Candidates for the OC position

[HuckFinn]

Little long in the tooth. KF has at least a season or two or more left in him. You want to hire a first year 60+ year old HC? I would have a hard time doing that. Hard to recruit in those circumstances.

I am not stuck on the outdated view of age limitations. And, speculation only, Paul C. becomes OC. KF retires in 2 years. Paul takes over at 60. Given how long head coaches keep their jobs these days, he would be out of the Iowa job in 5-7 years anyway. Not a bad gig.

 

[HawkPhin]

Whomever gets hired I don’t trust KF to make the right choice.

 

[guffus]

I see that Craig Bohl has retired as Head Coach at Wyoming and they named the current Wyoming DC as the new head coach.

All I am saying is that Wyoming OC Tim Polasek may be looking for a new job. Would Ferentz consider him for OC?

 

[Fryowa]

All the new OC can sell is change, hope and maybe PT. Your point is very well taken if all KF does is keep the same sad band together and promote one guy to take BF's place. At least someone from the outside can sell real changes and a new philosophy (whether true or not).

We are rarely going to get horses that compete with the big boys anyway. We can compete reasonably well at OL and TE. We put those positions in the league. As for RB, we run a lot. As for WR? I got nothing.

At the end of the day Iowa has to do what Iowa does. Bring in 2 and 3 star kids and develop the shit out of them. The goal is competency, not greatness (at least in my mind)

Whoever the new OC is, if we don't get clobbered with portal losses, we have a veteran and deep OC, excellent RBs and TEs returning, some flashes of something at WR. QB remains the biggest mystery with this team.

I do think we are starting to see the effects of this shit offense on our recruiting now, though. It would appear that we don’t have any guys who can be developed, at least to the degree that it’s been done in the past. We have them on defense, but offense…

Who was the last guy on offense who came in unheralded and under the radar and made a splash? In football terms, it’s been ages.

Even 6-8 years ago there were tons of them. OL guys like Ike Boettger, guys like LeShun Daniels, Matt Vanderberg, Keegan Render, George Kittle, Hockenson, Toren Young, etc. There’s literally no one on the offensive side of the ball coming to Iowa and breaking out. That’s not just coaching, it’s mostly because we aren’t getting those diamonds in the rough anymore because no one wants to come into this dumpster fire of an offense.

Phil is still getting them on defense, look at our LB crew and defensive line. For every DeJean and Nwankpa there’s a Yahya Black and Sebastian Castro getting built essentially from scratch because guys with that kind of unnoticed potential want to come play here and get trained by the master.

We are in a precarious f*cking spot right now and I’m afraid the odds are we fall off the side of the canyon to a spot like Nebraska that we get get back from. Someday Phil Parker isn’t going to be here to save the day.

 

[HaydenHawk56]

And now.....Deep Thoughts....by Jack Handey.......

Maybe Iowa struggles on offense and is much better on defense because it is easier to be good at defense when you make an opposing offense have to drive 14 plays down the field. Does not hurt that Defensive Coordinator is good at coaching defense. That is much easier then running into bricks walls and having mostly marginal recruited Qbs throw to mostly marginal recruited receivers paid for by marginal or slim to none NIL money.....sans Cade McNamera.

Then again, Fran McCaffery can't coach defense.....but he does not coach football............

 

[guffus]

I do think we are starting to see the effects of this shit offense on our recruiting now, though. It would appear that we don’t have any guys who can be developed, at least to the degree that it’s been done in the past. We have them on defense, but offense…

Who was the last guy on offense who came in unheralded and under the radar and made a splash? In football terms, it’s been ages.

Even 6-8 years ago there were tons of them. OL guys like Ike Boettger, guys like LeShun Daniels, Matt Vanderberg, Keegan Render, George Kittle, Hockenson, Toren Young, etc. There’s literally no one on the offensive side of the ball coming to Iowa and breaking out. That’s not just coaching, it’s mostly because we aren’t getting those diamonds in the rough anymore because no one wants to come into this dumpster fire of an offense.

Not sure how recent you are counting, but Center Tyler Linderbaum did win the Remington award in 2021 and got drafted in the NFL. Of course he was kind of stolen from the defense.

Then of course Charlie Jones in 2022 alone caught 110 passes for 1361 yards and 12 TD's.... Oh wait that was after he transferred to Purdue.

Well there is Tyrone Tracy, who rushed for 8 TD's this year.....
Oh wait.

 

[Larry Legend]

"Precarious f___ing spot". Nothing more needs to be said from my perspective.

 

[NorthKCHawk]

I do think we are starting to see the effects of this shit offense on our recruiting now, though. It would appear that we don’t have any guys who can be developed, at least to the degree that it’s been done in the past. We have them on defense, but offense…

Who was the last guy on offense who came in unheralded and under the radar and made a splash? In football terms, it’s been ages.

Even 6-8 years ago there were tons of them. OL guys like Ike Boettger, guys like LeShun Daniels, Matt Vanderberg, Keegan Render, George Kittle, Hockenson, Toren Young, etc. There’s literally no one on the offensive side of the ball coming to Iowa and breaking out. That’s not just coaching, it’s mostly because we aren’t getting those diamonds in the rough anymore because no one wants to come into this dumpster fire of an offense.

Phil is still getting them on defense, look at our LB crew and defensive line. For every DeJean and Nwankpa there’s a Yahya Black and Sebastian Castro getting built essentially from scratch because guys with that kind of unnoticed potential want to come play here and get trained by the master.

We are in a precarious f*cking spot right now and I’m afraid the odds are we fall off the side of the canyon to a spot like Nebraska that we get get back from. Someday Phil Parker isn’t going to be here to save the day.

I don't disagree that things are precarious, but I am probably not as despondent as you are coming across. I really feel that the failures of the last three years were playcalling/philosophy, terrible QB play, injuries, and inexperience.

All of those issues are solveable next year. Paul Chryst is an excellent OC. Hire him now! Cade has a glass jaw, but he can be a very good game manager. Go find someone to compete with him in the portal so we have depth. If we don't have heavy losses in the portal, this will be a very veteran group on O next year. We got the injury bug out this year (I hope).

It only takes a year to change mindsets. Make the right hire at OC and this ship could be turned around quickly. I just don't think KF will make the right hire.....

 

[Larry Legend]

I am with you on all this, however there is allot of things have to happen in your scenario, that's where I like the term precarious. I guess if you look at the tendencies at the man at the top, Precarious!

 

[MelroseHawkins]

I don't disagree that things are precarious, but I am probably not as despondent as you are coming across. I really feel that the failures of the last three years were playcalling/philosophy, terrible QB play, injuries, and inexperience.

All of those issues are solveable next year. Paul Chryst is an excellent OC. Hire him now! Cade has a glass jaw, but he can be a very good game manager. Go find someone to compete with him in the portal so we have depth. If we don't have heavy losses in the portal, this will be a very veteran group on O next year. We got the injury bug out this year (I hope).

It only takes a year to change mindsets. Make the right hire at OC and this ship could be turned around quickly. I just don't think KF will make the right hire.....

Especially with the portal. Teams can now go 4-8 to 9-3 the next season due to this free agency. The only issues is if not announcing a new OC will hinder any portal recruiting chances for next year.

 

[SwirlinLingerie]

Just spit-ballin' here, but do you think this has any merit? Kirk likes keeping retired or semi-retired old guys around the program. Norm, Morgan, Don Patterson, KOK - he wants a spot for them in the facility and for them to feel connected and involved still, on some level or another.

He's also talked about how some well known coaches have had long careers and then died shortly after retiring. Given he doesn't have any hobbies, I'm guessing he's spent time thinking about how he'll need to stay engaged in order to be healthy in retirement. I'm sure that was a side benefit to the thought of Brian being coach - that Kirk could step away for a few years, travel, whatever...but that he could eventually come back, have a small office to sit around with a couple other old guys and maybe a couple grad assistants, drink black coffee and break down o-line tape at 6 am for a couple hours, etc.

Where I'm going with this is that Chryst might be a pretty attractive option to Kirk for maintaining continuity once he steps away. Not only would he be a great candidate for OC, but maybe Kirk likes the idea that if things go well, Chryst might be a very viable candidate to be head coach (more than anyone else currently on staff). And maybe, just maybe, Chryst would consider hiring a Ferentz family member or two for his staff. And of course, let Kirk come back to help break down o-line film once he had his fill of traveling with Mary.

Overall, how important do you think that is to Kirk? Hayden emphatically wanted someone from his coaching tree to be hired, but other than that, he moved away and didn't have any involvement with the program (unless asked to come back for an event). With Brian no longer an option for HC, how do you think Kirk sees his relationship and potentially some of his sons relationship with the program once he retires?

 

[CP87]

I think it would be pretty hard for KF to dictate to Chryst exactly how he needs to operate, considering a few Chryst offenses have had their way with KF's teams over the years.

 

[NCHawker]

I see that Craig Bohl has retired as Head Coach at Wyoming and they named the current Wyoming DC as the new head coach.

All I am saying is that Wyoming OC Tim Polasek may be looking for a new job. Would Ferentz consider him for OC?

depends why he left Iowa I suppose. I don't know if he recruted this bunch they have on the OLine now or not. But I've wondered if he is responsible for this casam in talent along the OLine...If they saw it before we did, and its likely they did, then its easy to imagine that they encouraged him to move on. Of course I could be all wrong about that sitting here a thousand miles away.

 

[Fryowa]

I don't disagree that things are precarious, but I am probably not as despondent as you are coming across. I really feel that the failures of the last three years were playcalling/philosophy, terrible QB play, injuries, and inexperience.

All of those issues are solveable next year. Paul Chryst is an excellent OC. Hire him now! Cade has a glass jaw, but he can be a very good game manager. Go find someone to compete with him in the portal so we have depth. If we don't have heavy losses in the portal, this will be a very veteran group on O next year. We got the injury bug out this year (I hope).

It only takes a year to change mindsets. Make the right hire at OC and this ship could be turned around quickly. I just don't think KF will make the right hire.....

Especially with the portal. Teams can now go 4-8 to 9-3 the next season due to this free agency. The only issues is if not announcing a new OC will hinder any portal recruiting chances for next year.

I understand what you guys are saying. Everything is fixable.

But I don't think KF is gonna fix any of them. That's why the situation is f*cked.

Especially not after he got his heir apparent pulled out from under him unceremoniously. At this point in his career all KF has to do is hire an existing yes-man and tell him do call the same game Brian did.

 

[NorthKCHawk]

I understand what you guys are saying. Everything is fixable.

But I don't think KF is gonna fix any of them. That's why the situation is f*cked.

Especially not after he got his heir apparent pulled out from under him unceremoniously. At this point in his career all KF has to do is hire an existing yes-man and tell him do call the same game Brian did.

He needs to get over being butt hurt about Brian now. I mean, he was going to get canned under the Barta contract terms anyway. Announcing it a couple months early may have been annoying, but Brian was done at Iowa after the bowl game one way or the other.

As for fixing the offense, it really depends on whether Kirk does what he says and truly examines why the offense has been struggling. He is not completely inflexible on scheme. He let Davis make a lot of changes. He allowed Parker to develop and implement the Cash Defense.

As a Dad, I am sure he has made all the excuses for Brian that he can think of, but three years is three years. He is not an idiot. He can see the stats and results. So, if he does not view Brian as the problem, then the notion that elevating one of Brian's assistants and keeping the staff intact is not logical. Its also dangerous. What if he elevates Budamyr and they get materially better? That would further prove his son sucked. The smart play is to hire someone experienced from the outside, keep the coaches that know what they are doing and allow the new OC a free hand to build something different.

KF is capable of such logic, but I am not betting on it.

 

[eyekwah]

It is statistically easy to make an assessment of Iowa's offense. When you have to go to the last line on the last spreadsheet page to find where you rank in total offense you got a problem. In 2023 Kirk went to the portal for the wrong reasons. If it was to find players to bail out Brian or make the old offense work in today's world then it was selfish denial of the problems. I suspect it was some of both. In the old I.T. world the slogan "those that fail to plan, plan to fail" was used a lot. Kirk has no plan to fix what is wrong with the offense. How would we know this?

Could we go by his defense of Brian's ineptitude? Could we go by the hiring of Budmyr (sp) to help out Brian? Could we go by those that were recruited for skill positions?

Then there is what we know. Iowa didn't have a legitimate backup QB or a future starter on the roster. The offensive line under performing. Other than TE's there was a dirge of receivers to throw to. The explanation is the offense is complicated to learn.

Whether it would be Chryst or Budmyr as OC really is not a plan to fix the problem. A 20th century offense is no longer is working in the 21st century. Witness the New England Patriots and Bill Belicek, Kirk's buddy.

I appreciate all the work Kirk's done. I would hate to see him have to leave because of the inability to make the changes that are needed. He can be loyal to his assistants but when that loyalty is not reciprocated with results then they need to be moved on. Finding an OC to do the fixing is all people are asking.

 

[Fryowa]

He needs to get over being butt hurt about Brian now.

I don't know if that's going to happen. Not only did donors pull the rug out from under him, they did it to his blood. I'd imagine there were some epic rants going on in Kirk and Mary's house at night when he got home. We don't thing of things like that, but with Brian being his kid he has to still live in that family. P5 football coaches aren't immune to pressures at home.

It'd be one thing if he was married to some "new car" smoke show 20 years younger than him like Bert Bielema whose wife came along after the money and fame, but Mary's been there since the beginning through thick and thin, and I'd imagine there's more turmoil with that firing than what we see on camera.

All of what I just said are only a few examples of why hiring your kids is a real, REAL bad idea unless you own the business outright.

 

[NorthKCHawk]

I don't know if that's going to happen. Not only did donors pull the rug out from under him, they did it to his blood. I'd imagine there were some epic rants going on in Kirk and Mary's house at night when he got home. We don't thing of things like that, but with Brian being his kid he has to still live in that family. P5 football coaches aren't immune to pressures at home.

It'd be one thing if he was married to some "new car" smoke show 20 years younger than him like Bert Bielema whose wife came along after the money and fame, but Mary's been there since the beginning through thick and thin, and I'd imagine there's more turmoil with that firing than what we see on camera.

All of what I just said are only a few examples of why hiring your kids is a real, REAL bad idea unless you own the business outright.

Yep. I get it. That said, in sports as in the business world, most people rise to the level of their incompetency. You keep getting promoted until you hit a job beyond your skill. Brian was a very good college center, but his cup of coffee in the pros showed he was not good enough to be a pro center. Did KF and Mary cry for months when BF was cut from the pros, or did they acknowledge he got his shot and wasn't good enough? Same is true here. Brian demonstrated that he is a very good position coach on offense. He was given a fair shot to be an OC and he failed. Miserably. All parents want to protect their kids, but this was not even a close call.

 

[NorthKCHawk]

Also, hey Kirk, you could have told Barta and the donors to stuff it. You didn't. You let the contract provision go through and your kid objectively failed to meet the terms that you and he agreed to. You don't like it, then just tell Beth if Brian goes, you go. The truth is that Kirk knows damn well his son was given a fair shot, and whether because he was unlucky, snake bit, or whatever, he failed. He knows it. He may not want to admit it to the press or Mary or anyone, but he knows it. So does Brian.

 

[Fryowa]

Yep. I get it. That said, in sports as in the business world, most people rise to the level of their incompetency. You keep getting promoted until you hit a job beyond your skill. Brian was a very good college center, but his cup of coffee in the pros showed he was not good enough to be a pro center. Did KF and Mary cry for months when BF was cut from the pros, or did they acknowledge he got his shot and wasn't good enough? Same is true here. Brian demonstrated that he is a very good position coach on offense. He was given a fair shot to be an OC and he failed. Miserably. All parents want to protect their kids, but this was not even a close call.

This is a little different in that I genuinely think KF thought (and still does) that BF is a good coordinator and would be the best guy to be the head coach. I honestly do. You even heard KF say the reason for the bad offense was injuries, not bad playcalling and game management.

Brian didn't get cut from the NFL with a family member being his de facto boss.

Being a parent clouds your judgement. And when you take a guy like KF who's the most well-known dude in the state by a mile who has more power (perceived or otherwise) than anyone else in Iowa City for the better part of a quarter century, it'll do funny things to that judgement.

I guarantee you KF wanted to leave a legacy in Iowa City and he wanted to have control over what that legacy is. He's getting to the age where he's starting to see mortality chasing him in the rearview from (hopefully) a distance, and he knows that his millions of dollars don't matter at the end. He wanted to go out with his kid in the driver's seat for his own 25 year stint like a fairy tale, and he's too clouded to see it like we and everyone else do..