Having presided over these message boards as well as having a daily sports talk show along with Soundoff in 2008, it's very similar.
When Iowa was 3-3 in that season, the 'Fire Ferentz' crowd was out and in full effect on the boards and phones. Perhaps you don't remember, but I do. Iowa was 5-4 that year after losing on a late FG at ILL. The home win against then #3 PSU was a big corner turner and basically what beat back the boo birds and doubters.
I'm thinking the message boards and sound-off phones are a pretty finite public. Mostly because they're only talking to other fans or you and Zabel as hosts, making it easy to anonomously express their anger / disgust / criticism. The disgust and contempt seems a lot more intense, to the point that, while I haven't listened to Hawk Talk in a long time because it was always the same, mostly Pollyanna callers, I can't recall such brazen comments directly to The Corporal.
The fan reaction also seems more "general" public pervasive this time. While a loss always brought out more negative reaction and criticism, it tended to subside by about Wednesday and, even during the immediate wave, there seemed to be a little bit of positive, apologist balance. I don't sense that so much this time around. That makes me wonder if the silent lurkers and listeners are simply in agreement with the majority of what they are reading and hearing.
Question, Jon. What are you hearing "behind the scenes", from the money-people who really count?
One of the big differences this time around vs 2008 is what took place in 2010. Had that 7-5 regular season not occurred and say Iowa went 10-2 that year, things wouldn't be this bad right now. The 2010 season keeps on haunting and will until/if they climb the mountain again.
I have to agree with this. While I had begun to sour on KF for the numerous games that were directly impacted by risk-aversive / play-not-to-lose philosophy, personnel decisions, lack of schematic and even situational adjustments to maximize strength / exploit opponents' weakness going back to 2006, 2010 turned it to anger over the lack of preparedness to seize opportunities and / or avoid being seized.
One very big difference between this year and 2008; Iowa never got smoked in any of their four losses that year. But as it relates to heat on Kirk? Very similar and there was a LOT of it in 2008 up to the PSU game.
This is one major difference. There's a lot more, though. At least in 2008, KF recognized (albeit, he lost a game before acting on it) the need to go a different direction. JVB is even more inept than JC and KF is simply allowing the ship to sink without even attempting an alternative. It's not just limited to JVB -- the entire scheme of The Offensive prevents Iowa from even being competitive. As in 2008 with SG, your most reliable and consistently productive weapon is Weisman. He's lost and everything completely crashes. At least in 2008, you had competent QB play and leadership + a serviceable strategy + a really good defense that, at least gave Iowa a fighting chance. 2012, none of that exists, yet, there's simply been zero adaptation to maximize strengths and promote better execution, despite it being one of the promises to bank on through the coaching changes. All the poor coaching traits of KF are being completely exposed by the 2012 team and there's been zero attempt to adapt to try to mask them through 7 games and, by KF's comments, nothing will change.
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