Here's Something I Thought Of

Northside Hawk

Northside Hawk

Well-Known Member
Just food for thought, but a poster, I can't remember who or what thread it was, recently said the Rose Bowl doesn't mean squat anymore, it's CFP or bust.

I looked back over Hayden Fry's tenure and could find exactly one year, 1985, when we would have likely qualified for a CFP had it existed in Fry's era.

The bowl games he did go to, aside from the three Rose Bowls, include the Peach (twice) the Holiday (three times) the Alamo (twice) the Sun (twice) and others sprinkled in such as the Gator and Freedom.

Bottom line. Kirk didn't invent 7-5, 8-4 "mediocrity". He's just carrying on his mentor's tradition. Perhaps we as fans, including myself, should think about that for a minute. Not to be satisfied with it, but to put it in a little bit of historical perspective. Hayden underachieved more than once as well, 1984 being a prime example.
 
Northside Hawk said:
Just food for thought, but a poster, I can't remember who or what thread it was, recently said the Rose Bowl doesn't mean squat anymore, it's CFP or bust.

I looked back over Hayden Fry's tenure and could find exactly one year, 1985, when we would have likely qualified for a CFP had it existed in Fry's era.

The bowl games he did go to, aside from the three Rose Bowls, include the Peach (twice) the Holiday (three times) the Alamo (twice) the Sun (twice) and others sprinkled in such as the Gator and Freedom.

Bottom line. Kirk didn't invent 7-5, 8-4 "mediocrity". He's just carrying on his mentor's tradition. Perhaps we as fans, including myself, should think about that for a minute. Not to be satisfied with it, but to put it in a little bit of historical perspective. Hayden underachieved more than once as well, 1984 being a prime example.
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Great point. After Evashevski and before Fry, Iowa was a football wasteland. I remember chanting "Rose Bowl, Rose Bowl!" when we got a first down. During the Fry years, we did get to #1 in the polls for a few weeks, something Ferentz has never accomplished. But in terms of career comparisons, not a dime's worth of difference.
 
MWS604 said:
Great point. After Evashevski and before Fry, Iowa was a football wasteland. I remember chanting "Rose Bowl, Rose Bowl!" when we got a first down. During the Fry years, we did get to #1 in the polls for a few weeks, something Ferentz has never accomplished. But in terms of career comparisons, not a dime's worth of difference.
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Good points, the hawks and Fry and Kirk have 5 Big 10 championships in the last 40 years. That is 1 championship out of every years which is a pretty good result in a conference with 10 team, then 11 teams, then 12, and now 14 teams.

And it is a conference with 3 blue blood programs in Mich, OSU and PSU over the last 50-60 years.

And Fry and Kirk have been in the hunt for they championship maybe another 8 times.

I liked Fry and am pretty much behind KF on the overall, global approach. I never had to doubt Fry during game time but I do question KF about game management so you can be the judge of that.

I have seen pretty good results since Fry as I watched and listened and read a lot about the hawks from 1958-1978.
 
hawkdrummer1 said:
Similar results, yes. But Fry's complete rebuild of IOWA football stands by itself.
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Bret Beliema (.739) and Paul Chryst (.800) both have substantially higher winning percentages at Wisconsin then their mentor, Alvarez (.609). In fact, Chryst at Wisconsin, over a small sample size, is up there with some of the all time legends of the sport. But similiar to Fry, Alvarez changed the culture and rebuilt the program. To be honest, he saved Wisconsin athletics, which was run by morons in the eighties and who were cutting non revenue sports left right when Barry got there.

The question of how they can stay a level above us come up every now and then. I think it starts with the Athletic Director, who holds coaches accountable, and the coaching staffs themselves, which are deeper and more talented top to bottom then ours. It shows up in the scheme's and in the standings. I don't think it's more talented players, it's coaching and administration.
 
Our 91 team got screwed with the Holiday Bowl, we lost only one game that year. We should have been in like the Cotton Bowl or a bigger bowl game than the Holiday.
 
Northside Hawk said:
The question of how they can stay a level above us come up every now and then. I think it starts with the Athletic Director, who holds coaches accountable, and the coaching staffs themselves, which are deeper and more talented top to bottom then ours. It shows up in the scheme's and in the standings. I don't think it's more talented players, it's coaching and administration.
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This is very insightful analysis. Wisconsin has almost always hired "poachable" assistants. Kirk hires family and yes men who rarely go on to bigger and better things elsewhere. Kirk has zero head coaches in his tree and multiple assistants who have been fired for under-performing elsewhere.
 
EstronHawkKing said:
Our 91 team got screwed with the Holiday Bowl, we lost only one game that year. We should have been in like the Cotton Bowl or a bigger bowl game than the Holiday.
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I would love to have seen Texas native Fry in the Cotton Bowl. I think that was a down year the conference. We lost to Michigan early and independents like Miami and Notre Dame amd Penn State were all strong that year.
 
NoBeer said:
And if my aunt had balls she'd be my uncle. This is dumb. The year we split with OSU we would have lost had there been a championship game so we'd have one less.
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My post was about comparing Kirk to Fry. Kirk would have one more under Fry's guidelines. Who knows how many less they would have if they had a championship game since 1980.

Also we would have beat OSU that year. We would have one less because of 04. Michigan would have probably rolled us again.
 
Northside Hawk said:
Just food for thought, but a poster, I can't remember who or what thread it was, recently said the Rose Bowl doesn't mean squat anymore, it's CFP or bust.

I looked back over Hayden Fry's tenure and could find exactly one year, 1985, when we would have likely qualified for a CFP had it existed in Fry's era.

The bowl games he did go to, aside from the three Rose Bowls, include the Peach (twice) the Holiday (three times) the Alamo (twice) the Sun (twice) and others sprinkled in such as the Gator and Freedom.

Bottom line. Kirk didn't invent 7-5, 8-4 "mediocrity". He's just carrying on his mentor's tradition. Perhaps we as fans, including myself, should think about that for a minute. Not to be satisfied with it, but to put it in a little bit of historical perspective. Hayden underachieved more than once as well, 1984 being a prime example.
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These are pretty much .500 records when you add into results the 2-3 non-conference games you should dominate. I can live with an 8-4 every once-in-awhile, like a true rebuild (young) season, but Iowa should be able to get 9 wins most seasons.
 
NoBeer said:
And if my aunt had balls she'd be my uncle. This is dumb. The year we split with OSU we would have lost had there been a championship game so we'd have one less.
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That's a legit point if you are comparing Hayden's years when they didn't have a true championship game.
 
NoBeer said:
This is very insightful analysis. Wisconsin has almost always hired "poachable" assistants. Kirk hires family and yes men who rarely go on to bigger and better things elsewhere. Kirk has zero head coaches in his tree and multiple assistants who have been fired for under-performing elsewhere.
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Interesting tangent on assistants. Anytime KF has a couple assistant coaching changes, seems to take a couple years until things get 're-set'. If your program is a 'reloading athletes' and hiring coaches who are recruiters 1st, coaches 2nd - then you can withstand constant change. If you're a 'developmental program', then you must hire asst. coaches that can identify athletes who have a different make-up than your typical 4/5 star, and fit your hard work culture. They must be excellent teachers and understand a pedagogy of improvement.

Having been to several different college practices and talking w/ players who've played in Iowa HS, D-1 level college and got a paycheck in the NFL - always surprised how many said their HS position coach was a better teacher than the next levels.
 
PCHawk said:
Kirk would have one more under Fry's guidelines.
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How many times under "Fry's guidelines" did a HF team get to not play the 3 highest rated teams in the conference?

The championship game is there to make sure scheduling "quirks" don't determine the conference champ.

It's ridiculous to say "gee, if the Hawks never had to play a tough team from the other division, they'd have been champs".
 
Northside Hawk said:
Just food for thought, but a poster, I can't remember who or what thread it was, recently said the Rose Bowl doesn't mean squat anymore, it's CFP or bust.

I looked back over Hayden Fry's tenure and could find exactly one year, 1985, when we would have likely qualified for a CFP had it existed in Fry's era.

The bowl games he did go to, aside from the three Rose Bowls, include the Peach (twice) the Holiday (three times) the Alamo (twice) the Sun (twice) and others sprinkled in such as the Gator and Freedom.

Bottom line. Kirk didn't invent 7-5, 8-4 "mediocrity". He's just carrying on his mentor's tradition. Perhaps we as fans, including myself, should think about that for a minute. Not to be satisfied with it, but to put it in a little bit of historical perspective. Hayden underachieved more than once as well, 1984 being a prime example.
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Hayden, in hindsight, is allowed to cite injuries. Not Kirk. LTG, sport, LTG.
 
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