Are these damning stats for Brian Ferentz?

[NikeHawk21]

Yes, the offense almost always sucks. KF obviously doesn't prioritize scoring.

The more interesting / telling info is the lack of success against the upper half of the conference.

Makes me glad I'm not in the "7 or 8 wins every year is good enough" crowd!

I’m not saying I’m in that group or we shouldn't all strive for more success.

My question I guess is if you’re not one of those people what have you done to effect the change you desire? Did you stop attending games? Did you stop purchasing Iowa apparel? Did you write to GB? Herrald? Did you stop watching Iowa games on TV?

My guess is no to all the above. Basically you’re happy you’re not in the 8 to 9 win crowd so you can bash people on a message board who you consider in that crowd (again not me). To each there own but that really doesn’t do anything for me.

 

[4thngoal]

Common, this is just dumb. We lost the last two games because we were minus 6 in TO. Even though we were minus 6 in TO, we still had a chance to win both games.

Even good offenses struggle against good defenses. Penn St. scored 30 points FEWER vs Iowa than they were averaging. Penn St. gained over 200 yards less vs Iowa than they had been averaging. Should Penn St. burn their offense to the ground, fire the OC because they did so much worse vs Iowa's D, then they were doing vs everyone else? They struggled to do much of anything vs Iowa. Guess what, Penn St. has a freaking good defense as well, so Iowa struggled against is just like they struggled vs our good defense.

Penn St. had one good drive all game long. It was the minus 2 in turnovers that cost Iowa the game. Penn St. scored 10 points off 2 Iowa turnovers, both with short fields to work with.

Nobody is arguing that we have a very good defense. The point is a HS teams offense could have turned the ball over that many times. A HS teams offense couldn't have done any worse against Michigan then lose by 3 more points then we did. In other words we lost 2 games by 12 points, this much is true. But we Only scored 15 in 2 games.
That's the problem. If we lost 3-0 in both games would it be better? Absolutely not. We already know we have a good defense.
But then everyone could say we only lost by 6 points in 2 games. (Never mind the fact that we could of just downed the ball every play and punted every possession)

 

[hawkeyes87]

I don't think many people want 7 or 8 wins a year...

..We got to 9 wins last year.

Based on your sig, 8 wins is a good season. So, you don't want a "good season"?

But, when I referenced the "7 or 8 wins every year is good enough" crowd, I was talking about regular-season W's. So last year was 8 wins.

Since you brought it up, though, let's look at that full 9-win season. How many of those wins were against those upper-half, .500 or better B1G teams? Zero. Best pre-bowl wins were the first two- 8-wins MAC champ & ISU. Nice bowl win. AP #25.

2nd best season since 2009, and they barely crack the top-25 (or, didn't, per coaches).

Yippee?

This year, if they win out except WIS, that would be 9 wins. How many upper-half B1G wins? 1 at least (MIN). So, ISU and MIN as best wins? Bowl win would be 10 wins. "Great season" by your sig. A great season, where the bowl win was the only top-25 win.

Yippee again.

 

[hawkeyes87]

Basically you’re happy you’re not in the 8 to 9 win crowd so you can bash people on a message board who you consider in that crowd (again not me). To each there own but that really doesn’t do anything for me.

So is my saying I'm glad I'm not in that crowd your idea of bashing, or do you have another example of me bashing people on this board?

As you said, "to each there own", but to me disagreeing w/ that crowd and bashing them aren't the same thing.

 

[NikeHawk21]

So is my saying I'm glad I'm not in that crowd your idea of bashing, or do you have another example of me bashing people on this board?

As you said, "to each there own", but to me disagreeing w/ that crowd and bashing them aren't the same thing.

I’m saying why are you glad you are in that crowd? What does that do for you? Okay you feel you’re right about being in that crowd and not thinking like those others. Again what does that do for you?

Humble brag I guess I just found it as a pretty odd statement.

 

[deanvogs]

Based on your sig, 8 wins is a good season. So, you don't want a "good season"?

But, when I referenced the "7 or 8 wins every year is good enough" crowd, I was talking about regular-season W's. So last year was 8 wins.

Since you brought it up, though, let's look at that full 9-win season. How many of those wins were against those upper-half, .500 or better B1G teams? Zero. Best pre-bowl wins were the first two- 8-wins MAC champ & ISU. Nice bowl win. AP #25.

2nd best season since 2009, and they barely crack the top-25 (or, didn't, per coaches).

Yippee?

This year, if they win out except WIS, that would be 9 wins. How many upper-half B1G wins? 1 at least (MIN). So, ISU and MIN as best wins? Bowl win would be 10 wins. "Great season" by your sig. A great season, where the bowl win was the only top-25 win.

Yippee again.

Why would you not talk about total wins? We typically play a top 25 team in a bowl game, why does that not "count" as a win for you? Would it somehow be better if we lost to Miss St. last year, but beat Purdue? Then you want to blow it off like the bowl win wasn't a good one? I mean you are struggling here, and my signature accounts for ALL GAMES.

So if we go 9-4, and lose to Michigan, Penn St., Wisconsin and lose in a bowl game, you are saying that is somehow bad? So would it be better if we beat Michigan, Penn St., Wisconsin and a bowl team, but LOST to ISU, Minnesota, Purdue and Northwestern?

JFC man a 9-4 team is good, they just aren't top 10 good. 9-4 teams lose to top 25 teams and handle the rest of their business. That is what 9-4 teams have been since time and memorial, why do you think other 9-4 teams are any different?

 

[deanvogs]

Nobody is arguing that we have a very good defense. The point is a HS teams offense could have turned the ball over that many times. A HS teams offense couldn't have done any worse against Michigan then lose by 3 more points then we did. In other words we lost 2 games by 12 points, this much is true. But we Only scored 15 in 2 games.
That's the problem. If we lost 3-0 in both games would it be better? Absolutely not. We already know we have a good defense.
But then everyone could say we only lost by 6 points in 2 games. (Never mind the fact that we could of just downed the ball every play and punted every possession)

LOL, so only HS teams turn the ball over? Penn St. had an offense that was averaging 47 PPG and 500 YPG. They went up against Iowa and scored 17 points (10 off turnovers) and had less than 300 yards of offense. Iowa's offense isn't anywhere near as good as Penn St. Iowa's offense doesn't have anywhere near the athletes that Penn St. offense does. Yet they moved the ball as well as Penn St. did, they just had a fumble and a pick, those happen to the best players. Turnovers have been deciding winners and losers in college football for over 100 years. The Iowa vs Penn St. game was no different.

 

[hawkeyes87]

JFC man a 9-4 team is good, they just aren't top 10 good.

Let me see if I can follow your "logic" here.

It seems you're saying 9-4 is, maybe, #11-25 good, right? "they just aren't top-10 good". Like last year- AP #25?

But,

9-4 teams lose to top 25 teams and handle the rest of their business.

They lose to other top-25 teams? So they're a "fake-ID"? To me, if you say a team belongs in a certain tier of teams, they should be expected to win half their games against other teams in that tier (because they're equals / toss-ups).

Oh, and

KF is tied for the 15th most wins of all P5 teams over the last 5 years,

If this is a meaningful stat, you're saying they're in that top-25 tier (otherwise you're saying they're mostly hollow wins). Yet they lose to most of the better teams they play? You expect them to lose to top-25 teams?

 

[4thngoal]

LOL, so only HS teams turn the ball over? Penn St. had an offense that was averaging 47 PPG and 500 YPG. They went up against Iowa and scored 17 points (10 off turnovers) and had less than 300 yards of offense. Iowa's offense isn't anywhere near as good as Penn St. Iowa's offense doesn't have anywhere near the athletes that Penn St. offense does. Yet they moved the ball as well as Penn St. did, they just had a fumble and a pick, those happen to the best players. Turnovers have been deciding winners and losers in college football for over 100 years. The Iowa vs Penn St. game was no different.

You have obviously taken an extreme. That's why I did.
You want a winning team? Go look at one.
They hold other teams to lower scores. Check, we've done that. They also score points. We have scored 33 points in 3 games (ISU, Mich, PSU). Come on man, that's an 11 point avg. For reference, the best defense (isn't Wisconsin rated that right now?) Didn't hold Michigan or Northwestern to under 11.
In other words the best defense in the league and Wisconsin would have still lost those games if they were getting 11 points a game.
Like I said, no we are not giving up points.
But unless you plan on going into ot at 0-0 you need to score some. 11 points a game avg is not going to cut it. (11 ppg avg against anyone with a pulse).
So yeah, I would say really we couldn't lose by much more (our D still holds their points down) if we transplanted the entire offense from a D3 school.

 

[HaydenHawk56]

They’ll throw out the following: can’t possibly do any better, great guy, nfl players bla bla bla (who the hell cares about that?), meaningless bowl games against also ran teams from other p5 conferences that are also there due to conference negotiated leverage, no of wins (the tom davis stat - only means you’ve been somewhere a long time. Focus is never on quality wins). They’ll throw out all the walk on success (every coach has these with these kinds of numbers). And they’ll generalize with throwing out win totals and bowl game numbers- all are strictly indicative of coaching at a p5 school with significant resources and naturally being the favorite through powder puff scheduling in roughly 7 games per year. And bowls line up naturally due to conference negotiations. He won when he had top assistants in the early 2000’s. It’s been a lot of smoke and mirrors since then. And far and away his mvp has been barta, parker, morgan, iowa media and big money boosters that have supported him.

 

[deanvogs]

Let me see if I can follow your "logic" here.

It seems you're saying 9-4 is, maybe, #11-25 good, right? "they just aren't top-10 good". Like last year- AP #25?

But,



They lose to other top-25 teams? So they're a "fake-ID"? To me, if you say a team belongs in a certain tier of teams, they should be expected to win half their games against other teams in that tier (because they're equals / toss-ups).

Oh, and



If this is a meaningful stat, you're saying they're in that top-25 tier (otherwise you're saying they're mostly hollow wins). Yet they lose to most of the better teams they play? You expect them to lose to top-25 teams?

Who do you think 9-4 teams are losing to? Do you think they are regularly losing to 6-6 teams, or do you think they are losing to other 8+ win teams?

If you are 10-3 you are a top 15 team, those teams are in a different category for a reason. They probably won that 1 extra game vs a fellow top 25 team.

 

[deanvogs]

You have obviously taken an extreme. That's why I did.
You want a winning team? Go look at one.
They hold other teams to lower scores. Check, we've done that. They also score points. We have scored 33 points in 3 games (ISU, Mich, PSU). Come on man, that's an 11 point avg. For reference, the best defense (isn't Wisconsin rated that right now?) Didn't hold Michigan or Northwestern to under 11.
In other words the best defense in the league and Wisconsin would have still lost those games if they were getting 11 points a game.
Like I said, no we are not giving up points.
But unless you plan on going into ot at 0-0 you need to score some. 11 points a game avg is not going to cut it. (11 ppg avg against anyone with a pulse).
So yeah, I would say really we couldn't lose by much more (our D still holds their points down) if we transplanted the entire offense from a D3 school.

You don't seem to want to listen. You are claiming that any D3 school's offense is better than Iowa's, yet Penn St. offense which was averaging 47 PPG and 500 YPG couldn't manage 300 yards of offense against a good defense (neither did Iowa's). Plus Penn St. Offense only scores 7 points without the aid of turnovers.

It ain't so easy to move the ball against good defenses, and that is why turnovers are so important. Iowa had turnovers and Penn St. didn't that is why they won. If Iowa's offense got gifted 2 turnovers that led to 10 points, Iowa wins this game handily.

 

[hawk2th]

I was at a holiday party last year. A high school player in Iowa who is being recruited many schools father was there. He was telling us that every visitation they took at a Big 10 school , that every head coach told them that they hope Brian Ferentz is the next coach at Iowa.

How many consecutive seasons are you going to throw this out there, Estrogen?

 

[NikeHawk21]

Why would you not talk about total wins? We typically play a top 25 team in a bowl game, why does that not "count" as a win for you? Would it somehow be better if we lost to Miss St. last year, but beat Purdue? Then you want to blow it off like the bowl win wasn't a good one? I mean you are struggling here, and my signature accounts for ALL GAMES.

So if we go 9-4, and lose to Michigan, Penn St., Wisconsin and lose in a bowl game, you are saying that is somehow bad? So would it be better if we beat Michigan, Penn St., Wisconsin and a bowl team, but LOST to ISU, Minnesota, Purdue and Northwestern?

JFC man a 9-4 team is good, they just aren't top 10 good. 9-4 teams lose to top 25 teams and handle the rest of their business. That is what 9-4 teams have been since time and memorial, why do you think other 9-4 teams are any different?

There used to be this complaint that Iowa always lost to a team or two they shouldn’t have. That isn’t the case thus far this year. If that does happen I would agree this season is trending more toward a failure.

Where we stand today we’ve lost two games to top 20 teams one on the road and one at home. We beat a fairly solid ISU team on the road. We are currently ranked in the top 25 nationally. Am I pissed about the last two losses? Absolutely. Am I pissed about the offense? Absolutely. But I’m also realistic, losing close games to two teams of those caliber is hardly a dumpster fire as some are making it out.

The second part is about Wisconsin. Coming into the year most said that game was the biggest of the year, and it still is. Typically the west runs through Madison. So now everyone is saying we have no chance in that one, which might be true. My question is how is it Iowa’s fault that UW is a top 6 team in the country right now? Wisconsin has the #1 defense in the country right now and a Runningback that is on pace to be one of the top 10 best Runningbacks in the history of college football. How is that Iowa’s fault?

So what’s at stake the rest of the way. Let’s go see what happens at Madison, nothing to lose at this point everyone thinks we are going to get crushed. Maybe we lose but we still have a reasonable chance at a 10 win season. No fan base in the country outside of Bama, Clemson, OU, and Georgia is allowed to complain about a 10 win season.

 

[deanvogs]

There used to be this complaint that Iowa always lost to a team or two they shouldn’t have. That isn’t the case thus far this year. If that does happen I would agree this season is trending more toward a failure.

Where we stand today we’ve lost two games to top 20 teams one on the road and one at home. We beat a fairly solid ISU team on the road. We are currently ranked in the top 25 nationally. Am I pissed about the last two losses? Absolutely. Am I pissed about the offense? Absolutely. But I’m also realistic, losing close games to two teams of those caliber is hardly a dumpster fire as some are making it out.

The second part is about Wisconsin. Coming into the year most said that game was the biggest of the year, and it still is. Typically the west runs through Madison. So now everyone is saying we have no chance in that one, which might be true. My question is how is it Iowa’s fault that UW is a top 6 team in the country right now? Wisconsin has the #1 defense in the country right now and a Runningback that is on pace to be one of the top 10 best Runningbacks in the history of college football. How is that Iowa’s fault?

So what’s at stake the rest of the way. Let’s go see what happens at Madison, nothing to lose at this point everyone thinks we are going to get crushed. Maybe we lose but we still have a reasonable chance at a 10 win season. No fan base in the country outside of Bama, Clemson, OU, and Georgia is allowed to complain about a 10 win season.

JFC @NikeHawk21 this is no time or place for reasonable, well thought out debate!

 

[hawkeyes87]

Who do you think 9-4 teams are losing to? Do you think they are regularly losing to 6-6 teams, or do you think they are losing to other 8+ win teams?

Come on, man, I expect a little more from you!

Last year the Hawks finished 9-4.

One of those L's was to a PU team that lost their bowl to finish...wait for it...6-7.

 

[deanvogs]

Come on, man, I expect a little more from you!

Last year the Hawks finished 9-4.

One of those L's was to a PU team that lost their bowl to finish...wait for it...6-7.

Sadly, I don't expect anything from you at all. All you are doing is moving the goalposts all over the place. Just answer this, what is a "good" 9-4 team to you? Is it one that won 4 games against top 25 teams, but lost to 4 sub .500 teams? Is it one that only lost to 1 top 25 team, but lost 3 to 7 win teams? Is it one that lost 4 games to top 25 teams, but beat everyone else?

I mean you are all over the board, you are trying to act like there are "good" 9-4 teams and "bad" 9-4 teams. I'm trying to tell you that 9-4 teams are 9-4 for a reason, they AREN'T beating all the top 25 teams they are playing and they are probably losing 1 or 2 games to 7 win teams or less.

If you want to pretend that 9-4 teams aren't good, because they lose to top 25 teams, or dropped a game or two against non top 25 teams, then that is your prerogative, and I'm thinking that you might just want to become a 1990's Huskers fan if you want to be happy.

 

[hwk23]

You don't seem to want to listen. You are claiming that any D3 school's offense is better than Iowa's, yet Penn St. offense which was averaging 47 PPG and 500 YPG couldn't manage 300 yards of offense against a good defense (neither did Iowa's). Plus Penn St. Offense only scores 7 points without the aid of turnovers.

It ain't so easy to move the ball against good defenses, and that is why turnovers are so important. Iowa had turnovers and Penn St. didn't that is why they won. If Iowa's offense got gifted 2 turnovers that led to 10 points, Iowa wins this game handily.

Iowa actually did get over 300 yards, We outgained PSU by about 60 yards I believe. Michigan outgained us by 7 yards.

 

[4thngoal]

You don't seem to want to listen. You are claiming that any D3 school's offense is better than Iowa's, yet Penn St. offense which was averaging 47 PPG and 500 YPG couldn't manage 300 yards of offense against a good defense (neither did Iowa's). Plus Penn St. Offense only scores 7 points without the aid of turnovers.

It ain't so easy to move the ball against good defenses, and that is why turnovers are so important. Iowa had turnovers and Penn St. didn't that is why they won. If Iowa's offense got gifted 2 turnovers that led to 10 points, Iowa wins this game handily.

I'm listening.
I'm saying that a D3 offense could of only barely done worse than our offense.
Can you hear me now? They could of only possibly scored 33 less points against ISU, Mich, PSU. They could of only possibly scored 3 less against Michigan. 12 less against PSU. That's not even a good D3 offense. THAT'S ANY OTHER OFFENSE.

Iowa actually did get over 300 yards, We outgained PSU by about 60 yards I believe. Michigan outgained us by 7 yards.

Ding ding ding. Giving up the underneath stuff but keeping points off the board.
That's a huge problem when you play ball control. In doing so, you will only have so many tries to put points up. So you better be doing it every chance you get. Again if their 1 successful try out of 5 tries is a TD and you have 2 out of 5 for fg's, guess what? You still lose.
In other words ball control and field goals do not go hand-in-hand.

 

[Xerxes]

I don't think many people want 7 or 8 wins a year. I think most feel like if we win 7 or 8 a year in our down years, then that aint bad. Of course you have to sprinkle in the '15, '09, '02 and '04 type seasons as well or the 7/8 win years start to ring hollow.

We got to 9 wins last year. We won 12 games 4 years ago. Over the last 5 years Iowa is tied for the 15th most wins of all P5 schools. It all has context, as we are NOT in a '05-'07 swoon right now. People are freaking out about the 2 losses way too much right now. I had Iowa at 4-2 after the first 6 games before the season, and I'd bet so did 90% of people on here. The season isn't over, there is a long ways to go. Now if we end up 6-6, then obviously freaking out is justified, but right seems too early to be freaking out.

But at some point we're not going to be able to include that 2015 season because it was so long ago.

For the record I'm not freaking out over 4-2. I thought it would be 3-3 honestly.

I am pissed over the blown opportunities in the last 2 weeks though.

Where I'm very concerned is Iowa's loss of identity. I was hopeful that with the OL returning players and Linderbaum emerging that we would finally start to see more consistent physical play there.

But I'm seeing a very clear pattern forming. Physical teams running on Iowa and Iowa can't run on them. Iowa making mistakes that kills them. That is the absolute antithesis of how KF build this program 20 years ago. Iowa used to make teams beat them and would kick the living shit out of physical teams.