Does Ferentz Reward Underperforming Coaches?

IowaLawWasRight

IowaLawWasRight

Well-Known Member
I think any objective fan who has followed Iowa football over the past decade has scratched their head at some of Ferentz's coaching decisions over the years. From hiring his son over 100 other candidates as Iowa's OL coach in 2012, to promoting his son and raising his salary from $200,000 to $700,000 over the course of 5 years of below average OL coaching, to moving our best regarded coaching position assistant, Reece Morgan, from coaching the OL to coaching the DL to make way for Brian, to bringing back Ken O'Keefe, who was all but fired for having poor offenses, and was fired by his NFL team. Then there's LeVar Woods, who has struggled mightily in both coaching and recruiting, but because Ferentz likes him, he simply shuffles him around to different positions every few years to keep him on the payroll (i.e. he's the guy responsible for Iowa's 28 yard punting average and let it bounce and roll to the 3 yardline punt return game as special teams coach). THERE IS A REASON THAT AFTER 20 YEARS, THERE'S STILL NO FERENTZ COACHING TREE AT IOWA. He brings in "yes men," rather than sharp, ambitious future head coaches.

This year, we get to add an extra coach on our staff. How do we utilize the position? Not by bringing in a flashy recruiter or a top notch assistant from another school. Instead, we bring in a guy from a RBs coach from "Samford," an obscure FCS team who ranked 114th out of 123 FCS schools in rushing. lol

I get the optics of it. Bringing in a young, black coach, who can relate to the players and help in recruiting. That seems like a smart move. But this guy specifically has never landed a single D1 recruit, has zero ties to Iowa or the Midwest for recruiting or loyalty, and Iowa is now the 5th school he's coached at in the past 6 years. Apparently he's touted as a guy who might make recruiting in-roads in Georgia? Come on...that was Seth Wallace's claim to fame 5 years ago, and we've landed a grand total of 1 Georgia recruit since he's been on the coaching staff, Trey Creamer, despite offering tons of GA kids in that time span. It ain't happening.

Why not bring in a MAC coach from Michigan or Ohio who can develop a real pipeline, an up and comer from a BCS school, or a Florida/Texas high school football hall of famer. This hire is the latest in a series of head scratchers under Kirk's leadership.

http://www.hawkcentral.com/story/sp...ck-foster-georgia-recruiting-ties/1057232001/
 
IowaLawWasRight said:
I think any objective fan who has followed Iowa football over the past decade has scratched their head at some of Ferentz's coaching decisions over the years. From hiring his son over 100 other candidates as Iowa's OL coach in 2012, to promoting his son and raising his salary from $200,000 to $700,000 over the course of 5 years of below average OL coaching, to moving our best regarded coaching position assistant, Reece Morgan, from coaching the OL to coaching the DL to make way for Brian, to bringing back Ken O'Keefe, who was all but fired for having poor offenses, and was fired by his NFL team. Then there's LeVar Woods, who has struggled mightily in both coaching and recruiting, but because Ferentz likes him, he simply shuffles him around to different positions every few years to keep him on the payroll (i.e. he's the guy responsible for Iowa's 28 yard punting average and let it bounce and roll to the 3 yardline punt return game as special teams coach). THERE IS A REASON THAT AFTER 20 YEARS, THERE'S STILL NO FERENTZ COACHING TREE AT IOWA. He brings in "yes men," rather than sharp, ambitious future head coaches.

This year, we get to add an extra coach on our staff. How do we utilize the position? Not by bringing in a flashy recruiter or a top notch assistant from another school. Instead, we bring in a guy from a RBs coach from "Samford," an obscure FCS team who ranked 114th out of 123 FCS schools in rushing. lol

I get the optics of it. Bringing in a young, black coach, who can relate to the players and help in recruiting. That seems like a smart move. But this guy specifically has never landed a single D1 recruit, has zero ties to Iowa or the Midwest for recruiting or loyalty, and Iowa is now the 5th school he's coached at in the past 6 years. Apparently he's touted as a guy who might make recruiting in-roads in Georgia? Come on...that was Seth Wallace's claim to fame 5 years ago, and we've landed a grand total of 1 Georgia recruit since he's been on the coaching staff, Trey Creamer, despite offering tons of GA kids in that time span. It ain't happening.

Why not bring in a MAC coach from Michigan or Ohio who can develop a real pipeline, an up and comer from a BCS school, or a Florida/Texas high school football hall of famer. This hire is the latest in a series of head scratchers under Kirk's leadership.

http://www.hawkcentral.com/story/sp...ck-foster-georgia-recruiting-ties/1057232001/
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I'm not going to go all homer here but I think your downplaying BF and LeVar Woods resumes quite a bit. I do find it interesting that Woods has gone from coaching the position he played outside LBs to TEs and now just special teams. I thought it was weird he didn't take over LBs all together when Reid left. And special teams seems to be an odd fit for him as we haven't exactly been killing it in that regard lately. (One timely called play against OSU can't make up for all the poor play) Granted when it comes to FGs/extra points they've been solid there. It wasn't a no brainer Recinos would be fulltime kicker this year so that was a good decision by him. I think Woods is diversifying his resume so he can jump ship down the road eventually to DC at a MAC school or somewhere like that. Just a guess but I don't think he's a lifer assistant at Iowa like Phil Parker has kinda became. He's young yet and I'm sure would like to climb the ladder. But with Phil doing a good job and in no hurry to leave he's kinda stuck.

KOK for the record wasn't fired from Iowa and not pushed out at all. He did leave on his terms and yes he was fired at Miami but that's because so was the HC Philbin he was under. It's not like Philbin fired him before.. I know KOK had his detractors but let's be fair. Him coming back to help BF this year and the QBs next is a good thing. I don't see any negatives to it.

I hope your wrong about this new guy being brought in for the 'optics' you mentioned. You could be more right about that then I wish. I guess I just look at it as just as much of a crapshoot that we could make any endroads in Michigan/Ohio or PA recruiting wise than we can in the saturated south where there's just a plethora of the best kids coming out year after year also receiving the best HS coaching. I can't say either way is more right or wrong than the other without knowing the results ahead of time...
 
As mentioned the thing we do not know about Woods is do you know what his career goals are? Maybe for him to become a more well rounded coach he wanted to get experience coaching other groups. Building a resume with different position experience would look much better than just coaching one group.
 
IowaLawWasRight said:
I think any objective fan who has followed Iowa football over the past decade has scratched their head at some of Ferentz's coaching decisions over the years. From hiring his son over 100 other candidates as Iowa's OL coach in 2012, to promoting his son and raising his salary from $200,000 to $700,000 over the course of 5 years of below average OL coaching, to moving our best regarded coaching position assistant, Reece Morgan, from coaching the OL to coaching the DL to make way for Brian, to bringing back Ken O'Keefe, who was all but fired for having poor offenses, and was fired by his NFL team. Then there's LeVar Woods, who has struggled mightily in both coaching and recruiting, but because Ferentz likes him, he simply shuffles him around to different positions every few years to keep him on the payroll (i.e. he's the guy responsible for Iowa's 28 yard punting average and let it bounce and roll to the 3 yardline punt return game as special teams coach). THERE IS A REASON THAT AFTER 20 YEARS, THERE'S STILL NO FERENTZ COACHING TREE AT IOWA. He brings in "yes men," rather than sharp, ambitious future head coaches.

This year, we get to add an extra coach on our staff. How do we utilize the position? Not by bringing in a flashy recruiter or a top notch assistant from another school. Instead, we bring in a guy from a RBs coach from "Samford," an obscure FCS team who ranked 114th out of 123 FCS schools in rushing. lol

I get the optics of it. Bringing in a young, black coach, who can relate to the players and help in recruiting. That seems like a smart move. But this guy specifically has never landed a single D1 recruit, has zero ties to Iowa or the Midwest for recruiting or loyalty, and Iowa is now the 5th school he's coached at in the past 6 years. Apparently he's touted as a guy who might make recruiting in-roads in Georgia? Come on...that was Seth Wallace's claim to fame 5 years ago, and we've landed a grand total of 1 Georgia recruit since he's been on the coaching staff, Trey Creamer, despite offering tons of GA kids in that time span. It ain't happening.

Why not bring in a MAC coach from Michigan or Ohio who can develop a real pipeline, an up and comer from a BCS school, or a Florida/Texas high school football hall of famer. This hire is the latest in a series of head scratchers under Kirk's leadership.

http://www.hawkcentral.com/story/sp...ck-foster-georgia-recruiting-ties/1057232001/
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What will kirk do wrong tomorrow that one can bitch about??? Appears to be anything.
 
InGoodCo said:
Joe Philbin and Brett Bielema have had some success
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You could say Chuck Long also. How many former Kirk players are coaching high school and above across the country, and I think I will take Chad Greenway's word for it over some of these others on here who just hate Kirk no matter what he does or says.

Throw Ron Aikens name out there too. He was on Kirk's staff. Jerry Montgomery (former player) up with the Packers. I saw where our former Kicker (Mossbrucker) is on the Nebraska football staff.
 
Motigerhawk said:
The comment that sticks out to me is the lack of a coaching tree.
Esp. from a guy who has been around for that long.

Terrible
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Compared to Fry, no question, but then, that's true for a lot of coaches. Also, it should be noted that even Hayden didn't replicate that when his first staff started to go on their separate ways. Conversely, Ferentz has had guys who have been at Iowa for a long time.

Just looking back at some of the years:

His 2002 coaching staff included: Ken O'Keefe, Norm Parker, Ron Aiken, Lester Erb, Carl Jackson, Reese Morgan, Phil Parker, Joe Philbin, Darrell Wilson and Chris Doyle. 4 are still with him (O'Keefe left and returned), 2 retired. Joe Philbin became a head coach, and Ron Aiken has had success, but not as a head coach.

His 2005 staff was the same.

His 2008 staff included O'Keefe, Morgan, Parker, Parker, Wilson, Erb, Doyle, with the additions of Erik Campbell, Rick Kaczenski and Eric Johnson. Kaczenski is off somewhere howling at the moon, and Eric Johnson is serving up a mighty fine Culver's burger.

His 2013 staff included Parker, Erb, Morgan, Wilson, Doyle, Campbell, Johnson, Greg Davis, Brian Ferentz, LeVar Woods. Erb is now RB coach at Rutgers; Wilson was at Rutgers, not sure he still is. Not sure where Campbell is.

Of the current staff, Parker is likely to retire as Iowa's DC, Brian may become Iowa's HC, Morgan will retire at Iowa, as will Doyle. It's hard to predict where Polasek, Woods, Bell, Wallace, Copeland will end up.

Yes, if you're looking for a long list of HC as a judge of the quality of his staff over time, it's not there, but out of the original staff, 60% are still with or retired within the program. Not sure exactly what it means, everyone will draw their own conclusions from that, although I think it's fair to argue that these guys are happy at Iowa and like working with Ferentz, or otherwise they would have split for somewhere else.
 
homes said:
Compared to Fry, no question, but then, that's true for a lot of coaches. Also, it should be noted that even Hayden didn't replicate that when his first staff started to go on their separate ways. Conversely, Ferentz has had guys who have been at Iowa for a long time.

Just looking back at some of the years:

His 2002 coaching staff included: Ken O'Keefe, Norm Parker, Ron Aiken, Lester Erb, Carl Jackson, Reese Morgan, Phil Parker, Joe Philbin, Darrell Wilson and Chris Doyle. 4 are still with him (O'Keefe left and returned), 2 retired. Joe Philbin became a head coach, and Ron Aiken has had success, but not as a head coach.

His 2005 staff was the same.

His 2008 staff included O'Keefe, Morgan, Parker, Parker, Wilson, Erb, Doyle, with the additions of Erik Campbell, Rick Kaczenski and Eric Johnson. Kaczenski is off somewhere howling at the moon, and Eric Johnson is serving up a mighty fine Culver's burger.

His 2013 staff included Parker, Erb, Morgan, Wilson, Doyle, Campbell, Johnson, Greg Davis, Brian Ferentz, LeVar Woods. Erb is now RB coach at Rutgers; Wilson was at Rutgers, not sure he still is. Not sure where Campbell is.

Of the current staff, Parker is likely to retire as Iowa's DC, Brian may become Iowa's HC, Morgan will retire at Iowa, as will Doyle. It's hard to predict where Polasek, Woods, Bell, Wallace, Copeland will end up.

Yes, if you're looking for a long list of HC as a judge of the quality of his staff over time, it's not there, but out of the original staff, 60% are still with or retired within the program. Not sure exactly what it means, everyone will draw their own conclusions from that, although I think it's fair to argue that these guys are happy at Iowa and like working with Ferentz, or otherwise they would have split for somewhere else.
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Was just going to comment about Phil Parker. Imagine how many opportunities he has turned down. What a loyal person. Probably does not want what comes added with a head coaching spot somewhere. Lucky to have him here and that he stays.
 
westender said:
Was just going to comment about Phil Parker. Imagine how many opportunities he has turned down. What a loyal person. Probably does not want what comes added with a head coaching spot somewhere. Lucky to have him here and that he stays.
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When I look at and listen to Phil Parker, a "yes man" is not the first thing I think of. He's carved out a pretty good career for himself at Iowa, can't fault him for staying here. I have no desire to see him leave as Iowa's DC.
 
Funny thing is if we had a lot of turnover on the staff because the coaches wanted to advance in their career and work the system, people would bitch about Kirk hiring guys that didn't want to stay at Iowa.
 
IowaLawWasRight said:
I think any objective fan who has followed Iowa football over the past decade has scratched their head at some of Ferentz's coaching decisions over the years. From hiring his son over 100 other candidates as Iowa's OL coach in 2012, to promoting his son and raising his salary from $200,000 to $700,000 over the course of 5 years of below average OL coaching, to moving our best regarded coaching position assistant, Reece Morgan, from coaching the OL to coaching the DL to make way for Brian, to bringing back Ken O'Keefe, who was all but fired for having poor offenses, and was fired by his NFL team. Then there's LeVar Woods, who has struggled mightily in both coaching and recruiting, but because Ferentz likes him, he simply shuffles him around to different positions every few years to keep him on the payroll (i.e. he's the guy responsible for Iowa's 28 yard punting average and let it bounce and roll to the 3 yardline punt return game as special teams coach). THERE IS A REASON THAT AFTER 20 YEARS, THERE'S STILL NO FERENTZ COACHING TREE AT IOWA. He brings in "yes men," rather than sharp, ambitious future head coaches.

This year, we get to add an extra coach on our staff. How do we utilize the position? Not by bringing in a flashy recruiter or a top notch assistant from another school. Instead, we bring in a guy from a RBs coach from "Samford," an obscure FCS team who ranked 114th out of 123 FCS schools in rushing. lol

I get the optics of it. Bringing in a young, black coach, who can relate to the players and help in recruiting. That seems like a smart move. But this guy specifically has never landed a single D1 recruit, has zero ties to Iowa or the Midwest for recruiting or loyalty, and Iowa is now the 5th school he's coached at in the past 6 years. Apparently he's touted as a guy who might make recruiting in-roads in Georgia? Come on...that was Seth Wallace's claim to fame 5 years ago, and we've landed a grand total of 1 Georgia recruit since he's been on the coaching staff, Trey Creamer, despite offering tons of GA kids in that time span. It ain't happening.

Why not bring in a MAC coach from Michigan or Ohio who can develop a real pipeline, an up and comer from a BCS school, or a Florida/Texas high school football hall of famer. This hire is the latest in a series of head scratchers under Kirk's leadership.

http://www.hawkcentral.com/story/sp...ck-foster-georgia-recruiting-ties/1057232001/
Click to expand...

How about he bring in a MAC coach from Michigan.... specifically from Central Michigan. The coach has led them to three straight bowl games. Oh, wait... he's from that non-existant Ferentz coaching tree. That would be John Bonamego. We can't do that - hire a guy that doesn't exist.

How about instead we go to the east coast? There's a real up and comer there at Old Dominion. He's coached there for 9 seasons and has a 72-37 record while leading them from FCS to FBS. Oh wait.... he's another guy from that non-existant Ferentz coaching tree. That would be Billy Wilder. Again, we can't hire a guy that doesn't exist.

Maybe we could just hire an old NFL coach. There's a guy the Dolphins let go a while back. Oh wait... the Packers have hired him as an OC. And he's another guy from that non-existant Ferentz coaching tree. That would be Joe Philbin. (Maybe we should inform the Packers' organization that they hired a guy that doesn't exist)

You can call him "IowaLaw" or you can call him "IowaLawWasRight" but you simply can't call him right.
 
It sounds like Knight 78 really likes Ferentz's hire for Iowa's 10th coach...although he seems unable to justify it with words. Is it his success at other levels that you like? His experience? Or his recruiting ability?

Here's a news flash, when any head coach of any sport has been at a school for 20 years, and each year he fields a team of about 100 scholarship and walkon players with a large percentage aspiring to play in the NFL, coach at some level, or be involved in sports in some capacity, you are going to have 10 or more kids on every 100 man team who ends up going into coaching as a grad assistant and beyond. Take 10 former players per year over 20 years, and guess what, you're going to have quite a few former players on coaching staffs.

Same goes for coaching staffs. If you have 9-10 coaches, plus a bunch of grad assistants every year for 20 years...you're probably going to have guys who were on your staff wind up at other schools. Brilliant observation.

Somehow, other long tenured guys like Bob Stoops, Gary Patterson, Mike Gundy, Dabo Swinny, Nick Saban, etc. have coaching FORESTS compared with Kirk's Charlie Brown Christmas Tree. The question remains...why is it that way? Is it because Iowa's assistants are so darn good that they remain assistants forever (or leave the team to run a fast food restaurant)? Or is it because no other schools come calling? The law of averages is if someone is in demand, another school is going to offer him more money and a promotion. If someone is a "yes man," and provides no innovation or huge recruiting advantages, no one comes calling and they remain where they're at.
 
IowaLawWasRight said:
I think any objective fan who has followed Iowa football over the past decade has scratched their head at some of Ferentz's coaching decisions over the years. From hiring his son over 100 other candidates as Iowa's OL coach in 2012, to promoting his son and raising his salary from $200,000 to $700,000 over the course of 5 years of below average OL coaching, to moving our best regarded coaching position assistant, Reece Morgan, from coaching the OL to coaching the DL to make way for Brian, to bringing back Ken O'Keefe, who was all but fired for having poor offenses, and was fired by his NFL team. Then there's LeVar Woods, who has struggled mightily in both coaching and recruiting, but because Ferentz likes him, he simply shuffles him around to different positions every few years to keep him on the payroll (i.e. he's the guy responsible for Iowa's 28 yard punting average and let it bounce and roll to the 3 yardline punt return game as special teams coach). THERE IS A REASON THAT AFTER 20 YEARS, THERE'S STILL NO FERENTZ COACHING TREE AT IOWA. He brings in "yes men," rather than sharp, ambitious future head coaches.

This year, we get to add an extra coach on our staff. How do we utilize the position? Not by bringing in a flashy recruiter or a top notch assistant from another school. Instead, we bring in a guy from a RBs coach from "Samford," an obscure FCS team who ranked 114th out of 123 FCS schools in rushing. lol

I get the optics of it. Bringing in a young, black coach, who can relate to the players and help in recruiting. That seems like a smart move. But this guy specifically has never landed a single D1 recruit, has zero ties to Iowa or the Midwest for recruiting or loyalty, and Iowa is now the 5th school he's coached at in the past 6 years. Apparently he's touted as a guy who might make recruiting in-roads in Georgia? Come on...that was Seth Wallace's claim to fame 5 years ago, and we've landed a grand total of 1 Georgia recruit since he's been on the coaching staff, Trey Creamer, despite offering tons of GA kids in that time span. It ain't happening.

Why not bring in a MAC coach from Michigan or Ohio who can develop a real pipeline, an up and comer from a BCS school, or a Florida/Texas high school football hall of famer. This hire is the latest in a series of head scratchers under Kirk's leadership.

http://www.hawkcentral.com/story/sp...ck-foster-georgia-recruiting-ties/1057232001/
Click to expand...
If you are talking about himself and family YES.
 
IowaLawWasRight said:
The question remains...why is it that way? Is it because Iowa's assistants are so darn good that they remain assistants forever (or leave the team to run a fast food restaurant)? Or is it because no other schools come calling? The law of averages is if someone is in demand, another school is going to offer him more money and a promotion. If someone is a "yes man," and provides no innovation or huge recruiting advantages, no one comes calling and they remain where they're at.
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Or, maybe some guys like the culture where they are at, and want to work within that culture.

Going back over the years - Iowa's original staff stayed in tact from 98-05, not sure when Aiken left but some time in there. He went from Iowa to the Arizona Cardinals.

Joe Philbin left around the same time - he went to Green Bay and then became coach of the Dolphins.

I would agree that Eric Johnson and Rick Kaczenski were not good hires, but that happens in every organization.

Erik Campbell came from Michigan in 2008, which had a long line of successful WRs, he didn't click at Iowa, I don't know why. He's now at the University of Delaware as the passing game coordinator and WR coach.

Seth Wallace started as a grad assistant, left and came back to Iowa.

Charlie Bullen started in 2011 as a grad assistant for the defense and now is a LB coach for the Dolphins

David Raih started in 2011 as a grad assistant for the offense and now is the WR coach for the Packers.

LeVar Woods started in 2011 as an administrative assistant and is now the Special Teams coach

Greg Davis came in 2012 as the OC and retired

Chris Polizzi started in 2012 as a grad assistant for the defense and is now an assistant coach and recruiting coordinator at Tennessee Tech.

Kelvin Bell started in 2013 as a grad assistant for the special teams and is now the recruiting coordinator for Iowa

Jim Reid came in 2013 as the LB coach and is now the DC at Boston College

Bobby Kennedy came in 2013, was essentially fired and is now the WR coach at SMU. Chris White came in '13 or '14, was also essentially fired, and is now at UCONN. Neither were particularly successful at Iowa, and sealed their fate going behind Ferentz's back, probably not a quality that would serve them well with other HCs either.

Tyler Barnes started in 2013 as an administrative assistant and is now director of recruiting

Broderick Binns started in 2015 as a grad assistant and is now the director of player development

This is a sampling of some of the coaches. Again, if you're looking for a litany of guys who went on to be HCs as the measure of what is a successful assistant, then you win, Iowa's list is short. There have been some who have left who have advanced their careers, and some who have not. Under your law of averages proposition, Iowa has had men come in and left for a promotion and more money. What I don't know, and if you do, please share, is whether the men who either stayed at Iowa, or who left, came back and have stayed, have done so because they have looked, but had no options, or that they simply like it at Iowa and aren't actively looking. Unless you have some evidence to the contrary, derisively calling the Yes Men because they've stayed at Iowa is unfair. Until then, I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt and I believe that these guys are at Iowa because they like it at Iowa.
 
IowaLawWasRight said:
Words words words words; words more words. I hate Kirk Ferentz more wordy word words words. Words more words and words to get more like .... words and words words words. I think I sound smart using and copying other people’s words. And words with words and then especially WORDS in caps wordy word words.
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Do you know how stupid it sounds to say LeVar Woods is struggling at coaching and recruiting when he’s been coaching the positions that have looked the best the last several years and is the center of the offense and defense units to have success. And has had the most improved talent. The LB and TE units have just sucked the last few years, haven’t they.

And that moving him to special teams just might mean that Ferentz trusts him to get that unit to respectability again. Oh, and I wonder if he played on special teams in the NFL where he learned no thing.

And that you don’t have to play a position to be a successful coach at that position and, in fact, can be a really good coach at the position(s) that your position as a player was opposing?
 
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