Back away from the edge Hawk fans!

David79 said:
Another reason not to freak out. Despite what some fans think the recruits at the ISU game seem to have come away impressed. Karan Higdon is the kind of talent Iowa needs at RB and he was impressed with the visit.
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David this may or may not be true regarding Higdon's talent. But we are in season 3 of using MW as the primary tailback. Year 1 was due to injuries. Get that. But last season Daniels was brought in and has essentially been wasted in favor of still playing MW. Why is it always the "next" rb that we are recruiting that will be the answer? Why don't we have he answer already? This developmental program isn't developing players that are winning college football games, anymore.
 
BirdsOfPrey said:
I've watched every game Kirk Ferentz has coached at Iowa. It should be really obvious to Hawk fans by now that the football
program under Kirk relies on developing talent and remaining relatively injury free to achieve success. The Hawks don't simply reload the program with five star players and four star backups at every position. Every year, the Hawks have a few holes that need plugged. The Hawks have always started slowly in their opening few games. Pre-Big Ten play is conservative and inconsistent at best. Every year we seem to drop an early season game to ISU or some MAC team and barely survive a few others. It seems the goal is to develop talent, work on fundamentals, prevent injuries & not provide much worthwhile tape for Big Ten opponents to scout. What I'm saying is the Pre-Big Ten games under Kirk have never accurately predicted whether or not the Hawkeye go on to have a successful season. I know, dreams of a national championship killed already, but how realistic are those dreams. Given the Hawkeyes youth, saving those dreams for next year would seem more realistic.
We have talent, speed & depth at the receiver and tight end positions. The Hawks have multiple running back weapons. We have the playmakers on offense if they can get focused & figure out how to blend those skills into a working cohesive unit. The linebackers are improving. The D-line is solid & deep. We have two young talented cornerbacks and a hitman at safety. Punt coverage has been good. Kidd's punting improved dramatically in the Iowa State game. Koehn has a powerful turbo leg. He's drilling kickoffs into the endzone consistently. As he gains confidence, he could possibly become a field goal weapon as distance should not be a problem. Vandeberg looks like a potential star at punt returner. Canzeri is solid as a kick returner & J. Parker is fast if he can learn to hold onto the ball. The coaches will have their annual Pre-Big Ten meeting and make some decisions about personnel & Kirk will re-focus Davis on successful play calIing & Parker will start working the raider package. I think starting next week against Pitt, the Hawks all start showing up and playing a complete game. Sometimes young teams need a loss to gel as a team and buy in. I like Iowa's chances vs. Pitt. Pitt is almost one dimensionally a running team. Pitt has zero passing attack. Nobody is going to rush for 300-400 yards on the Hawks...bring it Pitt. Too many good solid parts
on this football team for them not to be successful.
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How about a change after 16 years and we actually pummel the living crap out of the cupcakes at the beginning of the season; you know, like good programs do. An FCS team in UNI, Ball St and ISU should be three easy, big margin wins. They never are with him. You know the non conference games still count towards the overall record right? Plus, it's a myth that Kirk's teams always get better as the season goes on (see 2006, 2010, 2011, 2012). Nah, why strive for excellence?
 
hoffahawk said:
Year 3 of an offensive system-

102nd in scoring O
92nd in yards per game

Since 2012 ISU has held a grand total of 4 teams under 20 points- Kansas, Western Illinois and Iowa TWICE.


I think every Iowa fan that is near an edge has a right to be there.
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And just think, these stats are against an FCS opponent, Ball State, and what was a winless ISU team. All in Kinnick. Does anyone think that things are actually going to improve when the schedule starts getting more difficult? Yeah, I know, we have an easy schedule this year. But it's still the Big Ten. It isn't going to be THAT easy. Surely not as easy as the schedule we've seen these first three games. This team will be lucky to make a bowl game this year unless something really changes. I'm thinking 4-5 wins.

I'm done investing any time and energy into watching this product. Until something changes for the better offensively, this is what we're going to get. Greg Davis and his offense is a complete tire fire, but KF apparently thinks he's fantastic, so I don't have much hope. There is ZERO big play ability in Davis's offense, and everyone knows it.

Hard to do much with 3 yards and a cloud of dust. 3 yards and a cloud of dust sets up 4th and 1 and a punt. Just sayin'.

Look, I still think KF is a good coach. Look at what he's done at Iowa over the years. That said, the program we loved so much from 2002-04, 2008-09, etc. is gone. Something isn't working (Greg Davis and the offense). The current status quo isn't cutting it. If KF can no longer see that, then he needs to move on.
 
CPHAWK82 said:
There's really no good reason Iowa lost that game. Ferentz continues to make bad teams look great against the Hawks. I saw a stat yesterday that was very frustrating. It said ISU has held opponents to under 20 in the past 4 years 4 times. It was two MAC teams and Iowa twice. Like you said, they have talent. A lot of the frustration seems to be that even if the Hawks have players the coaches don't know how to use them or don't use them at all.
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You can't be serious?????
 
BirdsOfPrey said:
I've watched every game Kirk Ferentz has coached at Iowa. It should be really obvious to Hawk fans by now that the football
program under Kirk relies on developing talent and remaining relatively injury free to achieve success. The Hawks don't simply reload the program with five star players and four star backups at every position. Every year, the Hawks have a few holes that need plugged. The Hawks have always started slowly in their opening few games. Pre-Big Ten play is conservative and inconsistent at best. Every year we seem to drop an early season game to ISU or some MAC team and barely survive a few others. It seems the goal is to develop talent, work on fundamentals, prevent injuries & not provide much worthwhile tape for Big Ten opponents to scout. What I'm saying is the Pre-Big Ten games under Kirk have never accurately predicted whether or not the Hawkeye go on to have a successful season. I know, dreams of a national championship killed already, but how realistic are those dreams. Given the Hawkeyes youth, saving those dreams for next year would seem more realistic.
We have talent, speed & depth at the receiver and tight end positions. The Hawks have multiple running back weapons. We have the playmakers on offense if they can get focused & figure out how to blend those skills into a working cohesive unit. The linebackers are improving. The D-line is solid & deep. We have two young talented cornerbacks and a hitman at safety. Punt coverage has been good. Kidd's punting improved dramatically in the Iowa State game. Koehn has a powerful turbo leg. He's drilling kickoffs into the endzone consistently. As he gains confidence, he could possibly become a field goal weapon as distance should not be a problem. Vandeberg looks like a potential star at punt returner. Canzeri is solid as a kick returner & J. Parker is fast if he can learn to hold onto the ball. The coaches will have their annual Pre-Big Ten meeting and make some decisions about personnel & Kirk will re-focus Davis on successful play calIing & Parker will start working the raider package. I think starting next week against Pitt, the Hawks all start showing up and playing a complete game. Sometimes young teams need a loss to gel as a team and buy in. I like Iowa's chances vs. Pitt. Pitt is almost one dimensionally a running team. Pitt has zero passing attack. Nobody is going to rush for 300-400 yards on the Hawks...bring it Pitt. Too many good solid parts
on this football team for them not to be successful.
Click to expand...

Hey, Kirk, didn't expect to see you here, buddy!

Thought maybe you'd be trying to figure out how to make the Hawkeye running game better than Simpson Colleges or something.
 
theboat said:
The list of recruits that love their visit to Iowa is super long. The list of recruits that actually commit isn't nearly as long.

Sure they probably enjoyed their visit, but when Iowa averages 12 points/ game from here on out and makes us fans long for the days of Jake Christensen, a visit in early Sept won't matter much.
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Man, you must be depressing to be around.
 
ArvadaHawk said:
David this may or may not be true regarding Higdon's talent. But we are in season 3 of using MW as the primary tailback. Year 1 was due to injuries. Get that. But last season Daniels was brought in and has essentially been wasted in favor of still playing MW. Why is it always the "next" rb that we are recruiting that will be the answer? Why don't we have he answer already? This developmental program isn't developing players that are winning college football games, anymore.
Click to expand...

It was hoped that Daniels would be the answer but so far I haven't seen anything from him that says he is better than the players playing.
 
David79 said:
It was hoped that Daniels would be the answer but so far I haven't seen anything from him that says he is better than the players playing.
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Yeah. He doesn't drink that water near as aggressively as the other guys. Keep him off the field. Never mind the fact that he is bigger, stronger, and faster.
 
David79 said:
It was hoped that Daniels would be the answer but so far I haven't seen anything from him that says he is better than the players playing.
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Sorry but you are watching the wrong game.

Canzeri and Daniels both hit and see the holes faster than both MW and Bullock do.

I get that they are both seniors but Weisman should be at fullback/goal-line TB and Bullock should be a 3rd down back only.
 
hoffahawk said:
Sorry but you are watching the wrong game.

Canzeri and Daniels both hit and see the holes faster than both MW and Bullock do.

I get that they are both seniors but Weisman should be at fullback/goal-line TB and Bullock should be a 3rd down back only.
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this, Bullock also likes to tap dance in the back field instead of hitting the hole. Canzeri is by far the best back for all downs. But apparently he had a bum hip and was banged up. I am not sure why Daniels didn't get any carries.
 
I'll back away from the ledge when we can beat the worst college football program in the country more than seven times in 17 ficking years
 
I've stepped back from the edge a couple of times now, but, but I too want to fly (and soar) like all the other's that have done so beforehand. Oh yes, some have fallen, but they got back up and tried again and are now flying with all the others (top team's and their fans). That...or I can keep drinking the Kool-aid they keep trying to get me to continually drink!
 
deanvogs said:
I won't back away from the edge this time. I gave KF the benefit of the doubt in 2011 to let GD get his offensive system in. Now that it is in, it is a disaster, and is looking to be the biggest problem that this program has right now. I had alway thought that KF strengths far outweighed his weaknesses. Now I think it is 50/50 and I just can't keep overlooking the same freaking weaknesses year in and year out. If the offense can somehow show significant improvement (which I highly doubt) going forward, I will gladly move back from the edge. If they don't and things are crappy again this year (making 3 of the last 4 years crappy) I'm done. No more season tickets, no more supporting KF.
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I'm so far away from the ledge now. In fact, after watching this program for many years I'm on extremely solid footing for once.

In fact, I believe the only times I've been on the ledge is when I keep hoping that Iowa is going to actually get aggressive on offense. It hasn't happened since Drew Tate and that's why I'm on firm ground now. I'm confident it's not going to change under KF and I've moved on from Iowa football. Sadly, other them SMU, Iowa is the most boring football team to watch.

When KF says Greg Davis is incredible then it just confirms he's losing his mind.

Bring on basketball please. Win or lose the Hawks play an up tempo game more times then not.
 
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If the non-conference games are "pre-season" games for KF Hawks, as the OP suggests is KF's strategy, then the obvious question is

What is KF Hawks B1G record? I would be curious even with the first two seasons thrown out.
So...what is KF's "real" season record ( B1G) ???
 
DDThompson said:
If the non-conference games are "pre-season" games for KF Hawks, as the OP suggests is KF's strategy, then the obvious question is

What is KF Hawks B1G record? I would be curious even with the first two seasons thrown out.
So...what is KF's "real" season record ( B1G) ???
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First, every loss in college is HUGE. If a coach doesn't have his team ready to play early, ESPECIALLY against a cupcake..the coach has failed big time.

Then the OP went on and on about how much talent we have..EXACTLY. I've stood up for Ferentz so many times when he did a subpar job of recruiting and we sucked, saying that this is just little old Iowa and we are rebuilding. But the OP said that we have talent! Why are we such a pathetic team? The only answer is coaching.

If you are an Iowa fan and are not the ledge after watching the first 3 games, you're either incredibly stupid or you're not paying attention.
 
deanvogs said:
I won't back away from the edge this time. I gave KF the benefit of the doubt in 2011 to let GD get his offensive system in. Now that it is in, it is a disaster, and is looking to be the biggest problem that this program has right now. I had alway thought that KF strengths far outweighed his weaknesses. Now I think it is 50/50 and I just can't keep overlooking the same freaking weaknesses year in and year out. If the offense can somehow show significant improvement (which I highly doubt) going forward, I will gladly move back from the edge. If they don't and things are crappy again this year (making 3 of the last 4 years crappy) I'm done. No more season tickets, no more supporting KF.
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I'm right there with you. I'm becoming apathetic, and I drive from Madison to see these games. I'm seriously evaluating the season ticket situation for next year. Watching Iowa is often brutal and mind numbing. The trouble is that it's repeatable. Things don't seem to be improving. This offense is truly horrible, and that's a shame. They have some decent athletes on that team. I thought this was the year to watch in terms of offense and overall program trajectory, and I still do. We'll see...
 
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