a group that is paving the way for Weisman in quite an impressive fashion.

Here’s my point … and believe it or not, I actually have one … while many fans primarily see fault in the Xs and Os and therefore primarily find fault in the coaching staff, the reality is that Hawk fans are observing a team that is learning and that is making plenty of errors as they continue to push forward and learn. This is NOT to say that the coaches are above reproach. However, the reasons for criticism are possibly different than what many fans might perceive. Specifically, just as the players are the learners … the coaches are the teachers. Thus, while the learners are ultimately responsible for making sure that they LEARN (what they’re supposed to learn/execute) … the teachers are responsible for creating a learning environment that is conducive to learning. That means that they teachers (coaches) must be effective facilitating player-coach communication and player-player communication. It also means that they provide an environment/culture where the players help each other with film-study and work on drilling in technique. And, on top of all of the above, the coaches also must assess the progress that the players are making … thereby establishing a feedback connection wherein they can help correct problem issues and reinforce productive practices. As we’ve observed in recent history when it comes to receiving on-side kicks (among other areas) … there are still some “pain-points” that the coaching staff must address. A few years ago a problem we had was that EVERYBODY on the hands team was going after the ball. Now, this year, we have a problem where guys WEREN’T going after the ball.

The reason why I’m not as hard on the coaching staff as many other internet fans seem to be is that the Iowa coaching staff under Ferentz has a proven record when it comes to TEACHING football to young men. Thus, the more interesting questions aren’t concerning the coaches … but rather concerning what sort of improvements will we be seeing from the Hawks at a number of spots. Here are a few burning questions that are in my mind …

- At what rate will Hitchens improve when it comes to understanding and executing his coverage responsibilities in coverage? Opposing QBs continue to exploit him in coverage. The exciting thing about him is that he’s very capable of improving, after all, he’s only in his first year of starting for us. As he gains more experience and faces off against more and more opposing Os … he’ll gain a greater understanding of what they’re doing.

- At what rate will our DL continue to improve (in essentially all areas)? While the DL has shown flashes when it has come to the pass rush and they’ve managed to allow Iowa’s LBs to run free through a few games … can they do it better? Can they do it with greater consistency? Can they be even more disruptive? I think they can, but I also find it difficult to gauge the rate at which they’re progressing. I find the Minnesota game rather misleading – after all, the Gophers fielded a rather young offensive line themselves. Furthermore, we’re talking about a Gopher offensive line that was arguably a little short-handed too. How much of what we saw was improvement by the DL? How much of what we saw was a unit that was exploiting Gopher deficiencies?

- On too many occasions, Iowa’s back seven in coverage have been too slow to close the windows in their zone coverage. This has not only resulted in completions, but it has also resulted in A LOT of yardage after catch. At what rate will some of these coverage issues get shored up?

- How quickly will Vandenberg and Iowa’s pass-catchers get on the same page? When a QB is comfortable, then they’re less likely to throw errant passes. When Vandenberg and the pass-catchers hit a patch where they’re thrown out of their comfort zone … then not only do we see incompletions that result from miscommunications, but we’ve also been seeing an increase in outright poor throws because Vandenberg seems to be pressing things too much when he doesn’t have to. As I’m sure the coaches tell him … he just needs to do his job. Part of that job then is simply to not over-think things and just play some football. Of course, that is much easier said than done. However, given his performance last year, I think that he’s definitely capable of doing what needs to be done.