Brand Value

T

Travisam

Well-Known Member
I was talking to a co-worker this morning about the current state of Iowa and the trend of the program. I have not been a big KF guy for several years, and feel like I have a fairly strong handle on who he is as a coach and where is strengths and weaknesses lie. I started to think about the whole "we're just Iowa" crowd vs. the "We're freaking Iowa" crowd and brought about what I think is an interesting question. Interesting to me anyway. As we all know, tradition and brand is very important for a program. You can obviously have down years and up years regardless of your school, but tradition is something that will always sell. The question is, how many wins would you say Iowa's brand is worth?

For instance, Alabama, I would say is worth probably 10 wins a year in a very tough SEC, so with a bowl game 10-3 is a normal Alabama season. Now, a coach can come in and competely screw it up by poor recruiting or gameday coaching, but if there was a mythical season where school brands faced off I think Bama is worth 10 wins. Saban has enhanced that brand with great recruiting and coaching to become a 12 win program so he's a +2 coach. Iowa State with its tradition is probably worth 3 wins in the current B12. Paul Rhoads has shown up and won about 6/year which is a great job so he's a +3 coach.

The question is, how many wins is the Iowa brand worth? In my opinion, with today's scheduling and especially with the current state of the B10 I would put Iowa as an 8 win program. If a coach averages 8 wins a year, he's an average coach. Less than 8 is unacceptable, more than 8 and you are in the + side. Now, obviously I think Ferentz deserves a HUGE bit of respect for getting Iowa back to this point. My problem is that I believe his coaching style and philosophy is not going to be successful in building the brand forward, and has us in a decline.

Again, this is just my opinion. What are your thoughts on Iowa's brand worth? ISU's brand worth, Michigan,or whoever you want to throw in as a comparison to Iowa?
 
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We should honestly be an 8-9 win team ... When you factor in the fans (passion), the salaries, the facilities ... we should be good for a minimum of 8 wins
 
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Before the "lean" years, Iowa was a damn good football school. From 1900 thru 1960 (the end of the Evashevski Era), we won 275 games, for a winning % of .556. Obviously since they didn't play as many games, you can't compare wins across eras, but you can compare winning %. So we won almost 56% of our games for a period of 60 years.

From 1960 thru 1978, the lean years, we won a total of 54 games for a winning % of .303. Awful.

Then Hayden came along and for the 20 years he was coach, we won a total of 143 games at a clip of .613 winning %. Essentially what he did was bring it back to the level it had been at prior to the lean years.

Kirk, in his 13 years, has won 96 games at a clip of .593 winning %. So while slighly below Hayden, it is right at where we've been historically.

However, if you add up the 51 years that encompass the lean years, the Hayden Era and the Ferentz Era, we have won a total of 293 games at a clip of about a .520 winning %.

So, all in all, it could be argued that in an over 100 years history of wins and losses, something between 52% and 55% is the "norm". In today's environment, that equates to about 6.5 wins per year in a 12 game season. So Ferentz has been just above that and Hayden was a little above Kirk.

So in my opinion, 8 wins is actually above average for our "brand". If someone came in an averaged an 8-4 record over a sustained period of time (which is a .667 winning %), then they'd be considered a successful coach. Only 4 coaches in the history of Iowa football have approached that winning % for their career.....Alden Knipe, John Chalmers, Howard Jones and Evy. And only Jones and Evy sustained that level of winning for more than 5 years.

Bottom line....to average 8 wins or a .667 winning % would be way above average from a historical perspective of the Iowa program.
 
ICHawk24 said:
So Alabama has made their 10 win brand level 6 out of the last 15 years.
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If I'm not mistaken, 13 game seasons did not start until '06. Since then they have been under 10 wins twice, at 10 wins once, and over 10 wins three times. Their recent history prior to that was obviously greatly affected by sanctions which are no longer in place and far gone from memory or even knowledge of current recruits and players.
 
GhostofBTT said:
Nebraska had some bad years. Miami had bad years. USC was a joke before Carroll. Notre Dame, Michigan, Tennessee, all spent time in mediocrity the past decade.
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My point exactly. You can point, in each of those cases, to a coaching change that made a distinct change. The question is, in each of those situations, how much easier was it to fix because of the brand.

Kind of a stupid analogy, but an anology none the less. If I'm 6'1 185 at a normal, healthy weight and I baloon up to 225, it's not going to be very hard to get back to 185 or 190 because 185 is my natural body weight. If I'm trying to get to 170 from 185 that is going to be very difficult because it's not my natural body weight. Sort of the same concept.

Hoke has Michigan with the #1 recruiting class in the nation last I saw. He's going to have that program back in B10 and national contention within 2 years. That is because of the brand that is Michigan. They brought in RichRod to change the style of Michigan football and it was a disaster because of it. He was performing well below what Michigan's average should be. Much easier road back once you get in a good coach who understand Michigan football.
 
I think in quite a few of those cases, it was a stupid coaching change that sent the program into mediocrity. Michigan forcing out Carr, Nebraska forcing out Solich, Tennessee forcing out Fulmer. In the cases of Alabama and Notre Dame, they tried to replace legendary coaches by hiring and firing coaches in mass.

In every case, a bad coaching hire started all of the problems.
 
GhostofBTT said:
Nebraska had some bad years. Miami had bad years. USC was a joke before Carroll. Notre Dame, Michigan, Tennessee, all spent time in mediocrity the past decade.
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This.

Travis,

I think you are trying to read into something too much. All schools with the wrong coach can go in the crapper for a few years or a really long time. ND has been trying to get back where they once were for almost 20 years.

I don't think it's as easy as saying a school should average this many wins, just because they are who they are. I also hate the we are just Iowa crowd but also realize that some of their points are very valid. The biggest fact being we don't have a state with 20+ D1 talent to choose from every year. Like it or not that's a fact. It's much, much easier to recruit guys close to home.

Again that doesn't give Iowa a pass as there are plenty of schools out there that recruit nationally that are in Iowa's situation. It all comes down to talented players and keeping them on the field and in IC. What we have this year is the result of a major failure in that aspect of the program and that is 100% on KF.

In saying that I like the changes that were made to the staff last year and think both Brian and Woods can be great assets on the recruiting trail and get talented guys to IC that we wouldn't have had a chance with before. This is based strictly on where Brian and Woods came from and how they should be better at developing relationships with recruits. That is something that is going to take a little time.

That said there is absolutely no excuse for losing to Central Michigan and the yearly in game decision fails that KF has had. That is what scares me.
 
hoffahawk said:
This.

Travis,

I think you are trying to read into something too much. All schools with the wrong coach can go in the crapper for a few years or a really long time. ND has been trying to get back where they once were for almost 20 years.

I don't think it's as easy as saying a school should average this many wins, just because they are who they are. I also hate the we are just Iowa crowd but also realize that some of their points are very valid. The biggest fact being we don't have a state with 20+ D1 talent to choose from every year. Like it or not that's a fact. It's much, much easier to recruit guys close to home.

Again that doesn't give Iowa a pass as there are plenty of schools out there that recruit nationally that are in Iowa's situation. It all comes down to talented players and keeping them on the field and in IC. What we have this year is the result of a major failure in that aspect of the program and that is 100% on KF.

In saying that I like the changes that were made to the staff last year and think both Brian and Woods can be great assets on the recruiting trail and get talented guys to IC that we wouldn't have had a chance with before. This is based strictly on where Brian and Woods came from and how they should be better at developing relationships with recruits. That is something that is going to take a little time.

That said there is absolutely no excuse for losing to Central Michigan and the yearly in game decision fails that KF has had. That is what scares me.
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Wow. An intelligent, focused, non-inflammatory thread; KF's name spelled correctly instead of "kurt" or "ferrets"; very little about his "exorbitant" salary, which IMHO is largely irrelevent when discussing his strengths/weaknesses; no one liner "jokes" that are rarely even funny; in short, THANKS! And, just so we are clear, there is NO sarcasm here...none.
 
I used to think that if KF was at Michigan or one of other brand schools he could really make hay with how they can recurit by name alone. But it's become clear that he would stuggle to meet expectations there because he is not a good gameday coach. He has his perfect job here and he'd be nuts to go anywhere else.
 
I like to think of 8 wins. I think of Iowa football and the 2008 seaons (2nd half of the season + bowl) provides me a composite sketch of Iowa football.
 
"Brand" IMO is an overused and misunderstood word, nothing personal. Its a popular term heard all the time by sports radio jocks and TV guys. Its being run into the ground. More of "What have you done for me lately". Brand to me means nothing more then the logo on the helmets and jerseys. New coaches, guys getting hurt, a coaches persona and how young players respond on and off the field. You don't win games on a logo or how they played two years ago and obviously that point/win formula didn't seem to help Iowa's brand against Central Michigan.

Iowa's "Brand" to me is if your a good player and willing to work hard and you want to play in the NFL Kirk Farentz and Iowa will prepare you as well as any other college football program. Winning games and a national power, we'll that's another brand i guess.
 
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