Jon, is DiNardo aware that some of our previous O-Lines under KF haven't been as good as we might have thought or preferred, given KF's pedigree?
Given the benefit of how hindsight can allow us to put seasons in context ... which season, in your mind, did the OL underperform given their circumstances?
To me only the 2006 season kinda sticks out ... however, even then, I think that the injuries to Tate and Young, along with the inexperience of the WR corps went a long way towards explaining any deficiencies in production. And, in defense of the '06 group, they had to contend with injuries to Richardson and Eubanks.
To me, the bigger issue had been Iowa's lack of depth on the OL from '04 to '07. However, even then, injuries played a big part in our "depth issues." Also, I think that the depth issues had less to do with the coaching and more to do with the attitude of the guys. For instance, some guys paid too much attention to their high school press clippings and then were set up for failure when the realized how much work is involved in becoming an elite O-Lineman on the college level. And yet another group of guys seemed to just "pack it in" when more highly touted recruits hit campus. They forgot that if they worked hard and if they were "tough enough" ... they'd still have a perfectly good chance of warding off all comers.
Fortunately for Hawk fans, I think that the coaches learned from the above "attitude issues" and have altered how they do things in order to increase competition ... and give more chances for guys to earn playing time based on performance in practice.
In addition to the above observations, I also think that the Iowa coaches simply didn't recruit enough OL recruits for a number of years there. Since then, the coaches have been more on the ball and have placed higher priority on making sure that they land MORE of "their type" of OL recruit.