Do Ferentz teams really get better as the season goes on?

hawkfan2679

hawkfan2679

Well-Known Member
Kinda...how's that for an answer.

I went back and tracked our W/L by month, by year, and to tell the truth, his teams are actually remarkably consistent. Including 2009 here are the monthly marks under Ferentz...

1999-2009
August W/L: 3-1 (.750)
September W/L: 26-18 (.591)
October W/L: 24-18 (.571)
November W/L: 20-13 (.606)
Bowl games W/L: 4-3 (.571)
Overall W/L: 77-53 (.592)

For fun, I removed the first two years, writing them off as rebuilding years, then recalculated the percentages...

2001-2009
August W/L: 3-0 (1.000)
September W/L: 25-12 (.676)
October W/L: 23-10 (.697)
November W/L: 18-9 (.667)
Bowl games W/L: 4-3 (.571)
Overall W/L: 73-34 (.682)


I think it's pretty much known as Hawkeye fans that Ferentz-coached teams seem to get better as the season wears on. These stats indicate that this might not be the case...could it be a matter of perception? Perhaps a measure of HOW we are winning games, vs. IF we are winning games?
 
I think this is a little misleading since the games also get tougher as the year goes on. Just because the winning percentage doesnt reflect it in all cases, i do believe the majority KF teams show significant progress as the year goes on
 
I would say it is safe to say that individual players definitely improve as the year goes on...the team as a whole is generally who it is all year, there isn't much timing or anything needed on the offense and the defense generally just goes balls deep from the first game to the last game...
 
i think you could break it down a little farther and say his teams are excellent in the second half of games,the stats back this up
 
Iowa works on fundamentals all year long, far more than most teams...they dial some things back in the second half with intensity of practice, but its all drill fundamentals, all year...most teams are not doing that. I think Iowa's teams definitely get better in the second half.
 
I think you are right on when you say it is how they win games. It seems in our "good years" as the season wore on, we would win the close games and dominate the inferior teams. For the couple of down years in this decade it did not matter. They just did not find that "extra" gear.
 
Yes, they do get better as the season goes on. Fewer mistakes, usually a more productive offense, more prone to win the close ones.
 
hawkfan2679 said:
Kinda...how's that for an answer.

I went back and tracked our W/L by month, by year, and to tell the truth, his teams are actually remarkably consistent. Including 2009 here are the monthly marks under Ferentz...

1999-2009
August W/L: 3-1 (.750)
September W/L: 26-18 (.591)
October W/L: 24-18 (.571)
November W/L: 20-13 (.606)
Bowl games W/L: 4-3 (.571)
Overall W/L: 77-53 (.592)

For fun, I removed the first two years, writing them off as rebuilding years, then recalculated the percentages...

2001-2009
August W/L: 3-0 (1.000)
September W/L: 25-12 (.676)
October W/L: 23-10 (.697)
November W/L: 18-9 (.667)
Bowl games W/L: 4-3 (.571)
Overall W/L: 73-34 (.682)


I think it's pretty much known as Hawkeye fans that Ferentz-coached teams seem to get better as the season wears on. These stats indicate that this might not be the case...could it be a matter of perception? Perhaps a measure of HOW we are winning games, vs. IF we are winning games?
Click to expand...
 
Just looking at wins/losses doesn't tell the whole story. We often play lesser opponents in August and early September than we do in later October/November. Maybe we just play better as the competition heats up.
 
DLReynolds said:
Just looking at wins/losses doesn't tell the whole story. We often play lesser opponents in August and early September than we do in later October/November. Maybe we just play better as the competition heats up.
Click to expand...

That's why I think it's a matter of perception. We don't really win that much more in Oct/Nov than we do in Aug/Sept. I think that the wins early in the year don't mean as much, perception-wise, than the wins at the end of the year do. That's why a win in late October/early November against Michigan means a lot more than a win in late August vs. Ball State. Both games are W's from the W/L perspective, but any dummy can tell you that the late season game means more.

Plus, I really think it is a HOW we win issue to. Our early season competition sometimes doesn't challenge the team...you need to know how the team is going to perform with their nuts nailed to the wall. Those Oct/Nov games have seen the Hawkeyes perform very well, even though the W/L record isn't that much different from September's.
 
hawkfan2679 said:
That's why I think it's a matter of perception. We don't really win that much more in Oct/Nov than we do in Aug/Sept. I think that the wins early in the year don't mean as much, perception-wise, than the wins at the end of the year do. That's why a win in late October/early November against Michigan means a lot more than a win in late August vs. Ball State. Both games are W's from the W/L perspective, but any dummy can tell you that the late season game means more.

Plus, I really think it is a HOW we win issue to. Our early season competition sometimes doesn't challenge the team...you need to know how the team is going to perform with their nuts nailed to the wall. Those Oct/Nov games have seen the Hawkeyes perform very well, even though the W/L record isn't that much different from September's.
Click to expand...
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The piece you are missing in your analysis is the percentage of games we are favored to win in each month. I would guess we are favored to win (via betting lines, etc.) over 80% of our games in August/September and much closer to 50% of our games in October/November.
 
I think over the last few years, excluding I believe it was 06, 07 or maybe both, KF's team has gotten remarkably better in the second half of the season. Take last year and the 04 season, started off 3-3 last year (9-4) and 2-2 in 04 (10-2). I'm hoping we've picked up that second half steam already and coast the rest of the year. I realize Ohio State will be tough but we should be at our very best against them.
 
It would be interesting to see this broken out by week. I suspect the first 3-4 weeks of the Big ten would show a trend, and taking out the collapse the in 06 and 07.
 
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