Get Prepared for some Tough Times

[InGoodCo]

This is a really odd post. The idea that if the #2 person in an organization is removed due to being literally the worst performing person out of 130 similar jobs in the country, that is somehow damaging to the organization as a whole....well, that's just a bizarre perspective, whether you're discussing business, government, or any other organization.

Unless that # 2 was a big part of your success. I believe that Brian was that. Former player and son of our legendary HOF coach. He carried weight in those halls, in that locker room, with those players and other coaches. Iowa won more games when he was here. Our floor became 8 wins instead of 7. Iowa started playing relevant football a lot longer every season. I felt like that was because he had his dad's ear more than anyone and likely was the grunt worker in the program. He likely cared more about Iowa football than anyone else as well. That kind of investment is hard to put a price on.

I realize I am in the minority here...but I think that move was like cutting the arm off our coach. I knew at the very best case, it would be a down year for Iowa football. Maybe 4 or 5 losses? That happens when you take a spoke out of a wheel that has been working well for so many miles.

No use crying over spilt milk though - soon we'll know exactly what it's like not to have either Ferentz coaching and that was going to happen either way. I just think we'll get there that much quicker now and again, I've been consistent here... I think Beth making that move was the beginning of the end...which I am totally fine and prepared for. Doesn't change my views on it or how it's happened.

 

[JoeyLabasForPresident]

I wonder if Beth is operating with a strong presumption that SW will succeed Kirk - that continuity is key

Far from convinced that Seth has basically any qualifications for the job. Hoping we can reel in one of the Stoops, but not expecting that at all. Surely P4 coordinator experience is the floor, with proven G5 HC experience strongly preferred?

 

[Westernhawk]

Here's my take on the offensive side of the ball. Were way to early in to see any results. Some things may be different but players are the same and until Lester starts getting the recruits that fit his scheme little isn't going to change. I think it's ridiculous to think that results would be seen immediately when we were literally at the bottom of the nation in total offense. Getting rid of BF was absolutely the right thing to do and what needed to be done, but it's unfair to Lester expecting immediate results. There's a great deal of work he needs to do to get things back to where we need them and that takes time.

You make good points. My worry is that our current recruiting level isn't going to keep pace with other teams in the conference, especially when you add in the NIL transfer$.

I watched way too much football this past weekend and when I see teams like Indiana and Illinois playing very well, and then watching Iowa's lines (both of them) get shoved around all day, I'm not sure there is an easy answer.

Obviously, we need a better QB. Is one coming? I'm not so sure. Also, Iowa seems to have gotten shoved around by a MSU team with a first year coach. That game was closer, in terms of points, than it even was on the field. MSU never punted.

Hopefully my doomsday attitude is unwarranted, but that game was surprising. Every phase was owned by the opponent.

 

[Westernhawk]

I'm not buying that perspective. Lester has 5 returning and experienced OLinemen, an NFL TE with competent depth at that position, one of the best RBs in the nation, and 2 QBs with BTen experience, to work with NOW. Add in a game-breaking kickoff/punt returner to use on offense, plus two new, surprisingly good WRs -- Vander Zee and Gill -- and frankly, he's got more to work with from a personnel perspective NOW that he will for the next couple years.

This is the shocking part. That senior-laden team was manhandled. Next year could actually be a lot worse, and likely will be.

Iowa is a "developmental program" and we had good reason to think that 10 wins was very possible this year. Next year, they'll have much less experience, no proven QB, a lot of new starters, and games against:

ISU, MSU, Indiana (!), Oregon, PSU, Neb, USC, Wisc.

There are a few teams in that group that we don't play this year that may pose real challenges.

 

[SCHawkeye2]

Unless that # 2 was a big part of your success. I believe that Brian was that. Former player and son of our legendary HOF coach. He carried weight in those halls, in that locker room, with those players and other coaches. Iowa won more games when he was here. Our floor became 8 wins instead of 7. Iowa started playing relevant football a lot longer every season. I felt like that was because he had his dad's ear more than anyone and likely was the grunt worker in the program. He likely cared more about Iowa football than anyone else as well. That kind of investment is hard to put a price on.

I realize I am in the minority here...but I think that move was like cutting the arm off our coach. I knew at the very best case, it would be a down year for Iowa football. Maybe 4 or 5 losses? That happens when you take a spoke out of a wheel that has been working well for so many miles.

No use crying over spilt milk though - soon we'll know exactly what it's like not to have either Ferentz coaching and that was going to happen either way. I just think we'll get there that much quicker now and again, I've been consistent here... I think Beth making that move was the beginning of the end...which I am totally fine and prepared for. Doesn't change my views on it or how it's happened.

Respectfully, I could not disagree more.
I think Brian Ferentz' tenure is the primary reason for what we see on the field today.
An OC is responsible for identifying/ recruiting talent, developing talent and offensive strategy and tactics. In my opinion, Brian was a failure at all three aspects of his job.
- Iowa has not beaten a Top 25 team since 2019.
- In our last four outings against top ranked teams, we have scored 7 points. Total.
- We were ranked last/nearly last in the country in total offense for the last three years.
- We have not had a B10 quality QB or WR's in 5 years.
- We have not had an OL on the All Big 10 1st or 2nd team for the previous two years - One in the last three years. - this year doesn't look too good either.

The offensive performance you see on the field today, has been years in the making. Not the result of his leaving.

 

[BigD]

Respectfully, I could not disagree more.
I think Brian Ferentz' tenure is the primary reason for what you see on the field today.
An OC is responsible for identifying/ recruiting talent, developing talent and offensive strategy and tactics. In my opinion, Brian was a failure at all three aspects of his job.
- Iowa has not beaten a Top 25 team since 2019.
- In our last four outings against top ranked teams, we have scored 7 points.
- We were ranked last/nearly last in the country in total offense for the last three years.
- We have not had a B10 quality QB or WR's in 5 years.
- We have not had an OL on the All Big 10 1st or 2nd team for the previous two years - this year doesn't look too good either.

The offensive performance you see on the field today, has been years in the making. Not the result of his leaving.

Damn dude I feel like Larry Station just blasted us all with ten tons of truth.

This is why I was so upset and disappointed. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see what you so obviously pointed out.

One of the nation’s best defenses bringing back almost every vital piece. It would not be stretching things to see Iowa with a top five defense. Then you look at an experienced offensive line, a healthy Cade back, and a very good running back room. Oh and then there is a stud tight in mixed in.

We had a very favorable schedule with our toughest games at home with the exception of Ohio State. Expectations should be very high.

Maybe I jinxed us before the season when I posted a comment along with another poster on here as with both pointed out what happens when Iowa goes into a season with such high expectations.

Have plenty of bed sheets available I smell a pile of shit a coming. We both pointed that out.

I see the same stuff coming down the road that you and others are saying. It could be ugly for a few years and hopefully not decades. I was hoping this year could be one for decades ahead. A good high to carry us for what may be ahead. Damn painful and I let my emotions get the best of me in expressing my displeasure toward others on here.

Like a few others on here I don’t have forever left in the tank. Been following Iowa football with my Dad since I was age six (thats 58 year's). A lot of blood, sweat, and tears.

 

[BigD]

One other thing you NEVER let an offensive back get behind you with time running out. Phil should have rushing no more than three on that last series and had eight defensive backs out watching for the pass. He then should have told those eight back that what ever you do NO OFFENSIVE BACK gets behind you.

Defensive back coverage 101. I knew that at twelve years old. Just shaking my head that Iowa’s defense allowed that against Iowa State. Unacceptable!!!

 

[InGoodCo]

Respectfully, I could not disagree more.
I think Brian Ferentz' tenure is the primary reason for what we see on the field today.
An OC is responsible for identifying/ recruiting talent, developing talent and offensive strategy and tactics. In my opinion, Brian was a failure at all three aspects of his job.
- Iowa has not beaten a Top 25 team since 2019.
- In our last four outings against top ranked teams, we have scored 7 points. Total.
- We were ranked last/nearly last in the country in total offense for the last three years.
- We have not had a B10 quality QB or WR's in 5 years.
- We have not had an OL on the All Big 10 1st or 2nd team for the previous two years - One in the last three years. - this year doesn't look too good either.

The offensive performance you see on the field today, has been years in the making. Not the result of his leaving.

Sometimes I gotta remember who I am battling on this site.

2019 - Iowa beat #7 MN, #22 USC
2020 - Iowa beat # 24 IL, #25 WI
2021 - Iowa beat #9 ISU, #17 IU, #4 PSU

When you're leading statement is so blatantly false, I just stop reading the rest.

 

[SCHawkeye2]

Sometimes I gotta remember who I am battling on this site.

2019 - Iowa beat #7 MN, #22 USC
2020 - Iowa beat # 24 IL, #25 WI
2021 - Iowa beat #9 ISU, #17 IU, #4 PSU

When you're leading statement is so blatantly false, I just stop reading the rest.

Rankings only matter at the end of the year.
In 2021, PSU was ranked #4 early in the season. They finished 7-6 and not in the Top 25.
2021 Indiana was even worse. Ranked 17 when we played them in the first game, they finished 2-10, 0-9 in the B10. Last place.
2021 ISU was ranked 9 when we played them in the second game. They finished 7-6.
Not Top 25 by a long shot.
Covid 2020 Illinois finished 2-6. Wisconsin 4-3.

You consider these Top 25 wins?

 

[Hawkfnntn]

Rankings only matter at the end of the year.
In 2021, PSU was ranked #4 early in the season. They finished 7-6 and not in the Top 25.
2021 Indiana was even worse. Ranked 17 when we played them in the first game, they finished 2-10, 0-9 in the B10. Not even getting Top 25 votes.
2021 ISU was ranked 9 when we played them in the second game. They finished 7-6.
Not Top 25 by a long shot.
Covid 2020 Illinois finished 2-6. Wisconsin 4-3.

You consider these Top 25 wins?

Totally agree!! And it's odd so few look at Ws that way. Rankings the first 5-6 weeks of the yr are damn near worthless. Every one of these are perfect examples of it. At the end of those yrs none of those wins meant much. The PSU one I suppose kinda did but obviously PSU fans aren't ever gonna brag about that yr. Some of us have weird ways of measuring success I suppose. But I'm with you our O has been trash for quite awhile now not just the last couple. It goes back to the beginning of the Petras era pretty much.

 

[Fryowa]

We were the laughing stock of the football world because of how terrible the offense was. People made jokes at our expense...how is that good for the program??

Even aside from Brian, that's what is our biggest problem right now...recruiting. When we have to put guys like Nestor, Entringer, and Lutmer on the field still wet behind the ears because there's literally no depth after the starters that's a sign that we can't recruit anymore. We've seen what Phil Parker can do with guys like King, Jackson, Hyde, and down the line, and guys like Castro and Higgins were here way before the Hawks offense fell down the basement stairs and became a laughing stock. All of our guys making big plays now are veterans of the program, and the only reason we have Reece Vander Zee is because he and his family are long-time rabid Hawk fans. One thing about this year that's really stuck out to me is we're not hearing much about XYZ player other than Vander Zee starting to make splashes as youngsters like we typically do. Iowa is unfortunately starting to pay the price for the debacle of the past few years.

Add to that very low NIL relative to other programs and you're in for big trouble.

 

[Fryowa]

How are we to compete with an OSU that has a $20M football roster or an Oregon program that has all that Nike money?

You don't. It's literally that simple. No matter what kind of novelty spin you put on it it's not going to close the gap because those gaps are established by total fanbase resources. Unless Elon Musk or the board of Adidas or whoever all of a sudden become huge Iowa fans there's nothing you can do.

One item that gave me a bit of hope was in that Beth Goetz letter she just sent out. Not much was made of it that I notched but maybe it was, and I missed it. The part in the letter where she stated that institutions would be able to earmark a percentage of their revenue to go to Iowa athletics. If that could be done in the right way, that could be the ticket to generate the cash to compete with the big boys.

Funny you mention that letter. Was just talking about that with my boss this morning.

Said boss is the owner of the 400-ish employee company I've worked for for 21 years. He's a Hawkeye super fan and makes yearly donations that would seem humongous to me but not in the totality. He does the same from his personal farm and I see the checks as they go out (not checks anymore, it's ACH I guess...but I digress...)

Talking to him he says it's not going to make a bit of difference because that's typically what businesses do now...they decide on a percent per year to donate and that's what they already do. This new format just makes the technicalities of it different. He also said he thought it wouldn't be popular at all because business owners like the "feeling" of making those payments themselves. Again, I've never been in those chairs to make donations of that scale, so I can't comment myself, just feedback from one of the horses' mouths.

Much ado about nothing, imo.

 

[Will C]

The MS game was disgusting. We were totally outplayed. I could not watch the second half and I have been watching the whole game for over 60 years. I have to agree that our offense is much better, even better than one could hope. But we must change QB if we are pulling this out of the fire.

 

[Fryowa]

The MS game was disgusting. We were totally outplayed. I could not watch the second half and I have been watching the whole game for over 60 years. I have to agree that our offense is much better, even better than one could hope. But we must change QB if we are pulling this out of the fire.

Kirk already said in the post game presser that ain't happening.

 

[InGoodCo]

Rankings only matter at the end of the year.
In 2021, PSU was ranked #4 early in the season. They finished 7-6 and not in the Top 25.
2021 Indiana was even worse. Ranked 17 when we played them in the first game, they finished 2-10, 0-9 in the B10. Last place.
2021 ISU was ranked 9 when we played them in the second game. They finished 7-6.
Not Top 25 by a long shot.
Covid 2020 Illinois finished 2-6. Wisconsin 4-3.

You consider these Top 25 wins?

So, top 25 wins only count if the team they beat ends up in the top 25? Which, defies logic in thought because teams that lose, typically don't end up in the top 25.

I definitely count them, mostly because everywhere else counts them...ya know, like ESPN, Sports Reference and literally anywhere you look up the games. History books, ya know, everywhere.

Teams change dynamics through out seasons. Players get hurt, circumstances change, when you face a team matters....wills are broken and sometimes loses mount up

- not giving Iowa any credit for beating teams ranked in the top 25 is complete and utter bullshit.

Are you accounting for any teams Iowa might have beaten during the year that weren't ranked that ended up in the final top 25? I bet not. Cause that's fucking stupid.

 

[SCHawkeye2]

So, top 25 wins only count if the team they beat ends up in the top 25?

Yes

Which, defies logic in thought because teams that lose, typically don't end up in the top 25.

I definitely count them, mostly because everywhere else counts them...ya know, like ESPN, Sports Reference and literally anywhere you look up the games. History books, ya know, everywhere.

Teams change dynamics through out seasons. Players get hurt, circumstances change, when you face a team matters....wills are broken and sometimes loses mount up

- not giving Iowa any credit for beating teams ranked in the top 25 is complete and utter bullshit.

Are you accounting for any teams Iowa might have beaten during the year that weren't ranked that ended up in the final top 25?

Yes

I bet not. Cause that's fucking stupid.

Fool's errand.

Let's move on to the other points:
- In our last four outings against top ranked teams, we have scored 7 points. Total.
- We were ranked last/nearly last in the country in total offense for the last three years.
- We have not had a B10 quality QB or WR's in 5 years.
- We have not had an OL on the All Big 10 1st or 2nd team for the previous two years - One in the last three years. - this year doesn't look too good either.

The offensive performance you see on the field today, has been years in the making. Not the result of his leaving.

Looking forward to your denial/deflection of these realities.

 

[Bordone]

the offense this year is leaps and bounds better than it has been , the problem is we don't have a good D line with depth capable of generating pressure against any o line with a pulse and apparently only one big10 caliber d back in a room full of guys our two linebackers that stayed did so because they aren't good enough for the NFL. They ruined graves putting him inside, he should be 20 pounds lighter playing strong side DE but then our interior depth would really be exposed.

Would another receiver and a real QB help, sure. But not as much as a d line capable of creating consistent pressure. Mich St. had 9 in the box until the game was out of reach and we didn't have a game plan to deal with that and still scored enough points to win with last years defense. We had our back 7 10 yards off the los and our front four playing contain and losing all game long.

The fact we were hearing before the season started that our O was able to run against our D should have told everyone what they needed to know about how the season was going to play out.

 

[InGoodCo]

Yes


Yes

Fool's errand.

Let's move on to the other points:
- In our last four outings against top ranked teams, we have scored 7 points. Total.
- We were ranked last/nearly last in the country in total offense for the last three years.
- We have not had a B10 quality QB or WR's in 5 years.
- We have not had an OL on the All Big 10 1st or 2nd team for the previous two years - One in the last three years. - this year doesn't look too good either.

The offensive performance you see on the field today, has been years in the making. Not the result of his leaving.

Looking forward to your denial/deflection of these realities.

So, if two top 25 teams play in the CCG or bowl game and the loser is knocked out of the top 25 because they lost to Iowa, that doesn't count. Gotcha. Extremely weird way to look at things. I mean, I almost assure that no one knows, remembers or would bother looking up some of Iowa's all-time top 25 victories and dissect how those opponents finished the year or what their record was. That's a true fools errand. The further you get away from it, the less that's even going to be something anyone looks at. It's literally the dumbest thing I've ever heard. It's also, not allowing you to ever really give Iowa credit for beating any team ranked unless they were likely in the top 10 and couldn't fall out of the rankings due to a loss to Iowa.

I'm just going to go ahead and trust the history books and stats and the thing that literally every other single person who digests the sport looks at.

Also, all of those things are true and I am not disputing that, I just don't put that all on Brian. I put almost none of it on him. I put it mostly on Kirk. The offensive performance we see on the field today is the making of our HC.

I feel pretty confident when we look back at Iowa Football in the future, say 10 years or more, we're all going to long for the final decade of Kirk and Brian football at Iowa.

 

[kicker22]

I'm not buying that perspective. Lester has 5 returning and experienced OLinemen, an NFL TE with competent depth at that position, one of the best RBs in the nation, and 2 QBs with BTen experience, to work with NOW. Add in a game-breaking kickoff/punt returner to use on offense, plus two new, surprisingly good WRs -- Vander Zee and Gill -- and frankly, he's got more to work with from a personnel perspective NOW that he will for the next couple years.

But with the exception of Vander Zee and Gill all those guys were there last year under the old regime. While the OC may have changed very little else has, and while there's improvements being made how great a leap can we really expect when a great amount of the complaints surrounding BF were that his players simply weren't big ten calibur?
I get your point, but how much can we really expect essentially over night? I get the desire for improvement, but I think it's slightly unrealistic to expect it immediately.

 

[NCHawker]

I feel pretty confident when we look back at Iowa Football in the future, say 10 years or more, we're all going to long for the final decade of Kirk and Brian football at Iowa.

I hope you're wrong about that. I hope they can continue to win 8-10 games per year. Of course familiarity breeds contempt.

I have a cynical take that says Kirk neglected the offense for over a decade. Not in a malicous way but because it is a blind spot. He just didn't have high enough expectations and thus didn't press for more. I'll bet he learned a lot after Lester started talking about X and Os with him.