I wasn't trying to be funny. I would point you to Boise State.
Chris Petersen was 92-12 at Boise until he took the Washington job a few years ago. He was 5-2 in bowl games including 2 big time wins in the Fiesta bowl vs Oklahoma and TCU. He had two undefeated seasons and somehow seemed to get enough talent to go to freaking Boise Idaho to be a consistent winner and highly ranked team. He scheduled at least one tough OOC game when he could but most big time teams didn't want to play them; beat Oregon in back to back years and also beat highly ranked Virginia Tech. Played and beat ranked teams in his bowl victories and had a one point loss to TCU in one of his bowl losses.
You don't think Iowa could do better? Boise St did and I think just about anyone would consider Iowa a higher profile, more desirable coaching job than Boise St. You don't need Saban or Meyer to take a step forward. I don't think Kirk is an awful coach but I also don't think he's much better than average.
Completely agree. You have an example of a school that's at a major disadvantage in resources, athletes, and perception.
You bring in a coach who had a clear vision in mind, and he executed it flawlessly. Would Boise St have a worse record if they played in a tougher conference? Maybe. We'll never know. What we do know is that in the chances they had to go against good teams, they won more than they lost.
Let's not act like Iowa over the past few years has had to run against the best of the business. We continually play against a very soft OOC schedule. Throw in the Big10 is pretty top heavy, with the rest of the teams either average or below average and the same reasoning could be thrown that if Iowa played in another major conference would we have gotten better or worse results?
KF set Iowa up like Boise when he got here. He brought in schemes that really maximized the best out of the players. Not many teams were ready for zone blocking in the early 2000. We had assistant coaches who could recruit all over the country, primarily FL and TX. Those same coaches then left for NFL and head coaching positions at other schools, and most of them have been extremely successful.
Over time the game has changed, and teams started to figure out how to scheme against Iowa, and specifically KF conservative tendencies (How can you not remember DanAntonio high-fiving his daughter after ANOTHER fake kick is successful).
Unless KF has NFL talent on the defense, and a playmaker at QB (usually helps at the same time), Iowa is a 7-5 team with his schemes and gameday coaching.
While we could do way worse, the same can be said in that we could do so much better. But since the "Bullies" days, we've changed our motto to "We're just Iowa".
Go back and watch games from 2000-2004, and just look at the demeanor and attitude of KF and the team. Compare it to now, and granted age will slow people down. But we've turned into a team that would absolutely smash your face in, to a team that wants to win, but win respectfully. And if we lose, tip of the hat to you.
