Rittenburg just ******* NAILED it

The white flag has been risen at Fort Kinnick, and when I read J Diesel's headline of "done recruiting Florida" I thought Kirk, you have given up and are a quitter. I want a head coach who doesn't just give up, even though the odds are stacked against him in recruiting in the hot bed talent of Florida.

It would be great if we could pull in more talent from Texas, but I have yet to see any great talent come to the Hawkeye state lately. I hope his plan works, because this current path has me deeply concerned we are tanking. Go Hawks
 




Billso said:
I have no problem with swapping Texas for Florida as a recruiting focus IF in fact that's what we're doing. It takes time to build up HS coaching relationships so you don't want to do this lightly. I'm sure the likes of Abdul Hodge and Brad Banks will not be happy with this move.

But Texas is massively talent-rich, and arguably an easier "get" than Florida kids. If you widen the lens a bit, you could equally argue we had "gotten away" from our modest Texas pipeline of the Hayden years. Let's get after the next Big Dave Hudson of Waxahachie, Texas!
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A lot of truth to this Billy...Hayden recruited TX heavily and when we he got away from it is when the program suffered. Let's just hope KF isn't repeating history here and indeed is swapping FL for TX.
 


Totally agree with the comments above about kf wanting to win. Same could be said about him not working hard. I would bet there isn't a d1 coach out there that doesn't work hard. During the season these guys put in more hours than about any profession on the planet. They literally live on the field, on planes, in hotels, press conferences, radio shows, tv shows, university events, watching film, and on and on. Kf works very hard (and gets paid for it) and wants to win very badly. So does every other coach which is why it is very very hard to do it every year.
 


CAARHawk said:
Read the sig.

You cannot pick and choose certain years to make a trend without looking at the entire KF record at Iowa or you miss the actual true pattern.

7/8 wins is the dividing line.

Your first two in your list were actually positive years.

Your second two are just the first two of a normal downturn.

This year, you will see the number end up being somewhere in the 5-7 range.

The year after that will be 8 or more.

Beyond that, if less Florida means more Texas, that is okay. But giving up completely on area where you have had strong prior success is not a particularly optimistic sign.
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LOL. You tell someone not to ignore the whole pattern, but then only mention the "strong prior success" in recruiting Florida. More recently, Iowa has had very poor results with Florida recruits.
 


I haven't met anyone who thinks KF doesn't care about winning and losing. I have met people who believe that he has grown complacent and stubborn. He is sure that his 8 track tape coaching methods will work and isn't interested in evolving.

[Anyone who believes differently is an idiot not worth discussing this with.]
 


To be honest, I don't have a dog in this fight, I don't care how Iowa recruits. But Iowa has the same problem that Nebraska does, there isn't enough local talent to run a top program, you have to recruit nationally. It doesn't matter if those kids come from FL, TX, CA, LA, OH, NY, NJ, or where they come from. You have to get the talent, and you have to develop it. What is making it more difficult is that there is more talent down south and in Cali, and it is tougher to get those kids to go to school 1500 miles from family, friends, and girlfriends, go to a cold weather city in the middle of a corn field.

This article is Nebraska centric, but it kind of details (I think) how the level of FBS recruits within 500 miles of us has diminished in the last decade or so.

Husker Recruiting: Changes shrink NU's sphere of influence - Omaha.com interactive documents

It is one of the many reasons that the SEC has a foot up on everyone else.
 




GoHawks24 said:
And because they don't play by the rules and oversign like crazy.
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Very true. But it's much easier to convice those kids to play in a warm weather town 400 miles from home than it is to get them to come halfway across the country to play in snow.
 


74Hunter said:
Very true. But it's much easier to convice those kids to play in a warm weather town 400 miles from home than it is to get them to come halfway across the country to play in snow.
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Oh, I definitely agree, I just hate the SEC. If you ain't cheatin', you ain't tryin' though, right?
 


74Hunter said:
Very true. But it's much easier to convice those kids to play in a warm weather town 400 miles from home than it is to get them to come halfway across the country to play in snow.
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Playing time versus warm weather. In order to draw these kids up north, I think they have to do a little "negative" recruiting. Not so much to run down other programs, but to convince these kids that their real opportunities (not promises) to play are at Iowa, Nebraska or wherever, not sitting on the bench behind 3 other 5* running backs or offensive linemen at Alabama, LSU, Florida. The NFL doesn't care where you go to school, but if they don't see you play, you aren't going to be on their radar. Giving up on Florida doesn't make sense to me. If they could do it in the early 2000s, they could do it again.
 


BSpringsteen said:
It isn't about his contract - stop talking about his ******* paycheck. The guy wants to win. Anyone who believes differently is an idiot not worth discussing this with.

He isn't comfortable or happy with mediocrity. Anyone who believes differently is an idiot not worth discussing this with.

What he is, is unsure about how to go about rebuilding a program in the year 2013. When he was hired, email was still relatively new. Now, most people refuse to pick up the phone. The guy is old school to the bone, and the new world of today's youth is not the guy's strong suit.
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Does he have a strong suit anymore?

FreedComanche
 






GoHawks24 said:
Farting, snorting, and chewing a mean *** piece of juicy fruit.
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By the way, when folks ask the question if he wants to win, it's the wrong question to ask. I don't know how anybody could think that any D-1A coach doesn't want to win. The real question that should be asked is, is the guy right in the head? Once you consider that, his behavior will make more sense to you.

FreedComanche
 


homes said:
Playing time versus warm weather. In order to draw these kids up north, I think they have to do a little "negative" recruiting. Not so much to run down other programs, but to convince these kids that their real opportunities (not promises) to play are at Iowa, Nebraska or wherever, not sitting on the bench behind 3 other 5* running backs or offensive linemen at Alabama, LSU, Florida. The NFL doesn't care where you go to school, but if they don't see you play, you aren't going to be on their radar. Giving up on Florida doesn't make sense to me. If they could do it in the early 2000s, they could do it again.
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you do realize most high school kids think they are better than everyone else and will start over the other 5* players, right?
 


Right, and every other scholarship QB on the roster. They're beating the far bushes for players. I don't buy the relying on development line, I think its been a necessity. It's not been laziness, but I do believe the coaching changes have been overdue and a good part of the reason for that is increasing the effectiveness of recruiting in the richest recruiting areas. This move towards focusing on Texas being one. That's not to say this is necessarily a move that's a slam bang home run. It's still going to be hard going getting kids out of Texas to come to Iowa(I mean, good kids). But, if we can start to pull in 4-5 three star type players a year from there that's likely going to upgrade our recruiting. One of the most underrated aspects of recruiting is less where you recruit that what type of player you are looking for, and if we're going to use more spread plays, and move to more athletic QB's recruiting Texas and the like becomes a necessity. The Midwest produces a lot of quality OL and to some lesser degree DL and LB's but it has a paucity of athletic prep QB players who can also pass the ball. It lacks a lot of the elite speed-quick guys to play the slot positions and RB in a spread set.

A larger question in the Big Ten recruiting struggles is not whether the coaches are doing all they can to recruit, but what are the institutions willing to spend to draw recruits? Are they willing to pay top dollar for assistant coaches, more importantly are they willing to allocate the funds to facilities that will bring kids in. The SEC spends a much larger percentage of their athletic budgets on football...facilities, assistant coaches. Iowa's making some head way in producing better facilities but in the "keeping up with the Jones's" highly competitive world of college football recruiting they have have to be dedicated to having elite facilities. Facilities that can be favorably compared to the top 20 programs. Maybe Iowa can't put together the kind of largesse that UM, OSU, and PSU can to develop top 10 facilities but that 11-20 area in facilities is achievable. It's a big reason why Nebraska has been a national power for the last 50 years(with some dips). Better facilities make a huge difference especially in areas that are relatively recruit poor.
 


This article is making mountains out of molehills! Rittenberg contradicts his argument over and over again! He says we need to be in Florida, and then cites Michigan didn't recruit anyone from there this year.
He claims its a MUST we go to Florida, then notes Penn St just got their first one from there in 10 years.
Furthermore, he documents the misses we've had lately. Florida isn't working for us anymore.
Ritt fails to mention the ties we have in Texas (Davis and Kennedy), yet insists we get into Florida.
I think we're going to be hitting Texas hard, and that's why KF pulled his resources out of Florida.

I've got nothing against AR, but he seems to be extreme at times. Whether it be when we are good, he is higher than a kite on us; or when we are bad, he is overly critical of the Hawks.
 


StanzisLettuce said:
When you get too comfortable you end up napping. When KF wakes up from his nap he's liable to be looking up at everyone else in the conference wondering how they got there.
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Isn't a 4-8 season with 2 conference wins already looking up at the rest of a mediocre league?
 


Eda said:
This article is making mountains out of molehills! Rittenberg contradicts his argument over and over again! He says we need to be in Florida, and then cites Michigan didn't recruit anyone from there this year.
He claims its a MUST we go to Florida, then notes Penn St just got their first one from there in 10 years.
Furthermore, he documents the misses we've had lately. Florida isn't working for us anymore.
Ritt fails to mention the ties we have in Texas (Davis and Kennedy), yet insists we get into Florida.
I think we're going to be hitting Texas hard, and that's why KF pulled his resources out of Florida.

I've got nothing against AR, but he seems to be extreme at times. Whether it be when we are good, he is higher than a kite on us; or when we are bad, he is overly critical of the Hawks.
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Adam doesn't look like he played much football during his lifetime. Not sure he knows recruiting all that well either.
 


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