Gotta appreciate Coach Lick's Classy Attitude

[Thawki]

Not to nitpick, BaryGarta, but...

...if he were going to take the low road, what would he say? All he could say if he were to comment was that he had a system that he never got a chance to get up and going---because he couldn't keep players on campus once he had them there. He wouldn't have any way to dog Iowa, and fans not showing up is a function of how poorly his teams performed. And his teams never got better, either during the season or from year one to year two to year three. He never showed progress or player development.

So, in a nutshell, if he were to have spoken about it all he would have been able to do was to talk about how he failed in every aspect of his job. I don't like piling on a guy, per se. But that is what it would have sounded like.

 

[tm3308]

Re: Not to nitpick, BaryGarta, but...

...if he were going to take the low road, what would he say? All he could say if he were to comment was that he had a system that he never got a chance to get up and going---because he couldn't keep players on campus once he had them there. He wouldn't have any way to dog Iowa, and fans not showing up is a function of how poorly his teams performed. And his teams never got better, either during the season or from year one to year two to year three. He never showed progress or player development.

So, in a nutshell, if he were to have spoken about it all he would have been able to do was to talk about how he failed in every aspect of his job. I don't like piling on a guy, per se. But that is what it would have sounded like.

I will disagree to a point. Lick's teams did show some signs of improvement toward the end of the year (at least his last two years). But then the player responsible for that "surge" (Kelly, Fuller) transferred at the end of the respective seasons. One step forward, two steps back.

 

[ShadasRevenge]

Lickliter was a breath of fresh air after suffering through Alford's pig-headed ego for too many years. Glad to see Todd taking the high road on this one. He wasn't the right fit for Iowa, end of story. Hopefully with Fran, Iowa is finally going to be able to wrestle itself out of the karmic death spiral Bowlsby sent the program on back in the day.

Breath of fresh air? Wow. The three years before Lick came to Iowa,the Hawks won 32 games vs Big Ten teams.
The three years of lick the Hawks won 15 games vs Big Ten teams.
I do not give a crap about personality in my coach,I want to win games vs Big Ten teams.
That fresh air you cite,was the stench of losing.

Looks like somebody completely missed the point.

 

[ShadasRevenge]

Re: Not to nitpick, BaryGarta, but...

I will disagree to a point. Lick's teams did show some signs of improvement toward the end of the year (at least his last two years). But then the player responsible for that "surge" (Kelly, Fuller) transferred at the end of the respective seasons. One step forward, two steps back.

I do think that if everyone from the 2008/9 team had come back that Lickliter would still be here. The loss of Jake Kelly was huge.

This years team is very comparable to that that team.

 

[tm3308]

Re: Not to nitpick, BaryGarta, but...

I do think that if everyone from the 2008/9 team had come back that Lickliter would still be here. The loss of Jake Kelly was huge.

This years team is very comparable to that that team.

Agreed. Jake Kelly's transfer was the single biggest blow to the program over the last decade, IMO (as far as players go, anyway). If he comes back, no way do we only win 10 games last year.

 

[burky247]

I have and always will like Steve Alford.

I liked him as well. But I was glad when he left as I felt it was needed to reunite the fanbase.

 

[DodgerHawki]

Again, you are missing the point of JHHawk's...

Iowa's downfall began with Alford, not Lickliter, dude. Alford routinely threw his own players under the bus. Alford also didn't take the high-road once he left town but instead threw mud at the program. You may not care about Alford's personality, but he was the most loathed coach in modern Iowa history - and failed to deliver on the hype he preached.

don't let your own dislike of Alford color your perception of him compared to Lickliter. Alford had problems of his own making, and yes, didn't deliver on the overblown promises made by Bowlsby at the time of his hiring. But Lickliter oversaw the absolute cratering of the program to levels that left us absolutely irrelevant. I could make the argument that the Lickliter era at Iowa was the worst of any coach at a BCS school in the last 25 years. It was that bad.

 

[SDK46]

A lot of people probably liked Jerry Burns, Ray Nagel, Frank Lauterbur, Bob Commings, Dick Schultz, Ted Wheeler and Jim Zalesky too.