Crippling Recruiting Miss: 6 WRs in 2013

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iowalaw

Banned
Davis came in thinking he's a big shot. He touted his Texas roots, his national title, and his offensive scheme. He commented on the lack of talent and speed at the WR position, and he was preaching to the choir. Fans loved his candor. Davis convinced the staff that we should take some scholarships from other positions (mainly the OL) so that we can bring in a big wave of WRs to stock up the position. We therefore landed 6 WR commits in one 22 man class. Yep, nearly 30% of the class was used for WRs!

That recruiting strategy has come home to roost. We went light on OL recruiting in 2013 and now are left with a patchwork OL that consists of a bunch of walkons to fill gaps. At least we are loaded at WR, right? Nope. Just ONE of the 6 WRs is in the current two deeps on a WR corp that is not exactly tough to rise to the top.

1. Willies - long gone
2. Andre Harris - where is he? Does he have the speed and playmaking ability Davis said we needed if he's behind Stone et al on the depth chart?
3. Anjeus Jones - where is he? Does he have the playmaking ability?
4. Mitchell - buried at WR and switched over to RB, where he is 4th string.
5. Powell - played decent last year. Wish he was targeted more. He's long gone now.
6. Vandeberg - the lone two deeps WR in the bunch. And being a two deeps WR at the U of Iowa this year is not exactly an accomplishment. Vandy may be the head of the 6 man class, but he has had a lot of drops already in his career, is not and never will be a big play threat, and is not exactly the kind of WR recruit Davis was talking about when he said we needed to upgrade the talent level at the WR position. Why are we opposed to recruiting WRs who are fast runners and can catch?

Six WRs and not a single #1 WR in the bunch. With these whiffs, it is clear that there are holes in the roster that need to be filled by JUCOs.
 
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I have never been so apathetic about Iowa football. Not even KF's first year. The facts laid out in this thread would have made me furious a few years ago. Now, meh, I just assume we are going to suck until he leaves.
 


To OP ... nail on the head ... Davis has done NOTHING to address what he pointed out as one of Iowa's major areas of concern when he arrived ... Speed and talent at the WR position ... Davis has been a flop from Day 1 ... Kirk is tired ... boring, and is hell bent on going down with the ship ... It surprises me to know there are STILL Hawk fans out there who think Kirk is going to get this all figured out. This program is in bad, bad shape ... Kirk, I don't even care what you say anymore ... You lost me about 2 years ago ... I used to eat up reading, listening to tidbits from practices, etc. Now, I only find myself venting because I am so disappointed in the state of the program ...
 


Davis has proved that his recruiting ability and his offensive mind are not what brought playmaking receivers to Texas. The location of the school did.
 




iowalaw said:
Davis has proved that his recruiting ability and his offensive mind are not what brought playmaking receivers to Texas. The location of the school did.
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Da, ya think. There is more football talent in Texas than all of the B1G states combined. How can you not win at Texas?
 


iowalaw said:
Davis came in thinking he's a big shot. He touted his Texas roots, his national title, and his offensive scheme. He commented on the lack of talent and speed at the WR position, and he was preaching to the choir. Fans loved his candor. Davis convinced the staff that we should take some scholarships from other positions (mainly the OL) so that we can bring in a big wave of WRs to stock up the position. We therefore landed 6 WR commits in one 22 man class. Yep, nearly 30% of the class was used for WRs!

That recruiting strategy has come home to roost. We went light on OL recruiting in 2013 and now are left with a patchwork OL that consists of a bunch of walkons to fill gaps. At least we are loaded at WR, right? Nope. Just ONE of the 6 WRs is in the current two deeps on a WR corp that is not exactly tough to rise to the top.

1. Willies - long gone
2. Andre Harris - where is he? Does he have the speed and playmaking ability Davis said we needed if he's behind Stone et al on the depth chart?
3. Anjeus Jones - where is he? Does he have the playmaking ability?
4. Mitchell - buried at WR and switched over to RB, where he is 4th string.
5. Powell - played decent last year. Wish he was targeted more. He's long gone now.
6. Vandeberg - the lone two deeps WR in the bunch. And being a two deeps WR at the U of Iowa this year is not exactly an accomplishment. Vandy may be the head of the 6 man class, but he has had a lot of drops already in his career, is not and never will be a big play threat, and is not exactly the kind of WR recruit Davis was talking about when he said we needed to upgrade the talent level at the WR position. Why are we opposed to recruiting WRs who are fast runners and can catch?

Six WRs and not a single #1 WR in the bunch. With these whiffs, it is clear that there are holes in the roster that need to be filled by JUCOs.
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They don't want to come here.
 


I think it is clearly obvious what the problem is. Iowa didn't recruit a single WR from Iowa. If KF would only spend more time in Iowa snagging the top notch WR that this state produces, we would probably lead the nation in receiving yards.
 




iowalaw said:
Davis came in thinking he's a big shot. He touted his Texas roots, his national title, and his offensive scheme. He commented on the lack of talent and speed at the WR position, and he was preaching to the choir. Fans loved his candor. Davis convinced the staff that we should take some scholarships from other positions (mainly the OL) so that we can bring in a big wave of WRs to stock up the position. We therefore landed 6 WR commits in one 22 man class. Yep, nearly 30% of the class was used for WRs!

That recruiting strategy has come home to roost. We went light on OL recruiting in 2013 and now are left with a patchwork OL that consists of a bunch of walkons to fill gaps. At least we are loaded at WR, right? Nope. Just ONE of the 6 WRs is in the current two deeps on a WR corp that is not exactly tough to rise to the top.

1. Willies - long gone
2. Andre Harris - where is he? Does he have the speed and playmaking ability Davis said we needed if he's behind Stone et al on the depth chart?
3. Anjeus Jones - where is he? Does he have the playmaking ability?
4. Mitchell - buried at WR and switched over to RB, where he is 4th string.
5. Powell - played decent last year. Wish he was targeted more. He's long gone now.
6. Vandeberg - the lone two deeps WR in the bunch. And being a two deeps WR at the U of Iowa this year is not exactly an accomplishment. Vandy may be the head of the 6 man class, but he has had a lot of drops already in his career, is not and never will be a big play threat, and is not exactly the kind of WR recruit Davis was talking about when he said we needed to upgrade the talent level at the WR position. Why are we opposed to recruiting WRs who are fast runners and can catch?

Six WRs and not a single #1 WR in the bunch. With these whiffs, it is clear that there are holes in the roster that need to be filled by JUCOs.
Click to expand...


2013 wasn't that long ago, give it some time.

Willies is talented and him leaving can't be put on Davis at all, most likely.

Mitchell may be 1st or 2nd team by next year and showed some potential at RB this spring. Hardly a waste anyway.

Powell was a juco guy and made some big plays.

Vandenburg may surprise us who knows?

I don't know much about Harris and Jones but the fact that one or two out of 6 wouldn't work out happens to all college programs I'd wager.

Point is, it's not as bad as you're making it and the jury is still out on it.
 


To me, the bigger issue than the WRs has been QB play. A good QB makes marginal WRs good and a bad QB makes good WRs seem to be bad. We just haven't been strong at QB in 5 years and I'm not confident that Greg Davis (our QB coach) is going to make us any better there in the coming years. CJ's okay, but he's gonna have to make a big leap to make the WRs look better.

Hell, just as a reminder, JVB had 25 TDs against 7 picks in O'Keefe's final year calling the offense. He had 7 TDs against 8 picks in Davis's first year as OC. In 2013, Jake and CJ combined for 19 TDs against 5 picks and in 2014 they had 21 TDs against 7 picks. To put this in perspective, in each of the three years Davis has been here, the passing game has underperformed O'Keefe's final season with JVB. Our schedule last year wasn't exactly Murderer's Row or anything, either, but this guy is just completely inept and I feel genuinely sorry for anyone who continues to expend funds to buy season tickets to watch this moron running his offensive regime that was stale in 1986.
 


There was one WR at the Valley High scrimmage, didnt know who he was so he wasnt T Smith or Vandeberg or Hillyer or scheel, who looked pretty decent, who looked like he was getting open some. Anybody else know who I might be thinking of?

I think Vandeberg can be above avg as he made some good catches especially in the second half of last year. T Smith can have a big year and should be targeted often. Stone and Mccarron could be nice slot receiver and possession type WRs. The Off Line needs to come together on pass blocking and CJ can be pretty accurate and really good if he can be let to just play, not overthink all of GDs routes
 


Eeeek. All reports out of the open practice this weekend point to our WRs getting absolutely no separation and having no playmakers. Nearly 1/3 of our 2013 recruiting class was invested in creating a "speedy" "playmaker" receiving corp that Big shot Texas offensive coordinator demanded to turn Iowa into an athletic, exciting offense. Now fans like me desperate for some signs of progress on the offense are crossing our fingers for true freshmen WRs to come in and make a splash because no one else is turning heads. What have we been doing with WR recruiting? Even the true freshmen were mostly 2 stars with no other major offers.

We couldn't convince a single JUCO all american or 4 star high school kid to come in and start right away? Who do we have out there recruiting? I guarantee you that the 8th string WRs at Mich, OSU, PSU, MSU, etc. would start on our team. Why aren't we selling playing time???
 


iowalaw said:
Eeeek. All reports out of the open practice this weekend point to our WRs getting absolutely no separation and having no playmakers. Nearly 1/3 of our 2013 recruiting class was invested in creating a "speedy" "playmaker" receiving corp that Big shot Texas offensive coordinator demanded to turn Iowa into an athletic, exciting offense. Now fans like me desperate for some signs of progress on the offense are crossing our fingers for true freshmen WRs to come in and make a splash because no one else is turning heads. What have we been doing with WR recruiting? Even the true freshmen were mostly 2 stars with no other major offers.

We couldn't convince a single JUCO all american or 4 star high school kid to come in and start right away? Who do we have out there recruiting? I guarantee you that the 8th string WRs at Mich, OSU, PSU, MSU, etc. would start on our team. Why aren't we selling playing time???
Click to expand...

Iowa has never recruited the WR position well. I remember Hayden Fry saying towards the end of his tenure that one of the things that frustrated him the most during his time as HC was how difficult it was, year in and year out, to recruit speedy, dynamic WRs to Iowa. And with the exception of the DJK, McNutt years Ferentz has taken WR recruiting to a new low. The OP singled out Greg Davis, but seventeen years into a coaching tenure the blame belongs to Kirk Ferentz and Kirk Ferentz only.

What frustrates me more than our lack of talent at WR is how thin we appear to be on the o-line. Given our history at that position that's unacceptable!!!
 




HawkeyeMike23 said:
Get Davis the VY type QB he needs and you'll see the offense take off. Ferentz just hasn't delivered that guy for him yet.
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LOL. Brilliant analysis there Mike. In Iowa's football history exactly how many player's the caliber of VY have played here? Given that Ferentz has no ability to land those type of player's and if those elite level player's are the kind needed for GD's offense to "take off" a reasonable person might wonder what Davis is doing here and why Kirk insists on retaining him?
 




hawkeye4life68 said:
LOL. Brilliant analysis there Mike. In Iowa's football history exactly how many player's the caliber of VY have played here? Given that Ferentz has no ability to land those type of player's and if those elite level player's are the kind needed for GD's offense to "take off" a reasonable person might wonder what Davis is doing here and why Kirk insists on retaining him?
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When a guy says all a coach needs to be successful is one of the best college quarterbacks ever, he is probably making fun of said coach.
 




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