Former NW QB Shares why Cats are Besting the Hawks

thecaptain said:
I'm not saying Fitz is a bad coach but he needs to get over the grudge against Iowa. It is time for him to move on.

I am a season ticket holder at Iowa and have seen a lot of fired up teams since 2004. I think it is pretty low when you say that the players/coaches don't get fired up for a game. I sat front row at the Iowa/Northwestern game last year and the better team won but you can't say Iowa didn't come to play. Also- bounces and injuries do come into play in football. Last year Northwestern was healthy all season and honestly that game was a lot closer than many people think. The blocked punt was the biggest difference in the game. A few years ago Iowa's starting qb went down in the game which killed us.

We will see what happens this year but if you go back the last 10 years I would say that all the Northwestern/Iowa games have all been pretty darn close. IMO I don't think one team is out scheming the other team. I think it is a healthy rivalry game and an all out battle each time they play each other.

I do think it is funny that your boy Fitz had to make up a story to get his team fired up. That's why I think he's a nerd!

Time will tell if NW can handle being the hunted and not the hunter. I know that Iowa stinks at it!
Click to expand...

What? I sat in the second row of that game and we looked like a High school JV team. Our offense was embarrassing. At one point some parents of the Iowa players started jawing at each other and it got weird...a lot of the Iowa crowd left at half.
 
FreedComanche said:
That's exactly what I thought as I read it.
Click to expand...

That's exactly what I thought has been happening for years. And it is embarrassing. I love Norm Parker but I hated the fact that 3 WRs with some motion could potentially isolate the opposing offenses best WR on one of our LBs. Ugh. Put in a Nickel or a Dime package.
 
MeatMan said:
doesn't that just sound crazy though? "Well, we just don't match up well against this team, but we should just keep being who we are instead of making an effort to try something different." he sure didn't learn that line of thinking from Belichick.
Click to expand...

This is the source of frustration for about 25% of hawk nation that has called for kf's head in the past. We are not calling for his head now since the season is about to start. I think the other 75% of hawk nation realizes the comments Meat made above, but they turn a blind eye too it for various reasons that I've stated in other threads.

FreedComanche
 
JonDMiller said:
There is no doubt. IMO the biggest failure of the KF era is how he's treated/managed the offense
Click to expand...

Agreed. It would be pointless to list the problems with the way Iowa has approached offense, we all know them.

While not to many, if any, losses can really be put at the feet of the D. I don't think the schemes were really all that great. Having probably close to %60-70 of your starters on that side of the ball end up in the NFL over that time period makes most schemes viable.

Most coaches would be far more aggressive given the same players to work with.
 
Easton said:
This Iis one of the silliest points anyone has ever tried to push across. You want to put fitz above ferentz yet fitz hasn't gotten his team where gary barnett was able to.

Being a third or fourth place team in the division is the best fitz has been able to do in 8 yrs. His boner and it seems to have rubbed off on you, for iowa has gotten him less than his coach took same school.

Iowa will be able to find a better coach than fitz. I would prefer a coach who wants titles not revenge.
Click to expand...

Ferentz hasn't gotten Iowa to where Barnett got NU (the Rose Bowl) so I'm not sure what the hell your point here is. I've compared Ferentz's and Fitz's records during the same era where they have basically had mirror B1G schedules (save for Iowa getting Purdue and NU getting Illinois and a few other minor scheduling differences) because that is the best proxy for comparing two coaches. During that era, Ferentz has zero B1G titles and one BCS win. And of course, near parity in terms of on field performance despite Iowa's sizeable built in advantages over Northwestern. There was definitely a point where I think one could easily say Ferentz was the best or second best coach in the conference, but that era was about a decade ago.
 
ShadasRevenge said:
You can't compare a situation that has happened to one that might. If Fitz did leave NW, there's a pretty good chance their next coach wouldn't be as into the job as he is. If Nebraska and Michigan can hire the wrong coach, Northwestern sure as hell can.
Click to expand...

Is there a point in this post? There is a 99.999999% chance that NU would hire a worse coach than Fitz if Fitz left NU. He is one of the top coaches in the country right now, but most Hokkfans are too dense to understand the substantial disadvantages the guy is working against. If Ferentz left Iowa, it would probably be a coin toss as to whether or not we got a better or worse coach (but if we were willing to expend $3.8mm/year for a new guy, it would probably be someone at least comparable to Ferentz). We as a fan base have been very fortunate to have had Hayden and Ferentz patrolling the sidelines for a period now spanning 5 decades, but for the love of God, I just don't want to see a Ferentz wind down period that mirrors Hayden's wind down period. The odds of catching lightning in a bottle three times in a row can't be good.
 
lightning1 said:
That's exactly what I thought has been happening for years. And it is embarrassing. I love Norm Parker but I hated the fact that 3 WRs with some motion could potentially isolate the opposing offenses best WR on one of our LBs. Ugh. Put in a Nickel or a Dime package.
Click to expand...

Our base defense only works against today's efficient spread offenses when we have a guy like Chad Greenway or AJ Edds (as an upperclassman) on the slot guy and a couple of stud d-linemen who can limit the time the QB has in the pocket. If we consistently had guys on par with Roth, Clayborn, Ballard and Babs cycling through on d-line and Edds (as an upperclassman) and Greenway cycling through as LBs, the base defense would be just fine. But we don't.
 
MoseSchrute said:
Ball's on the opponent's 34 with nothing but pride left to play for....better punt it.
Click to expand...

Sandeman is basically Devin Hester so let's go ahead and get the full punt return on and drop everyone back on the snap of the ball. No way Wisconsin would run a fake punt.

[video=youtube;mKvOZueACjI]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mKvOZueACjI[/video]
 
This thread is based on an untrue premise. Intact Iowa is pretty dominant in the series. Iowa wins 64% of the time (47-24-3). Iowa wins by an average of 11 points (25-14). Iowa also has won 14 bowl wins since 1949 to NW's 1. So this thread should be about how much better the Iowa program is than the NW program.
 
Last edited:
okeefe4prez said:
Sandeman is basically Devin Hester so let's go ahead and get the full punt return on and drop everyone back on the snap of the ball. No way Wisconsin would run a fake punt.

[video=youtube;mKvOZueACjI]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mKvOZueACjI[/video]
Click to expand...

I hate seeing that video. Bieiema knew Ferentz well enough to know he would never expect a fake punt, mostly because a fake anything would never cross Ferentz's mind. Play it safe, don't expect surprises, chomp chomp chomp. That's Kirk's game plan.

Another thought. With Wisconsin at their own 25 yard line why not go for a block and seal the deal if they happened to block it? Then there's almost no chance of them succeeding if they were to run the fake.
 
Hawknick said:
This thread is based on an untrue premise. Intact Iowa is pretty dominant in the series. Iowa wins 64% of the time (47-24-3). Iowa wins by an average of 11 points (25-14). Iowa also has won 14 bowl wins since 1949 to NW's 1. So this thread should be about how much better the Iowa program is than the NW program.
Click to expand...

No one will dispute that historically the Iowa program is better than the NU program. I mean, you honestly have to get into the ISUs of the world to find BCS level programs that are arguably as bad historically (and this is no disrespect to the current ISU program but they were historically very, very bad, like Northwestern). Iowa has pretty much every advantage over Northwestern, from facilities to being able to recruit young men who are barely capable of getting drool on their ACTs to a near SEC-like desire to turn a blind eye to the transgressions of the young men who play football, yet despite these advantages, the respective records of the coaches point to near parity between the two programs. Of course, one spot where there isn't parity is ticket prices. Ohio State prices for Northwestern quality should become the Athletic Department's new motto.
 
Sparky said:
I hate seeing that video. Bieiema knew Ferentz well enough to know he would never expect a fake punt, mostly because a fake anything would never cross Ferentz's mind. Play it safe, don't expect surprises, chomp chomp chomp. That's Kirk's game plan.

Another thought. With Wisconsin at their own 25 yard line why not go for a block and seal the deal if they happened to block it? Then there's almost no chance of them succeeding if they were to run the fake.
Click to expand...

The saddest thing about that play is it felt like such a gut punch at the time and the resulting giant dump that the program has taken has been hard to watch. I firmly believe that if that one play goes the other way and we walk out of there with a FG, we win that game and the swagger doesn't get deflated from the ball club. It feels like it changed the course of history for the whole program.

Side question - I know a lot of folks hated Bielema when he was at Wisconsin. I personally wished him the best and still do, but will the rest of the fanbase pull for him to do well in Arkansas? I know I would love to see an ex-Hawk roll through Spurrier, Miles, Saban, et al and win some hardware down there. I also pull for Stoops to do well in Oklahoma, but that's easier for most folks to swallow bince he has always been in another conference.
 
okeefe4prez said:
The saddest thing about that play is it felt like such a gut punch at the time and the resulting giant dump that the program has taken has been hard to watch. I firmly believe that if that one play goes the other way and we walk out of there with a FG, we win that game and the swagger doesn't get deflated from the ball club. It feels like it changed the course of history for the whole program.

Side question - I know a lot of folks hated Bielema when he was at Wisconsin. I personally wished him the best and still do, but will the rest of the fanbase pull for him to do well in Arkansas? I know I would love to see an ex-Hawk roll through Spurrier, Miles, Saban, et al and win some hardware down there. I also pull for Stoops to do well in Oklahoma, but that's easier for most folks to swallow bince he has always been in another conference.
Click to expand...

I'll pull for Bilema now that he's not at a rival Big 10 school. I honestly wouldn't be upset if he came back to coach at Iowa when/if that day comes.
 
tubahawk said:
I'll pull for Bilema now that he's not at a rival Big 10 school. I honestly wouldn't be upset if he came back to coach at Iowa when/if that day comes.
Click to expand...

It was hard to cheer for him due to shared recruits with Wisconsin, but by God I sure wanted him to always beat Nebraska, Michigan, PSU and OSU.
 
tubahawk said:
I'll pull for Bilema now that he's not at a rival Big 10 school. I honestly wouldn't be upset if he came back to coach at Iowa when/if that day comes.
Click to expand...

Me too. He should be on the short list of candidates when KF leaves. He's a good recruiter and he runs a style of offense that works. Wisconsin was always towards the top in scoring and rushing under Bielema.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Latest posts

Share this page

Top