It is absolutely my place, because I have been a lifelong Hawkeye fan too. My issue is not with questioning of the coaches or the gameplan or the play calls, etc. My issue is when a fan says that they are apathetic with the way we play, whether we win or lose, so much so that your team wins, and it is still not good enough because they didn't score enough points and were "freaking boring." My response to that is that it is what it is, and it has always been this way, as long as anyone on this board has been alive. Iowa football has an identity, and it was the same during Hayden's years as it is Kirk's (it definitely was boring before Hayden). That identity is to play great defense, be physical on both sides of the ball, be balanced on offense, play great special teams, protect the ball and out work our opponent, all while playing the game the right way, within the rules, and being respectful win or lose and of the game. That is not just Iowa football, that is Iowa. That is why that ethic, that mindset, is so entrenched with those who were born into it. But not every team has the same identity as there are a lot of ways to build a program. We have seen some build programs based off of talent at all cost, and they can win that way. For a while. SMU was fun to watch for a couple years, USC was fun to watch for a few years, and of course Nebraska wasnt fun to watch but they won games. Some teams dont value balance, they play no defense and want to out-score the opponent. Oklahoma State scores a lot of points, but gives up a lot too. So does Oklahoma, or Washington State. Some teams even cheat and have little respect for their opponent or the game as the only goal is to win. Miami in the 80's was pretty fun to watch too. But you know what, none of those reflect Iowa and what the state really is.
Right now we are not the most physical team against all of our competition. Right now our special teams is average, and right now we aren't very balanced because we can't run the ball effectively both because of a lack of a great back and weaknesses on the offensive line. Overall, if you look at our roster and grade our players into 3 categories; elite talent, average, and not FBS material, we have no elite talent on offense with a couple positions that would border on not FBS material and everyone else average. If you look at Wisconsin right now, a team that if you switched their jersey's to Iowa's that not one single person would have anything negative to say or would be apathetic, are basically Iowa without the weaknesses on offensive line and a generational elite talent at running back as well as a quarterback that can run. Thats it. They are the same type of team, same philosophy and identity. Guess how they got theirs? From us. That is the way it is right now, maybe this entire season. And we just lost to two teams that we were predicted to lose to, that on paper were much more talented that have far great resources than us, but we played hard to the end and didn't give up. I don't see how you can be apathetic about that.
