Yikes….I’ll admit that after we lost to CMU I tossed a few f-bombs on Facebook about how Ferentz should take his $ and go. But after the dust settles, you realize he’s right for Iowa. However, the 3 year runs of mediocrity are much more difficult to swallow when he’s making nearly $4MM. He’s a great representative and when he’s got both lines working well, we can compete with anyone. That’s not the case currently, and it’s frustrating.

I’m all for the Cap’n staying in charge.

This 3 year run doesn’t look like it will run out of steam very soon. Keep it going for sure.

But he is a good representative. Of something.

And that, in the end, is most important.

I think some people take sports a wee bit too seriously…..

Quick question: Is Ferentz contractually obligated to do the call in show? Not sure if I would subject myself to that if I was a coach to be honest if I didn’t have to….

Everyone seems short on memory when 2005-2008 weren’t the glory years. Coming off of the Big 10 Titles and the Orange Bowl appearance, and then it turned around. KF knows whos ready and whos not, and Ruddock probably isn’t ready yet and would hurt the team more help. If anyone expected more than 8 wins out of this group then they didn’t size up the competition and was already being fitted for the National Champion t-shirt.

With all due respect to Kirk and Dolph, this sounded pretty tough but I can think of 10 or more college programs that this kind of call-in show, after that kind of game, for coach on this kind of run, would be pretty standard. You don’t want to know what the John L. Smith call-in show was like for the first 4 weeks. You don’t want to know what the Holgorsen call-in shows was like this week. Get the picture?

A Kirk’s been discussed for pro openings, right? Rex Ryan did a press conference after losing to the Patriots, on the road, in which his WR dropped a ball right in his hands with no one within 5 yards of him that basically cost his team the game. The Jets were 10-point underdogs too, and the press–the NYC press–not fans mind you, but professionals he sees week to wee were every bit as ruthless with him as these callers sounded. They were more eloquent, but the take no prisoners questions were essentially identical.

I think Kirk does himself no favors at press conferences and if he did then he could build a firewall to protect him from these moments. For example, he never “sells,” he never does PR for his decisions and game calls like the more high profile coaches. That Rudock snub is indefensible. Iowa is the ONLY team in all of FBS college football to have played one (1) QB this season. We’re not starting Johnny Unitas, yet one guy.

I realize Kirk’s the anti-version of Urban Meyer, and on many levels I like that, but now you know why Meyer and other coaches at more hotbed football factories are out in front of moments like these. I find Kirk too often, especially for Iowa, acts peevish at the thought that he even has to answer ANY questions, so this call-in show is good for him. He does, at the end of the day, work for the people of Iowa. It’s a state university, it is funded by the citizens. People pay for football tickets, they’re not free. There is a relationship here. He doesn’t have a job without the people. He just doesn’t. And, this show is one of the many reasons he’s the highest paid employee in the state. I’m sure he can manage the show.

This is good stuff.

Everyone is frustrated. I appreciate your articulation. It challenges me to see things from different angles. Thank you for that.

Call-in show is a flawed vehicle. It’s also the only one that’s been examined. It’s also a sponsored event and that’s really where the thinking stops, when the check clears.

KF has to take it. Does he lose sleep over it? I doubt it. Can he handle it better? Definitely. Still, I’m not sure at this point if a little candidness would satisfy the mad mob. Answer questions. If Rudock isn’t ready, say it. If you don’t trust a redshirt freshman QB, say it. People can classify that. Filing everything in the general only starts the fire anymore.

The salary complaint. It’s wasted energy. It’s an easy target. It’s a signed contract no one can touch.

The roster is ill. That shows up in depth and special teams. Everyone’s expectations for 2012 needed to be set back two games from the jump.

Will it get better? Iowa has a chance to be stronger and more mature on the LOS next season. It will have to develop a QB. Two QBs drafted since 1992 is a statement on the program. Can Iowa send QBs to the NFL on a semi-regular basis? Is that what it’s going to take for Iowa to make the leap?

I have to get busy on Northwestern. Food for thought.

OK, KF contract does include radio/TV money.

Learfield pays him $150,000 for the radio.

Yeah, you could call me a lot of things for $150K.

- Vandy’s efficiency rating is a Big Ten-worst 103.91, which leaves fewer than five starting quarterbacks in the country with a worse rating.
- Of all 124 FBS team, just one has yet to give its backup quarterback any type of in-game repetitions: Iowa. Vandenberg has taken all 461 offensive snaps for the Hawkeyes, leaving backup Jake Rudock on the sidelines. Every other team in the NCAA’s FBS has used two or more listed quarterbacks over the course of the 2012 season.

http://www.dailyiowan.com/2012/10/23/Sports/30475.html

I really liked the gymnast’s point, from which I extrapolate: if your self-esteem depends on watching 20 year-olds dominate other 20 year-olds, perhaps it’s time to get a life. Turn off the TV and go for a 10 mile hike or something.

In regard to pivoting from KF’s salary to holding his feet to the fire for creating 10 win seasons: half of this is envy, which is always ugly, and half of it is mistaken: he’s not a salesman who came into a company with a big guarantee and a personal promise to beat quota by 200%. He’s paid that much to fund the rest of the athletic department, which will fall apart if he leaves and the next hire performs like a Lickleiter. Any anger might better be directed at Title IX and the obligation Iowa has to fund 95% of its athletic programs with the proceeds from one or two. It is this fact that creates the salary escalation.

Last, if a person is walking through life damaged because we didn’t get our 3 hours of happy time on the most recent Saturday, is that person any different than the noisy people who will just never shut up about politics and the perceived injustice of not getting one’s way with every single political issue of the moment? Is that person someone who perhaps worships the wrong things?

Ferentz can be his own worst enemy, and I dislike the defensiveness, the lack of public reflection (while accepting the duty of reflecting in public, e.g., this radio program), and the information-free zone that he seems to think is important to create. He’s a good guy who is causing people like me to tune out, because it’s just a waste of time to listen.

On the QBs, Gales is right. I would ask KF why he discarded his practice from the early 00′s of always giving his #2 QBs a series in the first half and second, sometimes one each quarter, to groom them. I believe Banks, Chandler and Tate were all rotated into games, as preparation and injury insurance. I do not think we’re asking Rudock or any other QB to be Aaron Rodgers — just take a few snaps and get used to the noise and tumult. I do not think that, if Rudock is unready now, he’ll be ready in a year simply because he stares at film and practices in the spring. I’ve never seen that work anywhere. I don’t know why we would run a college offense that a kid can’t learn in a year or two, or why we can’t recruit guys who are physically able to hand off or read a safety or throw a five yard out. It’s really strange that we are the only team in the country that doesn’t need to prepare a second QB, can’t prepare a second QB, or forgets to prepare a second QB. It’s just really strange.

But it’s KF’s team and it’s my time. We each get to manage our own spheres. There’s a lot I can do with my life besides throw stuff at the TV. This is what Ferentz is risking, particularly given the alternative approach (passion, personal interaction, big game success) that Rhoads brings. If Ferentz doesn’t care, fine, but he’s toying with his gravy train by not caring — which, given the fiscal necessity of a successful and popular football team (to all the other sports), means he’s toying with Barta’s ability to manage his 20 sports. I wish we had a much stronger AD, someone who (like Brandon) has a supervisory relationship with his coach. Bump and Bowlsby were much larger presences, with Hayden and Ferentz. I don’t see that at Iowa now. That, organizationally and potentially financially, is a much bigger problem than Ferentz sounding like a talking point robot on his radio shows and in his press conferences.