Well... most people learn from failure and sometimes the best people to hire when attempting to reach an objective are people that you have worked with in the past that you knew that just didn't get it the first time around, but didn't quit and improved. Who is to say Chuck Long isn't 10X the coach he use to be? Failure can either break a man or cause a burning desire to be less likely to fail again. Chuck isn't someone who is going to fail out of lack of effort and I think he would be a great addition to the staff again if he and KF get along. I trust KF will do what is best... he doesn't want to fail, and for me to question his loyalty to his staff would be ridiculous. Do I think KoK is the #1 reason we finished 7-5 this year? Yes... but I am not privy to the facts. Perhaps this offensive mentallity, or lack thereof, was forced upon him from a team perspective. The offensive tactics of Iowa suit well to low scoring games and I think that perhaps even KF might be getting a bit Lickliter with stats. If this season tells me anything, it is that defensive stats can be very manipulated by running a defensive minded offense... if your special teams fumbled the ball at the 15 yard line after your defense stopped a 5 play 36 yard drive, only to allow a touchdown on a couple of pass plays (ala Arizona game) does that mean your defense sucks? It appears that way in stats. How about the other teams defense who just played nearly a qtr of football without giving up a yard (because they never seen the field), does that make them a great defense? Again, it appears that way statistically.
This year was a bad year for Iowa football because they were so good, but they were snake bitten by special teams, bad luck, a fake punt, and then worst... many of them quit.
As an instructor for operations designed to task out 70 people... one of the questions we ask the class during training is... how many people out of your 70 would it take to quit before it appeared you all would fail as a group? The answer varies of course upon who did/didn't quit... but a correct answer would be anywhere between 6-10... that is not many. The sad part... no matter how hard the other 60 attempt to work... if just 10 quit on them, they ALL fail. Iowa had a number of people who quit or were injured (quitting isn't always voluntary) this year for various reasons, and it started before the season even began.
