Fran's Contract

ArvadaHawk said:
bogey, i will remind you that the standard bearer for the Iowa basketball program (for many, many fans) is Mr. Davis Davis. Mr. Davis didn't have to deal with RPI's, SOS's, first 4 in, first 4 out, etc, etc. You win 20 games and you're in the B1G, then you're probably in the NCAA. It is much, much tougher, now, to get into the NCAA. There were very few preseason tourney's (Great Alaska Shootout and Maui Classic are the only two I can think of) so every season, Mr. Davis was playing 11 Drakes and then ISU non conference. He had a build in 10+ wins going into the B1G. That has also changed. Non conference competition has greatly increased in the last 10+ seasons. The criterion has changed. We would have been in the NCAA last season using the same standard Mr. Davis had to deal with.

Mr. Davis reached the Sweet 16 or beyond, twice: 86/87 & 87/88; his first two seasons at Iowa and with ALL George Raveling recruits. After that, zero times, then 10 straight seasons not, then once again his final season. 3 times out of 13. And Mr. Davis became a legend at Iowa.
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Yeah the poster I replied to just said postseason, not NCAA tourney. It is not that hard to make one of the two posteason tourneys IMHO, especially in year 8 of your "program". To not even make the NIT this year just feels like it would set us back quite a bit, anyone else feel that way? When people bring Kirk in to it as far as questioning why people are on Fran right now an not Kirk... I just think it isn't a correct comparison, because while Kirk has down seasons he has also had some top level seasons and bowl games, which would be the equivalent of Fran having a top ten season or a sweet 16 by this point after 8 years. I really think if Fran had even one season like this fans would be off his back and give him more slack is all I am saying. He doesn't even have a BIG Tourney run on his resume, his teams seem to continually falter when the bright lights are on. He is lacking a "signature moment" that builds up some goodwill with the fan base at this point. Couple that with his antics.... well, I kind of understand why his seat is getting a little warm with the fanbase. His "signature moments" when you think of his tenure here, don't have anything to do with big wins but more like "remember when Fran got ejected...or remember when Fran walked off the court without shaking hands".... remember when Fran broke that chair" etc. Kind of sad actually. I'm willing to give him another year, but have to admit I've lost most confidence in him. At the very least, a staff shakeup should be in order.

I agree with you on Mr. Davis, while I respect him and the class he had he is by no means a legend. He totally padded his win total with cupcake city every year, then mixed in a few BIG wins and as you mentioned would casually slide in to the tourney where we would usually bow out early. Losing to UNLV with an absolutely loaded team after being up big still gets under my skin! I don't believe we ever won one big ten title in his time. But I guess he brought a level of class and fair consistency that many people appreciate so they hold him in high regard.

I really hope this team gets something together and gives us a glimmer of hope for next season. I thought Jake Sullivan and Jess Settles really nailed it yesterday on KXNO, if you guys get a chance listen to the podcast from yesterday around 5pm hour. they absolutely nailed the issues with the team right now. Good listen.
 
bogeyman said:
Yeah the poster I replied to just said postseason, not NCAA tourney. It is not that hard to make one of the two posteason tourneys IMHO, especially in year 8 of your "program". To not even make the NIT this year just feels like it would set us back quite a bit, anyone else feel that way? When people bring Kirk in to it as far as questioning why people are on Fran right now an not Kirk... I just think it isn't a correct comparison, because while Kirk has down seasons he has also had some top level seasons and bowl games, which would be the equivalent of Fran having a top ten season or a sweet 16 by this point after 8 years. I really think if Fran had even one season like this fans would be off his back and give him more slack is all I am saying. He doesn't even have a BIG Tourney run on his resume, his teams seem to continually falter when the bright lights are on. He is lacking a "signature moment" that builds up some goodwill with the fan base at this point. Couple that with his antics.... well, I kind of understand why his seat is getting a little warm with the fanbase. His "signature moments" when you think of his tenure here, don't have anything to do with big wins but more like "remember when Fran got ejected...or remember when Fran walked off the court without shaking hands".... remember when Fran broke that chair" etc. Kind of sad actually. I'm willing to give him another year, but have to admit I've lost most confidence in him. At the very least, a staff shakeup should be in order.

I agree with you on Mr. Davis, while I respect him and the class he had he is by no means a legend. He totally padded his win total with cupcake city every year, then mixed in a few BIG wins and as you mentioned would casually slide in to the tourney where we would usually bow out early. Losing to UNLV with an absolutely loaded team after being up big still gets under my skin! I don't believe we ever won one big ten title in his time. But I guess he brought a level of class and fair consistency that many people appreciate so they hold him in high regard.

I really hope this team gets something together and gives us a glimmer of hope for next season. I thought Jake Sullivan and Jess Settles really nailed it yesterday on KXNO, if you guys get a chance listen to the podcast from yesterday around 5pm hour. they absolutely nailed the issues with the team right now. Good listen.
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i'm not saying Fran's seat shouldn't be hot. i am saying he should be allowed to fix it; if we're the same fan base that allowed kirk to fix all of his problems (which i would argue he as yet to complete). Regarding just make post season not being a big deal, i would point to the 37 non playoff bowl games this year totaling 74 college football teams playing in. Next i would point out that we had lost 5 straight bowl games (blown out and not even in contention after the 1st qtr or half) until we won a hockey game against BC. All i am saying is the fran should be held to the same standard as all of our other coaches, except wrestling, because that sport doesn't need beaches or mountains to recruit to.
 
ArvadaHawk said:
i'm not saying Fran's seat shouldn't be hot. i am saying he should be allowed to fix it; if we're the same fan base that allowed kirk to fix all of his problems (which i would argue he as yet to complete). Regarding just make post season not being a big deal, i would point to the 37 non playoff bowl games this year totaling 74 college football teams playing in. Next i would point out that we had lost 5 straight bowl games (blown out and not even in contention after the 1st qtr or half) until we won a hockey game against BC. All i am saying is the fran should be held to the same standard as all of our other coaches, except wrestling, because that sport doesn't need beaches or mountains to recruit to.
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Comparing Fran to Kirk isn't very smart and I don't even really like Kirk anymore. If Fran had half the success Kirk has had he would get a much longer leash from the sane fans.
 
Hawk5656 said:
Comparing Fran to Kirk isn't very smart and I don't even really like Kirk anymore. If Fran had half the success Kirk has had he would get a much longer leash from the sane fans.
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we disagree. kirk ferentz has been the most insulated from criticism college football coach in the history of college football. his glaring mistakes are poo-poo'd and explained away because of no beaches or mountains.
 
ArvadaHawk said:
we disagree. kirk ferentz has been the most insulated from criticism college football coach in the history of college football. his glaring mistakes are poo-poo'd and explained away because of no beaches or mountains.
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Kirk has 5 top 10 finishes here. Fran has never even finished in the top 25. There is no reason to compare the two with what Kirk has accomplished.
 
ArvadaHawk said:
we disagree. kirk ferentz has been the most insulated from criticism college football coach in the history of college football. his glaring mistakes are poo-poo'd and explained away because of no beaches or mountains.
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We aren't saying he doesn't have his weaknesses, and I'm happy to point them all out again and rehash them for the millionth time. I'd be the first to agree there are seasons that make me want to scream....like watching Mark Weisman run the ball 2 yards while Wadley sat the bench. We are just saying it isn't a good comparison, Fran has ZERO high level accomplishments with the Hawks. Not one Signature moment where we can say we have faith this guy can get us to the top. What is his signature moment as Hawk Coach? He's had 8 years.
Whether people want to acknowledge it or not, an Orange Bowl in year 4 after Hayden had left the program dry and a couple top ten finishes is an accomplishment that Fran has come nowhere near so far. That isn't a defense of Kirk, just the truth of what Fran has (not) accomplished so far. So the leash is for sure getting shorter. Not to mention it takes much more personnel to turn a football program around, in basketball all he literally needs to do is find a couple studs. Just painful to see this team Lickliter bad and Carver dead. :(
 
Kirk Ferentz led teams have finished ranked 6 times out of this 22 season career being a head coach. Legend!
 
tksirius said:
Kirk Ferentz led teams have finished ranked 6 times out of this 22 season career being a head coach. Legend!
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I would definitely agree and have always said we should be a top 25 program more times than we aren't. Not going to argue with that.
 
MWS604 said:
Can you say Tom Davis
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Ah yes, Tom Davis. So many are afraid of making a mistake like Tom Davis. We wanted to take the next step as a program, we took a chance. It didn't work. That's okay. We can keep trying until we get it right. No need to settle for mediocrity due to fear of failure.
Oh and by the way, a year like this should never happen at Iowa....like ever. To be fair, still lots of season left, so let's see what happens. I fear I already have a pretty good idea of how it will go.
 
bogeyman said:
We aren't saying he doesn't have his weaknesses, and I'm happy to point them all out again and rehash them for the millionth time. I'd be the first to agree there are seasons that make me want to scream....like watching Mark Weisman run the ball 2 yards while Wadley sat the bench. We are just saying it isn't a good comparison, Fran has ZERO high level accomplishments with the Hawks. Not one Signature moment where we can say we have faith this guy can get us to the top. What is his signature moment as Hawk Coach? He's had 8 years.
Whether people want to acknowledge it or not, an Orange Bowl in year 4 after Hayden had left the program dry and a couple top ten finishes is an accomplishment that Fran has come nowhere near so far. That isn't a defense of Kirk, just the truth of what Fran has (not) accomplished so far. So the leash is for sure getting shorter. Not to mention it takes much more personnel to turn a football program around, in basketball all he literally needs to do is find a couple studs. Just painful to see this team Lickliter bad and Carver dead. :(
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see, that is the problem, this team isn't Lickliter bad. we don't have a true pg. who on any of lick's teams were as good as Cook? Or Garza? Or Baer? How many times did lickliter's teams even sniff scoring 60 points let alone 80's?

How many folks were calling for Tom Davis' head in 89-90 and 93-94 when he won 12 and 11 respectively? How much success did Mr. Davis really have once all of George Ravelings recruits were gone?
 
tksirius said:
Kirk Ferentz led teams have finished ranked 6 times out of this 22 season career being a head coach. Legend!
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He's only coached at Iowa for 19 years, don't know if you're counting Maine or wherever he coached before that for the other three years.

That means 32% of the time he's finished ranked. Not great but above average since there are like 121 programs that could qualify to be in the top 25. I'm too lazy to do that math on the law of averages for one team to finish in the top 25 32% of the time when there are 121 teams possible to do so but I'd bet there are about 80-85 teams that would take 32%.
 
ArvadaHawk said:
see, that is the problem, this team isn't Lickliter bad. we don't have a true pg. who on any of lick's teams were as good as Cook? Or Garza? Or Baer? How many times did lickliter's teams even sniff scoring 60 points let alone 80's?

How many folks were calling for Tom Davis' head in 89-90 and 93-94 when he won 12 and 11 respectively? How much success did Mr. Davis really have once all of George Ravelings recruits were gone?
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Why do you keep bringing up Mr. Davis, I agree with you he is overrated :)
I don't care how many points we score, I care about the W. I would actually prefer Fran slow it down and keep the possessions down to keep us in games, his "style" needs to adjust to his roster.
Our record says otherwise, we are bad. If you are saying there is talent on the team, that is a whole other thread in itself, and just further drives home the point that many of us a questioning Fran's ability to coach if we have talent but yet are indeed as bad as we look all year. I believe at least 50% of our roster is MAC level players at best, but that is another story.
 
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