Howe: Hawkeyes Close In on Fantastic Finish After Silencing Illinois

9-4 won't be a negative. With the hopes for this year it won't be a positive either tho. The good news is, the race for the West should always be exciting. I really enjoy this set up we are in. Win the West and have a punchers chance. I'm a little disappointed that Nebraska and Wisconsin didn't fall off after their coaching changes tho.
Spoken like a true Iowa fan...why do you assume that other programs that make a coaching change will automatically be worse off? It's got more to do with culture and expectations.
 
--------No rational person could look negatively on a 9-4 season ending with a four-game winning streak.

Not in Iowa anyway.....if we do, the sportswriters will tell us how unrealistic we are.
Yeah ,its really had to win at Iowa with their lack of tradition,Big time Bowl wins,low population,high academic standards and such.
 
Spoken like a true Iowa fan...why do you assume that other programs that make a coaching change will automatically be worse off? It's got more to do with culture and expectations.

I'm not afraid of firing KF, next coach could be better, worse or the same. Yet I think fans discount what programs go through in coaching changes. This program isn't chaulked full of super high end talent that a first year coach is gonna come in, implement their schemes, have a new offense, and defense and win right away. You are gonna have 2 down years, and then if it is a good coach an uptick in years 3 and 4 until you see what you got.

I guess I'm saying that if I got my way in Jan of 2014 right after that Taxslayer bowl, we would have never, ever had an undefeated 2015 if you ask me. Who knows, maybe the new guy could have changed all the scheme, lost some players to transfer, and still done that, but I doubt it.

So I guess my bottom line is if the Iowa coach (whomever it is) goes 9-4 now way should the talk of firing ever even be discussed. Too much transition pain to go through for this fan to support something like that.
 
The PAC-12 is littered right now with teams/new coaches that are WAY over achieving with talent that wasn't highly recruited....my ass is soooo tired with all the "careful for what you wish for"....been hearing that for close to a decade now.
 
I'm not afraid of firing KF, next coach could be better, worse or the same. Yet I think fans discount what programs go through in coaching changes. This program isn't chaulked full of super high end talent that a first year coach is gonna come in, implement their schemes, have a new offense, and defense and win right away. You are gonna have 2 down years, and then if it is a good coach an uptick in years 3 and 4 until you see what you got.

I guess I'm saying that if I got my way in Jan of 2014 right after that Taxslayer bowl, we would have never, ever had an undefeated 2015 if you ask me. Who knows, maybe the new guy could have changed all the scheme, lost some players to transfer, and still done that, but I doubt it.

So I guess my bottom line is if the Iowa coach (whomever it is) goes 9-4 now way should the talk of firing ever even be discussed. Too much transition pain to go through for this fan to support something like that.
Again, why do you assume that we would have two down years? Did Wisconsin, did nebby? Did Houston? Our offense can't get any worse than it is right now. And any time you lose to North Dakota State and Northwestern at home in the same year, yes we should talk about firing somebody.
 
Again, why do you assume that we would have two down years? Did Wisconsin, did nebby? Did Houston? Our offense can't get any worse than it is right now. And any time you lose to North Dakota State and Northwestern at home in the same year, yes we should talk about firing somebody.

Wisconsin didn't fire anyone you dolt, they keep leaving. Nebraska won 6 freaking games last year. The last time they won fewer than 9 games was in 2007. If, and it is a big if Riley can get to 9 or 10 wins he simply matches what Bo pumped out year after year after year. So two of your examples don't even apply and are complete shit. I could name off 10 examples of how it takes a couple years to get a new system in place to every 1 you can name who turned it around the first year they were hired.

Saying you should fire someone because they lost to a school they shouldn't is even dumber than most of your posts. Should Michigan have fired Lloyd Carr? Should Harbaugh be fired for losing to a 22 point underdog, or Swinney for losing to a 21 point underdog at home? Should David Shaw have lost his job at Stanford for losing to Northwestern last year when Iowa waxed them? Should David Cultcliffe have been fired for losing to jNW last year? Should Pete Carrol have lost his job at USC when they lost to Stanford when they were 35 pt favorites? Heck I could go on and on and on with coaches who got beat by schools they shouldn't have.
 
Again, why do you assume that we would have two down years? Did Wisconsin, did nebby? Did Houston? Our offense can't get any worse than it is right now. And any time you lose to North Dakota State and Northwestern at home in the same year, yes we should talk about firing somebody.

Um, there's talk about firing someone on every thread in here.
 
That quote from their punter was pretty sad: "That punt that got down on the two-yard line with however much time left in the first half, it was a dream come true. It’s something that I’m going to remember forever"

Well, your future colleagues at Urbana Farm & Fleet may tire of the story sooner than you think...
 
--------No rational person could look negatively on a 9-4 season ending with a four-game winning streak.

Not in Iowa anyway.....if we do, the sportswriters will tell us how unrealistic we are.

---------I'm surprised it took that long for someone to pull that part out of the column.

The maybe you shouldn't have written it.

Wow. SOMEone needs a refresher in "Reading Comprehension."
 
That quote from their punter was pretty sad: "That punt that got down on the two-yard line with however much time left in the first half, it was a dream come true. It’s something that I’m going to remember forever"

Well, your future colleagues at Urbana Farm & Fleet may tire of the story sooner than you think...

Yeah, that IS a "classic". I've forgotten it already!
 
--------No rational person could look negatively on a 9-4 season ending with a four-game winning streak.

Not in Iowa anyway.....if we do, the sportswriters will tell us how unrealistic we are.

---------I'm surprised it took that long for someone to pull that part out of the column.

The maybe you shouldn't have written it.

It's up to the individual how he or she feels about a 9-4 season with wins against Michigan, Nebraska and a bowl victory in three of the final four games. I'm not telling anyone how he or she should view it. My OPINION (it's a column) is that rational people will see more good than bad in this season for our Hawkeyes of that's how we finish up, especially considering where we sat after the debacle in State College.

I picked us to go 9-3 this season with loses at Minnesota and at Penn State and to Michigan. A lot of what is realistic or unrealistic to each individual is based on expectations. I saw plenty of folks expecting this team to be 12-0 or 11-1 again. I felt that to be unrealistic just considering history, not only here, but around the country. How many programs around the country stack up back to back 12-0 and 12-0/11-1 regular seasons?

If that's what you expect, that's your call. Do I think it's unrealistic? Yup, I do.
 
Depends somewhat on how Michigan finishes, who the bowl opponent is, and how impressive the last 2 wins are.

I tend to look at more than the record - how many "quality wins" do we have? Michigan definitely was. Maybe you could count Minny. And we scored 14 points in both, so they were hardly dominating wins.

Neb would be another. Now you're up to 2 or 3, to balance 2 bad losses.

So I'd probably want the bowl win to be against a quality team before I'd call it a good season.
 
--------How many programs around the country stack up back to back 12-0 and 12-0/11-1 regular seasons?

There were a dozen teams last year that could have done that with our NAIA schedule.

Sounds like you listen to the national media and can't form your own opinion.

Alabama played Middle TN, ULM & Charleston Southern last year. Alabama didn't go undefeated.

Florida played NM State, East Carolina, Florida Atlantic & played in a cupcake SEC east conference. Lost 4 games.

Baylor lost 3 games last year
 
Wisconsin didn't fire anyone you dolt, they keep leaving. Nebraska won 6 freaking games last year. The last time they won fewer than 9 games was in 2007. If, and it is a big if Riley can get to 9 or 10 wins he simply matches what Bo pumped out year after year after year. So two of your examples don't even apply and are complete shit. I could name off 10 examples of how it takes a couple years to get a new system in place to every 1 you can name who turned it around the first year they were hired.

Saying you should fire someone because they lost to a school they shouldn't is even dumber than most of your posts. Should Michigan have fired Lloyd Carr? Should Harbaugh be fired for losing to a 22 point underdog, or Swinney for losing to a 21 point underdog at home? Should David Shaw have lost his job at Stanford for losing to Northwestern last year when Iowa waxed them? Should David Cultcliffe have been fired for losing to jNW last year? Should Pete Carrol have lost his job at USC when they lost to Stanford when they were 35 pt favorites? Heck I could go on and on and on with coaches who got beat by schools they shouldn't have.
The same could be said for the argument that you just made dolt. There are dozens of examples of teams that get better after firing an underperforming coach. If you don't think Les Miles could get to 7 wins with the schedule that we had this year, you are more delusional than HawkNick. What's missing from Iowa is an established culture of performance excellence. We are content with 7 wins a year; Wisconsin, Penn State, Nebraska, etc. are not. And that's why we are where we are and they are on average better than us.
 
The same could be said for the argument that you just made dolt. There are dozens of examples of teams that get better after firing an underperforming coach. If you don't think Les Miles could get to 7 wins with the schedule that we had this year, you are more delusional than HawkNick. What's missing from Iowa is an established culture of performance excellence. We are content with 7 wins a year; Wisconsin, Penn State, Nebraska, etc. are not. And that's why we are where we are and they are on average better than us.

Turning it around in year one is the exception, not the rule. What don't you get about that? For the dozen examples you can give of a program being turned around in the first year I can give you 120 examples of programs that take more than a year to improve if they improve at all.

I was all in on a new coach after '14 because of his recent results. You would have to be a total freaking idiot to fire a guy after he went 12-2 the year before.
 
I liked the few passes to Fant out of an H-back spot. The kid looks good with the ball in his hands. I'd welcome some more wrinkles like that.

I like the idea of "wrinkles" - lots more wrinkles, like those wacky, new fangled, Wadley in motion type "wrinkles".

What you suggest might be a bit too space-age to pull-off.
 

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