It could be worse...

S

shades1622

Active Member
Don't get me wrong, Ferentz and his staff had an off day on Saturday but at least Mack Brown is not our coach. The following link is a pretty interesting read on the Longhorns problems and how 'Coach Brown' is handling them.

Texas' Mack Brown calls out assistant coaches, players - NCAA Football - SI.com

I would see Ferentz more as trying to be part of the solution to our issues, (SPECIAL TEAMS!!!) not placing blame and telling our coaches to just fix it or get out. Seems to me if I was an assistant coach, Texas probably wouldn't be the place I would want to go. I'm quite sure Brown may be one of the most overrated coaches in America. Frankly I'd like to see him take the talent Iowa State or any other team with just average talent to a bowl.

I guess it just puts some perspective on things for me. Saturday was a bad day to be a Hawkeye and it was disappointing on many fronts because it felt as if we lost the game more than Wisconsin one it but lets still not forget what we do have.
 
HaydenHawk56 said:
He still coached him to a NT though. Got to give him that.
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Mack Brown has long been considered a front man, a delegator. He doesn't do much real coaching. He had a great defense (coached by Chizik), and he had Vince Young. Anytime Texas got into trouble, it was: take us to the promised land, Vince. No adjustments necessary, just let the player of the decade (if not the best player of the last 20 years) will you to victory.
 
Not to hijack the thread...what the heck....

It could be worse....we could be Minnesota.

That's the kind of thread I thought it was going to be!
 
Mack Brown is a master motivator - maybe the best in the college game. That news story oozes with his motivation skill. There's a lot there between the lines.
 
big10fan said:
i don't think you can doubt his recruiting skills, but classy isn't part of his vocabulary.
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Oh yeah, it's gotta be real tough to get recruits to come to one of the most storied programs in the nation. Not to mention that they're smack-dab in the middle of the most talent-rich state in the nation.
 
I will probably get crap for this, but I don't think Ferentz would win the NT at Texas. Honestly, I am not so sure he would win it anywhere. Imagine a conservative style of play with Micheal Vick at QB. It is not quite the same thing. And, would he call a timeout in the waning seconds of a game as Vick tries to do something (like spike the ball) at the line of scrimmage?

I think Ferentz is a good coach. He is a very good fit for Iowa. But, I think he has his limitations. There always seems like there is at least 2 games a year his teams take the week off and either play down to their competition, or don't rise to the challenge. Ferentz is a great coach for running a good, clean program, that will be very competitive more often than not. But, when it comes to the NT race, he will always be the bridesmaid and never the bride. His conservative ways and end game management don't balance out enough for a consistent killer instinct throughout the football season. This will even hurt a program with a lot of 4 and 5 star talent.

And, before the name Tressel gets brought up (another conservative coach by nature) I think he has more of a killer instinct than Kirk.

Just like in basketball, outside of the real rare exception of Butler making the title game (and I would say the style of ball Stevens runs is different from Lickliter's style), most teams (of the last 15-20 years) that make the title game are quite talented and the style of ball is aggressive by nature (teams are averaging high 70s-mid 80s or so in offensive point totals).

Don't get me wrong, this Iowa football team is definitely putting points on the board, but I get the feeling (especially this year), Kirk's conservative style is holding them back from putting up more points. Horses want to run, that is their nature. When you got the horses, you got to let them do what they do best.

I'm also not saying you can't go to the NT game not playing more conservative. Arguably, OSU 2002 got there with a more conservative style on offense and a very tough defense. But, I think your margin of error is that much more slimmer. Certainly at Iowa, it is going to be a lot more slimmer. More often than not, you got to be aggressive and not passive if you want to get what you want. You need to play conservative when it is not there, but when it is there man......put the petal to the metal.

Yes, we lost to Wisconsin because of many dumb things....take your pick. But, I firmly believe, Iowa does not lose to Wisconsin if they were more aggressive on both offense and defense last Saturday. I think we get at least 10 more points if we were not content with fgs over going for the kill.
 
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I was listening to part of that presser yesterday. He was not happy with the entire team, especially the players and their thinking that just because they are Texas they should win. With all the 4 and 5 star recruits on that team he is absolutely right that losing at to Iowa State is unacceptable. Their 2011 recruiting class has 17 4 and 5 start recruits according to Scout. I doubt we have that many on our entire team. On one of the sports shows later they were saying it wouldn't be surprising if there were some players who weren't back on the team next year.
 
Ok, so I checked scout and the current roster has nine 4 star recruits and zero 5 star recruits. There have been 4 other 4 star recruits who are no longer with the team, Bulaga, Edds, Wegher, and Everson.
 
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Texas struggled mightily in the 90s until Mack got there. They only became the win ten games every year Texas when Mack showed up. I agree that he's generally considered the CEO of that program and isn't really hands on you can't argue with the success he's had until this year, and I'd put a lot of it on Gilbert. The guy just isn't a great player and they are used to great QB's there.
 
Oh yeah, remembered something else from his presser. He was saying he has had to put motivational posters up all over the locker room because this year's team lacks the motivation and instinct to get after it. He was also talking about how his team doesn't respect their opponents or know them at all. They knew nothing of ISU and Ames and he was showing them pictures of their campus and the city, while telling them about the Cyclones.
 
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