I get a great chuckle out of the media when it comes to calling Ferentz out on his game management skills. Don't get me wrong, if you flat out get beat by a better team like today then it is what it is. But as of now we will have lost 9 games in the last two seasons in which 7 of those are directly related to poor coaching.
Every question the media asks lacks any authority or balls, and it leaves KF open to give the same lame answers, "We got beat in all 3 phases, credit goes to the opponent, we need to play better." Blah blah blah. Yet the same media members will be at the post game wasting their lives asking the same dumb questions and will get the same dumb answers and we'll all waste 5 minutes of our lives reading it just to prove ourselves right that KF will answer the questions in a fashion we'd expect him to. And of course the media lacks balls b/c they're afraid if they ask any question mildly difficult that they'll be singled out and not allowed into the post game. And we all know you don't want to miss the post game b/c you might get some juicy info.
Fact of the matter is this: Iowa football is the exact same thing as Temple basketball under John Cheaney. Every game is close b/c the staff does not have the ability to adjust within a game to help the kids or sneak out a win when it may not be deserved. Before I really bust the staff I will preface it by saying I'd imagine they are a top 5 staff in the country in developing talent and turning it into NFL caliber players. Having said that, they are absolutely incompetent in game management in terms of clock and adjustments. Yes the 3 LB sets in obvious passing situations is obviously a joke, but the catches made by MSU RB's today we're pretty difficult so I wouldn't say Parker is totally at fault there. Where the staff is lible is that they are the only group on earth to not realize MSU's offense is totally based around the run game and giving their statue time to throw. It was pretty obvious last year with one of the best defensive lines in the country that the staff had no clue how to create pressure. Yet he answers many pressure questions this year with the "draft issue" although we didn't create pressure last year either.
I think what bothers me most is Iowa down 24 points on their own 20 with 3 timeouts and under 2:00 left and we're running a quasi-2:00 drill. History has shown time and time again that Ferentz is in the business of entirely wasting possessions and timeouts before the half in similar scenarios (minus the deficit), so what is his rational for going for a score here but not at other times? I say that loosely because he obviously wasn't sure if he wanted to go for a score or for halftime based on his playcalling and running the ball. In most cases when he doesn't go for the score the media will offer up some lame attempt at a question as to why he doesn't go and he offers up an even bigger joke of an answer, yet this time he feels the need to go? Why? And if you are going to go why are you running the ball and why are you taking timeouts to the house? He never really answers why he sits on the ball with timeouts and decent field position before a half and many time we lose when he does it. Yet this time he decides to go. The fact that he went for the score this time leads me to believe he has no idea or gameplan on what to do within the last 2 minutes of a half.
In watching 12 years of Ferentz ball I can offer up this one criticism regarding offense and defense in 2:00 situations: they are without a doubt 100% incompetent. The fact that the staff knows x's and o's and can develop talent infinitely better than the lay fan is unquestionable. The fact that they have no clue how to manage a football team in crucial moments of a game is unquestionable as well. How is it possible? I don't know but it vexes me every Saturday.
In concluding, I do agree much frustration is built up due to last season. Fact of the matter is we return the fewest starters in the B10 and are not very talented at various starting positions. The fanbase is at a head (at least on the forums), where some people are calling for Ferentz head and others are telling us in preseason how deep our defensive line is and how good other various defensive players are, mainly in the back. The fact is that the defensive line and various defensive players, mainly in the back, aren't good and firing Ferentz will put Iowa fans in a scenario of "careful what you wish for." It has become the ultimate game of cat and mouse for the objective fan. It's never as bad or as good as the fringe will make it seem. Last year the excuse was "We played an obscene number of good quarterbacks on our schedule." This years excuse for the exact same results is "When you lose a number of defensive linemen to the NFL it's tough." Ferentz and staff will have all off-season after the Motor City Bowl to think up next years excuse for the same results. And when I mean same results I don't mean wins and losses, I mean incompetency in playcalling in clutch situations and starting the wrong personnel for the first four games like every year.
But, I guess making a non-Rose Bowl BCS game every 7-8 years isn't all that bad... What's an objective fan to do???
