How you know when someone is a bigger fan of a certain family than the UofI Football Program

[tksirius]

Leistikow: A passing grade for Brian Ferentz's Iowa offense in Year 1

"If you think the Hawkeyes should be in, say, the upper half (top 65) of FBS offenses — not an unreasonable expectation, even with Iowa’s slower-paced, ball-control style — then you’re going to look harshly at Iowa’s 108th-ranked unit of 2017.

If you think the 34-year-old son of head coach Kirk Ferentz should be judged on improvements over his predecessor, then you might have a more positive assessment."

Under BF so far (12 games):

Total Offense: 107th (out of 129 teams)
Scoring Offense: 68th
Passing Offense: 88th
Rushing Offense: 92nd
Mean Ranking: 88.75th

5 years under Greg Davis:

Total Offense: 92.2nd
Scoring Offense: 82.4nd
Passing Offense: 92nd
Rushing Offense: 66.8th
Mean Ranking: 83.35rd

 

[Stanzi]

Yea I don't know where he's coming up with improvements on his predecessor. I was in favor of the move to Brian, mainly because he wasn't Greg Davis, but the results were incredibly disappointing. Somehow our QB threw 26 TD passes and our offense got worse.

 

[tksirius]

Anyone surprised?

I FAILED TO ASK BRIAN FERENTZ A QUESTION ON MONDAY THAT SHOULD HAVE BEEN ASKED

"The fact that I didn’t ask Iowa offensive coordinator Brian Ferentz to comment on Monday about his profanity-laced meltdown in the Kinnick Stadium press box can only be explained in one way.

I choked, or chickened out or however you want to put it.

The subject never came up during Brian Ferentz’s press conference on Monday."

https://allhawkeyes.com/pages/story/details/2387

 

[uihawk82]

Yea I don't know where he's coming up with improvements on his predecessor. I was in favor of the move to Brian, mainly because he wasn't Greg Davis, but the results were incredibly disappointing. Somehow our QB threw 26 TD passes and our offense got worse.

Well a key stat is scoring offense and BRian was better and could have been much better.

Just like Phil Parker where they give up yards but usually have a top 30-40 scoring defense or better.

 

[koralakers]

numbers will always be skewed AGAINST the offense and FOR the defense because...
- KF ALWAYS runs the SLOWEST offense (never do 'hurry-up' like most teams, bleed clock, etc)
- KFs defenses ALWAYS are bend-don't break--keeping the defense on the field constantly.

BUT, this does not excuse always running to the short side of field, ALWAYS audiblizing to run to short side, etc.

 

[SCHawkeye2]

Leistikow: A passing grade for Brian Ferentz's Iowa offense in Year 1

"If you think the Hawkeyes should be in, say, the upper half (top 65) of FBS offenses — not an unreasonable expectation, even with Iowa’s slower-paced, ball-control style — then you’re going to look harshly at Iowa’s 108th-ranked unit of 2017.

If you think the 34-year-old son of head coach Kirk Ferentz should be judged on improvements over his predecessor, then you might have a more positive assessment."

Under BF so far (12 games):

Total Offense: 107th (out of 129 teams)
Scoring Offense: 68th
Passing Offense: 88th
Rushing Offense: 92nd
Mean Ranking: 88.75th


5 years under Greg Davis:

Total Offense: 92.2nd
Scoring Offense: 82.4nd
Passing Offense: 92nd
Rushing Offense: 66.8th
Mean Ranking: 83.35rd

In addition to the dismal results above, the OC should also be evaluated on his responsibility to devise pre-game offensive schemes and game plans to exploit the opponents weaknesses AND modify the plan and schemes during the game to counter the opponents tactics.
In this area, I think BF was inadequate as an OC and did not meet the expectations of the job.​

 

[Fryowa]

Anyone surprised?

I FAILED TO ASK BRIAN FERENTZ A QUESTION ON MONDAY THAT SHOULD HAVE BEEN ASKED

"The fact that I didn’t ask Iowa offensive coordinator Brian Ferentz to comment on Monday about his profanity-laced meltdown in the Kinnick Stadium press box can only be explained in one way.

I choked, or chickened out or however you want to put it.

The subject never came up during Brian Ferentz’s press conference on Monday."

https://allhawkeyes.com/pages/story/details/2387

I guarantee you Leistikow knew beforehand he wasn't going to ask Ferentz about it and had the "apology" scripted out already.

He wouldn't have gotten an answer, but it still would have been funny to watch him squirm a little bit.

 

[hawkdrummer1]

Brian Ferentz during his press conference about playing Wisconsin:

"I thought we were running the ball better than maybe we even anticipated going in. You would've liked to been able to stay with that a little bit more, but we didn't."



Even if you do not include Stanley's negative yardage. We gained 60 yards on 21 carries. That's a 2.85 per carry average.

Yeah, I spit out my coffee reading that comment.

 

[RobHowe]

Pat and I talked about the question not being asked about the press box blowup. I was trying to ask it but the questions being asked were long as were his responses. Never got a chance.

 

[westender]

Anyone surprised?

I FAILED TO ASK BRIAN FERENTZ A QUESTION ON MONDAY THAT SHOULD HAVE BEEN ASKED

"The fact that I didn’t ask Iowa offensive coordinator Brian Ferentz to comment on Monday about his profanity-laced meltdown in the Kinnick Stadium press box can only be explained in one way.

I choked, or chickened out or however you want to put it.

The subject never came up during Brian Ferentz’s press conference on Monday."

https://allhawkeyes.com/pages/story/details/2387

Yeah and who the h*ll ....profanity laced tyrade....cares about it now and what he has to say about it now???

 

[westender]

I guarantee you Leistikow knew beforehand he wasn't going to ask Ferentz about it and had the "apology" scripted out already.

He wouldn't have gotten an answer, but it still would have been funny to watch him squirm a little bit.

Dude you don't get where he is by squirming. he is an agressive SOB. Ya all got the fixation on BF but guarantee in any non press box setting PP is just as bad. So junior just learned to be more polite in the press box setting amongst the media and the upper crust. So what.

 

[homes]

Brian Ferentz during his press conference about playing Wisconsin:

"I thought we were running the ball better than maybe we even anticipated going in. You would've liked to been able to stay with that a little bit more, but we didn't."

Oddly, I don't disagree with him entirely. They only had 19 rushes by their running backs. There were 5 Stanley sacks and 41 passing attempts. That's over a 2:1 ration of pass:run. Go back and look at the play by play. Iowa put themselves in terrible position by incompletions, penalties, sacks. In a relatively close game, they didn't do much to run the ball, in very few series did they have back to back running attempts. Maybe in light of the OSU game, they thought the passing game would yield better results, but penalties, dropped balls and failure to protect Stanley put them in lousy positions. Not making excuses, they got their butts whipped that day, and probably would have lost anyway, but I don't see it as a failure of the running game per se.

 

[CP87]

Leistikow: A passing grade for Brian Ferentz's Iowa offense in Year 1

"If you think the Hawkeyes should be in, say, the upper half (top 65) of FBS offenses — not an unreasonable expectation, even with Iowa’s slower-paced, ball-control style — then you’re going to look harshly at Iowa’s 108th-ranked unit of 2017.

If you think the 34-year-old son of head coach Kirk Ferentz should be judged on improvements over his predecessor, then you might have a more positive assessment."

Under BF so far (12 games):

Total Offense: 107th (out of 129 teams)
Scoring Offense: 68th
Passing Offense: 88th
Rushing Offense: 92nd
Mean Ranking: 88.75th

5 years under Greg Davis:

Total Offense: 92.2nd
Scoring Offense: 82.4nd
Passing Offense: 92nd
Rushing Offense: 66.8th
Mean Ranking: 83.35rd

tksirius, I think you are a good poster who provides a lot of good content and ideas. But man, you put forth a lot of negative energy towards the coaches. I am not saying your viewpoints cannot be justified, but appreciate that not everyone likes to approach their fandom that way. I don't think Leistikow is "in the bag" for the Ferentzes, I just think he is playing to the portion of the fan base that likes to take a more positive outlook.

Here is my (overly rosy and Polyanna-ish) take: this year's offense was disappointing as a whole, but we saw flashes to give us hope for the future. As a first-year game-planner and play-caller, BF was bound to struggle. You might counter with, "Then why didn't we hire someone with experience?" Reasonable question. That did not get us where we needed to be with the last experienced hire. Would it have worked better if we could've secured someone like Kevin Wilson this time around? Probably, but was he beating down our door to take the job?

Just like Iowa considers themselves a developmental program from the players' perspective, I think they decided to take a developmental approach to their coaching staff. They went young, knowing that although there may be struggles early, perhaps there was a higher ceiling with these guys.

To draw an analogy, Kerry Kittles (senior from Villanova) was drafted #8 in the 1996 NBA draft. Kobe Bryant was drafted #13. Here are their rookie year stats:

Kerry Kittles as a rookie
Year Team GP MPG FG% 3P% FT% RPG APG SPG BPG PPG
1996–97 New Jersey 82 36.7 .426 .377 .771 3.9 3.0 1.9 0.4 16.4

Kobe Bryant as a rookie
Year Team GP MPG FG% 3P% FT% RPG APG SPG BPG PPG
1996–97 L.A. Lakers 71 15.5 .417 .375 .819 1.9 1.3 0.7 0.3 7.6

Was Kittles a better draft pick because he drastically out-performed Bryant in their rookie years? That would be short-sited, Bryant was always going to take more development because he entered directly from high school. But I think we would agree he had the higher ceiling.

So basically I am claiming that BF is the Kobe Bryant of college FB O-coordinators. His future career will certainly lead to multiple National Championships and a Hall of Fame enshrinement. Reasonable? Perhaps not, but I follow sports for fun, and it is much more fun for me to take an unreasonably optimistic view than it is for me to take a grounded-in-reality pessimistic view. Not telling you how to handle your fandom, just letting you know that others can have an alternate view, and that does not mean their view is rooted in sycophancy.

 

[ArvadaHawk]

Leistikow: A passing grade for Brian Ferentz's Iowa offense in Year 1

"If you think the Hawkeyes should be in, say, the upper half (top 65) of FBS offenses — not an unreasonable expectation, even with Iowa’s slower-paced, ball-control style — then you’re going to look harshly at Iowa’s 108th-ranked unit of 2017.

If you think the 34-year-old son of head coach Kirk Ferentz should be judged on improvements over his predecessor, then you might have a more positive assessment."

Under BF so far (12 games):

Total Offense: 107th (out of 129 teams)
Scoring Offense: 68th
Passing Offense: 88th
Rushing Offense: 92nd
Mean Ranking: 88.75th

5 years under Greg Davis:

Total Offense: 92.2nd
Scoring Offense: 82.4nd
Passing Offense: 92nd
Rushing Offense: 66.8th
Mean Ranking: 83.35rd

Did he compare GD's % of conference games where his offense scored 3 times or less? Cuz Brians % is 67% (6 out of 9). So.......one could argue that we had 1000 yards of offense in 2 games (OSU/kNU). So, if you make those avg games, then we're talking closer to 129th rated offense. So......

 

[HawkInATX]

Did he compare GD's % of conference games where his offense scored 3 times or less? Cuz Brians % is 67% (6 out of 9). So.......one could argue that we had 1000 yards of offense in 2 games (OSU/kNU). So, if you make those avg games, then we're talking closer to 129th rated offense. So......

And if you remove the games where it rained within 6 days on either side of the game and add in the last few games of KOK' OC career, and multiply that by the number of Tom Brady touchdowns in 2012.... Split stats are only useful in certain situations. Arbitrarily creating stats splits like you did is useless.

 

[ArvadaHawk]

And if you remove the games where it rained within 6 days on either side of the game and add in the last few games of KOK' OC career, and multiply that by the number of Tom Brady touchdowns in 2012.... Split stats are only useful in certain situations. Arbitrarily creating stats splits like you did is useless.

Dude, you put too much time into that post. The obvious point i was making is that our offense was not good under Brian, but for 2 outlier games where we had 1000 yards of offense combined. THAT actually is a very useful statistic.

 

[HawkInATX]

Usually, if you want to remove outliers, you remove them from both the top and the bottom. So you'd need to drop an equal number of the lowest output games (like Wisconsin). All you did is prove my point, that you can't just willy-nilly throw out data points without good reason. And you should NEVER throw out data points simply to fit your own narrative.

Also, did you consider the fact that if you remove Iowa's two best games you need to remove EVERY team's two best games THEN recalculate rankings? Nope, I bet you didn't.

 

[CP87]

Dude, you put too much time into that post. The obvious point i was making is that our offense was not good under Brian, but for 2 outlier games where we had 1000 yards of offense combined. THAT actually is a very useful statistic.

And that is a good point. I think what HawkInATX was saying is that we are working with too small a sample size to really be able to call something an outlier. So 2 games went drastically different than the others: the large number of clunkers matters, but the fact they there were able to create 2 glittering jewels matters too.

Although those glittery jewels were infrequent, the offensive side of the ball had to do a lot of things right to create them, which could be reason for hope (if you are one looking for hope). Raise the floor of performance, spend more time near that ceiling (that we can all agree was awesome), and everyone is happy.

 

[Fryowa]

tksirius, I think you are a good poster who provides a lot of good content and ideas. But man, you put forth a lot of negative energy towards the coaches. I am not saying your viewpoints cannot be justified, but appreciate that not everyone likes to approach their fandom that way. I don't think Leistikow is "in the bag" for the Ferentzes, I just think he is playing to the portion of the fan base that likes to take a more positive outlook.

Here is my (overly rosy and Polyanna-ish) take: this year's offense was disappointing as a whole, but we saw flashes to give us hope for the future. As a first-year game-planner and play-caller, BF was bound to struggle. You might counter with, "Then why didn't we hire someone with experience?" Reasonable question. That did not get us where we needed to be with the last experienced hire. Would it have worked better if we could've secured someone like Kevin Wilson this time around? Probably, but was he beating down our door to take the job?

Just like Iowa considers themselves a developmental program from the players' perspective, I think they decided to take a developmental approach to their coaching staff. They went young, knowing that although there may be struggles early, perhaps there was a higher ceiling with these guys.

To draw an analogy, Kerry Kittles (senior from Villanova) was drafted #8 in the 1996 NBA draft. Kobe Bryant was drafted #13. Here are their rookie year stats:

Kerry Kittles as a rookie
Year Team GP MPG FG% 3P% FT% RPG APG SPG BPG PPG
1996–97 New Jersey 82 36.7 .426 .377 .771 3.9 3.0 1.9 0.4 16.4

Kobe Bryant as a rookie
Year Team GP MPG FG% 3P% FT% RPG APG SPG BPG PPG
1996–97 L.A. Lakers 71 15.5 .417 .375 .819 1.9 1.3 0.7 0.3 7.6

Was Kittles a better draft pick because he drastically out-performed Bryant in their rookie years? That would be short-sited, Bryant was always going to take more development because he entered directly from high school. But I think we would agree he had the higher ceiling.

So basically I am claiming that BF is the Kobe Bryant of college FB O-coordinators. His future career will certainly lead to multiple National Championships and a Hall of Fame enshrinement. Reasonable? Perhaps not, but I follow sports for fun, and it is much more fun for me to take an unreasonably optimistic view than it is for me to take a grounded-in-reality pessimistic view. Not telling you how to handle your fandom, just letting you know that others can have an alternate view, and that does not mean their view is rooted in sycophancy.

I understand your points, but what irks many people about Brian Ferentz is that you're seeing him become a carbon copy of Daddy Warbucks right before your eyes. He's totally bought into the same predictable, ineffective brand of football that his dad rams down everyone's throats. The reason I brought up something about Phil Parker being a head coach wasn't so much that I think he's the only choice, but more that we don't need another Kirk Ferentz in office. Some sort of change has to happen to get better than 6-6, 7-5 every year, but it won't because Brian is sliding right in there like a greased turd. I don't want to speak for @tksirius, but that's probably what is behind his "negative energy."

Watch Brian's latest presser and tell me that's not Kirk in the flesh. Right down to his mannerisms, vaguely dancing around questions, and catch phrases that have nothing to do with specifics ("Football's a business full of surprises???"). It's sickening.

 

[ArvadaHawk]

And that is a good point. I think what HawkInATX was saying is that we are working with too small a sample size to really be able to call something an outlier. So 2 games went drastically different than the others: the large number of clunkers matters, but the fact they there were able to create 2 glittering jewels matters too.

Although those glittery jewels were infrequent, the offensive side of the ball had to do a lot of things right to create them, which could be reason for hope (if you are one looking for hope). Raise the floor of performance, spend more time near that ceiling (that we can all agree was awesome), and everyone is happy.

i agree. the two glittering jewels shows what is possible. the 9 clunkers shows what was contrived. So, aggression vs conservatism. small sample size? Yes, if you want to compare Brian to GD. but enough to see what brians stripes are. i don't like his stripes, to date.