Consistency and Integrity

NCHawker said:
I'm wondering if at some future date we'll miss the consistency of 8 wins per year. I wonder if we'll miss the decency and maturity of Kirk Ferentz.
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Well Kirk overall is from what we know a very good person who cares about his players, wants them to graduate, succeed etc. There was some bad reply by the Ath Dept to the 2007 or so assault charges, the whole Coker thing was a mess, and Rhabdo as about the only bad pub in 21 years.

As far as on the field action, I think fans are back to being bored with our offense. CJB and those teams were pretty exciting with Wadley, etc, 2008-10 offense was pretty good.

Tell me what gets you excited about our offense that a few deep balls and a few 20-30 yard throws wouldnt help you get more excited. That play to Tracy for 75 yards and a td is what is needed more often and just trying it is exciting like they are trying to score.

Remember the old adage from maybe Woody Hayes that there are 3 things that can happen when you pass the ball and two of them are bad, incompletions and interceptions, vs the good of a completion.

In the last 15-20 years with some changes in officiating we see a lot more defensive holding and interference calls so I would say a 4th thing can happen a fair share of the time, probably more than interceptions, and that is forcing the opponent into a penalty. The hawks need to pressure the defense more.

I get upset with the hawks not trying 3 or 4 shots down the field to an ISM or a Tracy.
 
Remember is we are a 7.5 win a year team that means we have our share of 9 and 10 win seasons with some 6 and 7 win seasons. (lets not count bowl games). Personally I see the hawks losing more games they should win vs winning more games that they should lose. That is a problem to me.
 
Yes because the odds of Iowa hiring a better overall coach than KF are low. I don't think it would difficult to hire a better in-game coach but there is a lot more to being an HC than the 40 hours of Saturdays every season. And I think Kirk does a great job outside of those 40 hours.

I just wish he was better at handling prima donna players and would leave the OC alone completely.
 
uihawk82 said:
Remember is we are a 7.5 win a year team that means we have our share of 9 and 10 win seasons with some 6 and 7 win seasons. (lets not count bowl games). Personally I see the hawks losing more games they should win vs winning more games that they should lose. That is a problem to me.
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When you remove the '99 and '00 years, which you can't hold against him because he was cleaning up from the end of Fry's era, we have averaged 8.22 wins per year from 2001 thru 2018....with 2019 TBD. In that time, we've only had two 6 win years and a 4 win year. Every other year in the 15 other years was 7 wins or better. There are only 19 other P5 teams that have more wins in that time frame. At Iowa, that's getting it done.

I do think once KF hangs it up, we're going to pine for those days (no different than how we pine for the days of Mr. Davis in basketball).

Was KF perfect? Nope. I always thought he put too much stock in the "NFL analytics"....i.e. turnover margin.....which caused him to be more conservative than I think the college game requires you to be. I think lately he's come out of that shell to a certain extent....going for it more on 4th down from the +35yd line and in, taking some chances on special teams trick plays, etc. But the adherence to turnover margin which causes him to require his QBs to be too risk averse probably caused him 2, maybe 3, big ten titles that we could have had.

But in the end, he's been a hellvua coach for the U of I and will be greatly missed when he decides to hang it up.
 
I don't think there's any doubt about it.

In fairness, it's a human trait to be sentimental when good people are involved, and Kirk is a 1st-class person. If history is any guide, programs tend to go on a bit of a roller coaster ride with coaches after an icon leaves, with up and down years and significant coaching turnover.

That's one of the things that has made Iowa so unique - it is extremely rare to have that long term continuity with two coaches in a row. Two coaches over 15 years is pretty rare. Only two coaches in over 40 years is mind-boggling.
 
SpiderRico said:
When you remove the '99 and '00 years, which you can't hold against him because he was cleaning up from the end of Fry's era, we have averaged 8.22 wins per year from 2001 thru 2018....with 2019 TBD. In that time, we've only had two 6 win years and a 4 win year. Every other year in the 15 other years was 7 wins or better. There are only 19 other P5 teams that have more wins in that time frame. At Iowa, that's getting it done.

I do think once KF hangs it up, we're going to pine for those days (no different than how we pine for the days of Mr. Davis in basketball).

Was KF perfect? Nope. I always thought he put too much stock in the "NFL analytics"....i.e. turnover margin.....which caused him to be more conservative than I think the college game requires you to be. I think lately he's come out of that shell to a certain extent....going for it more on 4th down from the +35yd line and in, taking some chances on special teams trick plays, etc. But the adherence to turnover margin which causes him to require his QBs to be too risk averse probably caused him 2, maybe 3, big ten titles that we could have had.

But in the end, he's been a hellvua coach for the U of I and will be greatly missed when he decides to hang it up.
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As mentioned before, HF put together 2 really good back to back classes. It is not hate to say the KF was inexperienced and came with a losing record. That likely had a lot to do with the first 2 years.
 
Biggest thing would be up and coming young coach using Iowa as stepping stone.
Remember the fear fans had of Kirk leaving time and time again.....wish I had a crystal ball but part of life is the ride.
 
#1DieHardHawk said:
I don't think there's any doubt about it.

In fairness, it's a human trait to be sentimental when good people are involved, and Kirk is a 1st-class person. If history is any guide, programs tend to go on a bit of a roller coaster ride with coaches after an icon leaves, with up and down years and significant coaching turnover.

That's one of the things that has made Iowa so unique - it is extremely rare to have that long term continuity with two coaches in a row. Two coaches over 15 years is pretty rare. Only two coaches in over 40 years is mind-boggling.
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When you self supervise, set your own "goals," are adept at rationalizing every loss, are able to hire "family," in the forgiving environment of Iowa, how could the tenure be less? Who is going to tell you it is time to move on, why would you leave to face "expectations?"
 
The problem is, IF Brian Ferentz is the next HC, 8 wins per season will not be enough for the fan base. And frankly, we would probably do better to have a three to five year span of 6/7 wins per year WITHOUT Brian as HC, let him establish a HC base elsewhere. As Bob Commings and others have shown, former Iowa players haven't had the best luck, historically, as Iowa HCs. But establishing one's self elsewhere might help. Or not...

EDIT: And maybe it would be even better to have a two/three-year period of six or less wins. Make us pine for seven or eight and get back to the reality that is college football.
 
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