BigD
Well-Known Member
I get what you are saying about not needing a gimmick if you have better players. But isn't finding a gimmick that helps you win considered good coaching?
Yes and no. There may be times when you have to go to a gimmick when you've lost a Senior laden team and have an inexperienced and young team. However if it becomes the standard because of mediocre recruiting then you have a problem. That falls totally on the coaching staff. Every season football or basketball the Iowa faithful try to imagine in their hearts these great players that are coming into the respective programs. Recruiting experts are constantly putting our recruiting classes in the bottom third of the conference. That's why I said if you can land in at least the top six or seven in the conference in recruiting then you have a good chance of competing head to head.
I think this run and gun attack may be running our players into the ground by the end of the season. That could explain the late season collapses two out of last three seasons. Fran is a good coach but until he starts landing a high quality point guard and develop a serious post position offensive threat then it's just going to be the same ole same ole. Cook could possibly be that guy offensively but the team lacks the defensive shot blocking intimidator who owns the the defensive glass. What can you say about the point guard position. This has been lacking since Fran got here. Moss has shown flashes of it. I really like how he can finish at the rim and take contact and score. That's a great quality for a point guard. His outside shot is lacking however and he sometimes tries to force things and gets hit with charging calls.
Fran is a tremendous improvement over Lickliter, however we may have seen as good as it's going to get. His most recent recruiting classes appear that there maybe improvement there. I would say give him three more seasons tops and if things haven't changed and improved then I am afraid Iowa maybe looking for a new head coach. Even as I say that I have to remind myself of the mindset of the people at Iowa that make these decisions............. exhale..........sigh.
I am hoping that one of these players will come out from what we have and excel and pull this team up to a level we haven't reached before. Cook APPEARS to be a step in the right direction but he can't do alone. I hate to think of next year's team without Joc's offensive threat. Uhl looked very promising as a freshman and I cannot explain what happened there. I also think of Gesell's freshman year during the first half of the season as he looked like he was going to be very special but by the end of his freshman year he appeared that he would be a good game manager but not a super star.
As usual hoping for the best but not expecting it. The life of a HAWKEYE fan. On the football side of things after eighteen years does anyone ever expect any thing to change? Are the results acceptable? Not to me but apparently to the powers that be it's just fine after all the bottom line is REVENUE and as long as that's good NOTHING is going to change.