Iowa is 18-30 in games decided by 4 points or less

[1977Hawkeye]

I think Ferentz is/has been a good coach. You don't finish Top 10 three straight years based on pure luck. However, I think a lot of it was due to a few things:

Good assistants back in that stretch from 2002-04, which he does not have now.

I also simply think that Kirk just doesn't have the fire that he used to - he said it himself, that he hadn't been as engaged with the program the last few years. I already suggested this was the case simply due to age, and also the fat contract. I don't hold the contract against him, but I feel it's hard to have the same edge when things are that cushy.

And, there were things that worked 10-15 years ago in this game that I think are not as effective today. The game has changed, and yes, that means I feel the game has passed Kirk by to some degree.

He says a lot of things that p!$$ most of us off, myself included, but I think a lot of it is just coach speak that we read too much into. He probably said similar things back in 2002-04, but we didn't think anything of it because we were winning at a much higher level.

Just my 2 cents.

 

[PCHawk]

If you don't like my "we were better off with no running game" theory then I will have to go to my backup theory. Tate to Holloway. If that doesn't happen we wouldn't have ended up in the top 10.

So to recap, in one year we needed every other high ranked team to lose more than most years. Luck. In another year we needed a safety to forget he was on the field. Luck. Another year we needed about 15 breaks. Luck. I will say Kirk was really good at fielding good teams back then. Unfortunately when you need luck to win with really good teams, you're in serious trouble when you don't have a really good team.

 

[PCHawk]

It's hard to know what would have been the case with a healthy Big Ten caliber running back, it's guesswork, but there is no denying that Tate carried the team that year, because he had to. And, to the credit of the coaches, they recognized it that year, and built the offense around him. Maybe, just maybe, they can repeat that this year with Beathard.

The only way they repeat it this year is if all of our runningbacks get hurt. The 2 things we know for sure is Kirk doesn't think Brownlee is good enough to keep a balanced offense, and Kirk does think Weisman is good enough to keep a balanced offense.

 

[PCHawk]

I think Ferentz is/has been a good coach. You don't finish Top 10 three straight years based on pure luck. However, I think a lot of it was due to a few things:

Good assistants back in that stretch from 2002-04, which he does not have now.

I also simply think that Kirk just doesn't have the fire that he used to - he said it himself, that he hadn't been as engaged with the program the last few years. I already suggested this was the case simply due to age, and also the fat contract. I don't hold the contract against him, but I feel it's hard to have the same edge when things are that cushy.

And, there were things that worked 10-15 years ago in this game that I think are not as effective today. The game has changed, and yes, that means I feel the game has passed Kirk by to some degree.

He says a lot of things that p!$$ most of us off, myself included, but I think a lot of it is just coach speak that we read too much into. He probably said similar things back in 2002-04, but we didn't think anything of it because we were winning at a much higher level.

Just my 2 cents.

I agree that Kirk had to do a lot of things right for those 3 years to happen. What I hate though is it's hard enough to get top 10 caliber teams at iowa without having to worry about your head coach pi$$ing them down his leg with his horrible game coaching.

 

[HawkeyeWalker]

Pretty good thread. Thanks fellas, good points all around (Outside of one particular poster, who's getting a little tiresome, even for us optimists)

 

[RocknRollface]

I think it's more Kirk was a good coach and they expect him to turn it around still They don't realize Kirk can't turn it around because he didn't keep up with the changing of the game.

Im not sure he was ever a good coach.

He is good at spotting and developing guys but the game day coaching has always been suspect. He got extremely lucky with his personnel and having new schemes in his first run.

post 2004 the rest of the leauge has him figured out he has basically been 500 since.

 

[HuckFinn]

Have no fear...this issue has been resolved. We now have a running game coordinator who got a handsome raise. Losing close games is a thing of the past.

Sorry to be so out of touch...what kind of raise did Brian F. get? How did it compare to other assistant coaches?

 

[CP87]

As far as '04 goes, i absolutely believe we would have finished worse with healthy runningbacks. We put the offense on the shoulders of our best player and we won games because of it.

But during the previous years with healthy backs the offense was more productive. In 2004 they scored 4 fewer points per game than in 2003, how can that be an advantage? How do you reconcile your argument with this fact? Jermelle Lewis was not exactly an afterthought as RB.

As for the bowl win, there was certainly a degree of luck at the end. However, you also have to acknowledge that they played an excellent team to a 50/50 game, allowing them to take advantage of the lucky break. A bad coach would not have gotten his team to that game or kept his team in the game. No one is going to give him credit for 50/50 games that he lost on bad breaks, so you shouldn't take away credit on 50/50 games he won on good breaks.

 

[CP87]

Im not sure he was ever a good coach.

He is good at spotting and developing guys but the game day coaching has always been suspect. He got extremely lucky with his personnel and having new schemes in his first run.

post 2004 the rest of the leauge has him figured out he has basically been 500 since.

What makes you think it was luck? It was not one lucky signing (ala Cam Newton) that single-handedly elevated the team. It was three straight years of quality players top to bottom. How does one "luck" into that?

The coach is responsible for the entire product. When the product is mediocre, as it has been for the last decade, are you willing to give him a break and say it was just bad luck? I would guess no. So why are you so quick to take his early success and just dismiss it? Can you think of 1 bad coach who has finished in the top 10 multiple times?

 

[PCHawk]

But during the previous years with healthy backs the offense was more productive. In 2004 they scored 4 fewer points per game than in 2003, how can that be an advantage? How do you reconcile your argument with this fact? Jermelle Lewis was not exactly an afterthought as RB.

As for the bowl win, there was certainly a degree of luck at the end. However, you also have to acknowledge that they played an excellent team to a 50/50 game, allowing them to take advantage of the lucky break. A bad coach would not have gotten his team to that game or kept his team in the game. No one is going to give him credit for 50/50 games that he lost on bad breaks, so you shouldn't take away credit on 50/50 games he won on good breaks.

If we had Lewis all year we would have been a better team but we very well might not finish with as good of record. Kirk probably would have pi$$ed away at least one win by trying to run out the clock, going 3 and out, and punting 5 times in a row. With Brownlee he didn't have that option. My last arguement is how did we do as a team before Brownlee was the starter?

As far as the Cap 1 bowl goes, i do give Kirk credit for fielding a good enough team to have a 50/50 chance against a team like LSU. But my origional arguement was he was lucky to have those top 10 finishes. He didn't get lucky to field a team capable of going 5-3 in conference, that was his coaching. He got lucky to be rewarded a top 10 finish with that record due to what the rest of the country did. He didn't get lucky to field a team capable of going toe to toe with LSU. He got lucky to win it and end up in the top 10 due to that luck.

The Cap 1 bowl actually helps what i just said earlier. We might have been 50/50 to start the game, but we were probably about 80/20 to start the 4th quarter. That's when Kirk does what Kirk does. He shuts the offense down and tries to run out the clock (an option made available to him by Brownlee no longer being the RB).

 

[CP87]

I guess neither of us is going to convince the other, so we might as well stop trying.

Another way to look at it: there is always going to be a lot of luck in FB, and a good season will almost always require breaks to go your way. However, your team still needs to be put in a position where they can capitalize on breaks. A lucky bounce of a ball, or good health, means nothing if your team is getting shellacked by multiple scores each game. In the first 5 years of his tenure, Coach Ferentz was very good at putting his team in a position to capitalize.

On the flip side, what rightfully frustrates fans over the last decade is he has too often put his team in a position where it can be negatively affected by bad breaks. That is, his teams have not been good enough to insulate themselves against bad luck.

I think a lot of people are letting the mediocre past decade cloud their assessment of just how good a job he did in his first 5 years.

 

[PCHawk]

I guess neither of us is going to convince the other, so we might as well stop trying.

Another way to look at it: there is always going to be a lot of luck in FB, and a good season will almost always require breaks to go your way. However, your team still needs to be put in a position where they can capitalize on breaks. A lucky bounce of a ball, or good health, means nothing if your team is getting shellacked by multiple scores each game. In the first 5 years of his tenure, Coach Ferentz was very good at putting his team in a position to capitalize.

On the flip side, what rightfully frustrates fans over the last decade is he has too often put his team in a position where it can be negatively affected by bad breaks. That is, his teams have not been good enough to insulate themselves against bad luck.

I think a lot of people are letting the mediocre past decade cloud their assessment of just how good a job he did in his first 5 years.

Yea something has changed since then. He put together 3 really good teams in '02-'04 (really through '05) and really good teams from '08-'10. You would be crazy to think that's not great for Iowa. The problem is, whether his coaching has changed or whether he just got more lucky in the first 3 years, the results and the eye test wasn't the same during the last stretch of good teams. I think it's a combination of both.

Even in the first stretch he showed his bad tendencies like sitting on small leads and bad clock management. He just got away with it more often. I think he has gotten worse over the years with sitting on small leads and that's how '09 was so crazy and how '10 was so bad. When you have a really good team it is horrible strategy to try to win close games against bad teams. He was bad at it in his early years and he got worse as he's gotten older.

Also player management has gotten worse with age. The reason we almost lost to UNI in '09 was he inexplicably had Paki running the ball missing wide open holes instead of Arob and Wehger.

 

[HomerChampless]

Currently there are a few successful pro coaches that use conservative football philosophy that is somewhat akin to KF's philosophy. KF's philosophy is different because he doesn't demand a staunch defense. A good one will do. A glaring error, IMO.

For example, St. Louis' HC coach and Tennessee's HC coach (maybe the current Titan HC learned his philosophy from the previous Titan HC). use conservative football philosophy and this philosophy was successful for the Jets' HC before their defense became pudgy.

Herein lies the problem with KF's philosophy of a heavy dose of running to be part of a constant winning combination: the defense has to strangle and Iowa's defense hasn't been strangling since, IMO, 2008. A staunch defense also masks any bad coaching decisions.

 

[DBAHawkFan]

Yea something has changed since then. He put together 3 really good teams in '02-'04 (really through '05) and really good teams from '08-'10. You would be crazy to think that's not great for Iowa. The problem is, whether his coaching has changed or whether he just got more lucky in the first 3 years, the results and the eye test wasn't the same during the last stretch of good teams. I think it's a combination of both.

Even in the first stretch he showed his bad tendencies like sitting on small leads and bad clock management. He just got away with it more often. I think he has gotten worse over the years with sitting on small leads and that's how '09 was so crazy and how '10 was so bad. When you have a really good team it is horrible strategy to try to win close games against bad teams. He was bad at it in his early years and he got worse as he's gotten older.

Also player management has gotten worse with age. The reason we almost lost to UNI in '09 was he inexplicably had Paki running the ball missing wide open holes instead of Arob and Wehger.

What changed is we lost one hell of a coaching staff that he put together. And then the biggest loss was Norm a few years ago. Look at the team since his passing. We are HORRIBLE at special teams. We are consistently giving up big plays.....one thing I could always count on with Iowa is that their defense would do a great job of holding big plays to a minimum. We can't even defend the zone read, and any time a pass goes over 20 yards, it seems like it's completed or taken for a TD.

KF did a great job of putting together his first staff. We had an NFL coaching staff. When we lost Philbin, BB, Aiken, and others....our recruiting went south, and we lost some of our edge. We still had Norm though, and he put together incredible defenses in 2008/2009. 2010 was when his health went south, and we lost LB's....or that defense would have been more salty.

Now we have a bunch of unknowns. It's obvious KF runs Iowa like an NFL franchise, but he never replaced his NFL coaches with new NFL guys.

 

[PCHawk]

Also as far as having to get lucky to have a great season goes. I agree you need to get lucky and win the 50/50 games against teams like LSU and '09 Penn State. What i hate is constantly getting put into a situation where you have to get lucky against crappy teams that you manhandle for 50 minutes just to give everything back at the end.

I know I've said this before but Kirk tried so hard to kill '02 by sitting on a 22 point lead against Penn State and horrible clock management against Purdue. We got extremely lucky to excape with wins in both of them games. Could you imagine how bad he would be getting ripped to this day if he lost to ISU, gave up a 22 point lead and lost, and lost a 3rd time by calling a ridiculous timeout leaving enough time for Purdue to come down and score? That team with 3 losses would have been a tragedy. All because of the same problems we are seeing a decade later.

And as good as '03 looks on paper, what was special about it? The bowl game was incredible, probably one of the better games in Kirk's time here. But other than that, he had a typical conference record. I guess unfortunately you can say it's special that he actually went undefeated in the non conference.

 

[CP87]

Now we have a bunch of unknowns. It's obvious KF runs Iowa like an NFL franchise, but he never replaced his NFL coaches with new NFL guys.

That really does seem to be one of his greatest areas of failure. Whether due to loyalty, risk-aversion, lack of urgency, etc., the staff just has not evolved in a way that allowed continued success.

The Oregon situation actually has a ton of similarities to Iowa. From pretty humble beginnings, they gradually grew through a combination of good coaches and stability (and infused Nike money). Belloti's tenure was pretty similar to Ferentz's tenure. But 2 years before stepping away from the HC position, he hired a wacky OC from New Hampshire named Chip Kelly. That breathed new life into the program, and Kelly was able to take over for Bellotti and take Oregon to new heights.

There has been no "new life" in Iowa's program for a long time. Lots of former players, re-shuffling of staff positions, etc.. That will ultimately be part of Ferentz's legacy.

 

[PCHawk]

That really does seem to be one of his greatest areas of failure. Whether due to loyalty, risk-aversion, lack of urgency, etc., the staff just has not evolved in a way that allowed continued success.

The Oregon situation actually has a ton of similarities to Iowa. From pretty humble beginnings, they gradually grew through a combination of good coaches and stability (and infused Nike money). Belloti's tenure was pretty similar to Ferentz's tenure. But 2 years before stepping away from the HC position, he hired a wacky OC from New Hampshire named Chip Kelly. That breathed new life into the program, and Kelly was able to take over for Bellotti and take Oregon to new heights.

There has been no "new life" in Iowa's program for a long time. Lots of former players, re-shuffling of staff positions, etc.. That will ultimately be part of Ferentz's legacy.

I was so excited when he had to hire a new OC. He could have rid all his coaching deficiencies with one right hire. Hire a great offensive mind who could manage a 2 minute drill, decide when it's time to try to score at the end of halfs and games, decide when it's time to step on throats. One great hire to go along with Kirk's developing (or at least what we all think or thought was Kirk's great developing) and we could have been a great national program for 13 years strait right now. Man he dropped the ball with his hire.

 

[ArvadaHawk]

It is almost as if the philosophy changed TO Always play close games and then to "out execute" the other team. But that hasn't worked very well, based on the title of this thread. Why that hasn't changed, I can't say.

 

[PCHawk]

It is almost as if the philosophy changed TO Always play close games and then to "out execute" the other team. But that hasn't worked very well, based on the title of this thread. Why that hasn't changed, I can't say.

The way i see it, if you have a close game and one team is trying to make a play to get the win while the other team is trying not to make a mistake, hoping the other team screws up and loses, the team that is trying to make a play will win about 2/3 of the time, which sounds about right.

It's kinda like poker where the more aggressive player has a better chance to win because they can win 2 ways while their opponent can only win 1 way. They can win by having the better hand at the end and by having the worse hand but getting the other player to fold. They less aggressive player can only win 1 way, they have to have the best hand. The more aggressive team in football can win by making a play and by the other team screwing up (even though they are trying at all costs not to). The non agressive team can usually only win if the other team screws up.

 

[ArvadaHawk]

The way i see it, if you have a close game and one team is trying to make a play to get the win while the other team is trying not to make a mistake, hoping the other team screws up and loses, the team that is trying to make a play will win about 2/3 of the time, which sounds about right.

It's kinda like poker where the more aggressive player has a better chance to win because they can win 2 ways while their opponent can only win 1 way. They can win by having the better hand at the end and by having the worse hand but getting the other player to fold. They less aggressive player can only win 1 way, they have to have the best hand. The more aggressive team in football can win by making a play and by the other team screwing up (even though they are trying at all costs not to). The non agressive team can usually only win if the other team screws up.

good analogy.