LaVar Woods on WUW podcast
- Thread starter Hawkfnntn
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Glass1/2fullguy
Well-Known Member
The thing I enjoyed most about listening to coach woods was his ability to have a conversation w/ them w/out sounding like a coach who’s concerned about saying the wrong thing or saying too much. Hope iowa can keep him around but it’ll be difficult when someone decides to give him an opportunity to become a HC.
99topdawg
Well-Known Member
An article on The Athletic mentioned Woods as a candidate for Central Michigan's HC job. It states that people at Iowa feel he's ready to take on a bigger job (than Iowa's STC). Here's a link that I'm assuming requires a subscription: https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/59...michigan-football-coaching-search-candidates/
Nice find. People think that any Joe Shmoe can land one of those MAC jobs. But there's dozens if not hundreds of guys lined up trying to land HC jobs like that. They don't just give those out.
I would have to assume the cupboard is less bare than it was when Kirk took over.
I'd be more than happy for Woods to have a rough year or two getting his sea legs. And then settling in for 20 years of mostly above average, sometimes quite stellar, and rarely crappy football.
Trick would be keeping Lester and Parker along with the recruiting class and not having a lot of turnover. If he could pull that off then he wouldn't have to get off to a similar start that KF did. Can pretty much hit the ground running. Just get a damn QB
NorthKCHawk
Well-Known Member
By all accounts Phil is happy being Iowa's DC, and I assume he would love to retire in that position. There was also an article about Lester wanting to plant some roots due to kids. I don't think he would feel any sort of entitled to the HC position given that he has been here a year and has been an improvement but not a rock star. So, if KF hung em up and there was an internal promotion, I think it is very realistic that you could keep the staff, players, and commits in the boat. The problem is that Woods is not the Associate Head Coach, so there might be the wrong internal promotion.
Totally agree with all this. Wallace is pretty much who KF has tabbed for it if we are to read the public tea leaves. So interview wise Woods would have to knock Beths socks off to get it and is that even possible? I mean what if Wallace rubs her the wrong way for some reason? Nothing is impossible but that all seems unlikely. To me it's about if Beth wants to do a nation wide search and open it up or not. If not Wallace is in the drivers seat.
NorthKCHawk
Well-Known Member
If KF hangs them up given the current status of the program, he will have a voice in who replaces him, but that is it. I do not see any guaranty that anyone gets elevated. Beth will interview the internal folks and also absolutely look outside the program to see if a hot name is interested. Best person would get the job.
KF would have to retire after winning the conference title and making the playoffs to call his shot on a replacement.
Beth is pretty young and just getting started on her AD career. This would be her signature hire of all hires she'll probably ever get to make. She isn't gonna be told by KF who that'll be I don't think. Hiring Jan was a layup to do. Easiest hire of all time to make. This and replacing Fran when those days come won't be that simple.
If I had to guess I think she'll open it up nationwide and it's a total crapshoot what direction she'll go with it. I'll be surprised if Wallace or Woods just get anointed it. We might find out as soon as this off season or another yr or 2. But that seems like the max to me.
Fryowa
Administrator
My personal opinion (supported with insight people can believe or not...I don't care) is the biggest donors would have more sway than Goetz. There are a few reasons for this.
People love to say here and other places that Goetz is the person doing the search, making the hire, and so on. While that may be true in a technical, "on paper" sense, the mega donors and KF are the ones who ultimately feed those names and give the input.
Beth Goetz is about as qualified to evaluate a head football coach from an Xs/Os/operations standpoint as I am to evaluate a cardiac surgeon. There is absolutely no way she's not being steered to that subset of candidates by the people who write the biggest checks. Those people who write those huge checks all have close relationships with staff (inside and outside Iowa's program) and are closely networked with people involved in football programs. This isn't some deal where a guy worth 9 figures owning real estate or medical patents or a chain of grocery stores just forks over a truckload of money and says, "Here ya go, hope you find a good coach." It doesn't work that way. I do have some smaller scale experience and exposure to it where I work. My boss is a smaller, get your name on a room in a facility guy and I've had plenty of good conversation about it with him and seen those less-influential transactions come across my desk (computer screen). People are WAY to assumptive that the hiring decisions are made with finality at the AD level. It's just not the case and I get it if they've never seen the curtains drawn back on how these programs operate. Each one of these big programs is nothing more than a good ol' boys club whether we choose to believe it or not.
Now, if that person she's being steered to is Seth Wallace then it'll be Seth Wallace whether he rubs her the wrong way or not. Just like firing Brian Ferentz...that wasn't her taking that initiative. Neither was Scott Frost being fired a couple weeks shy of having his contract devalued by several million dollars. Yes, Trev Alberts was on TV saying all the right things about why "he" was firing Scott Frost, and how it was for this reason and that reason, but that was nothing more than pissed off donors who told him, here's the cash, get rid of him. ADs don't stay ADs by pissing off the people paying their salaries.
Beth Goetz didn't all of a sudden decide she was sick of BF and it was time to move on, especially when KF is effectively the one in charge of the program. She doesn't have the first clue as to why/how he's a shitty OC. Someone (more than one in reality) decided they had had enough and made it happen. Again...yes, she was the one on TV saying yadda yadda yadda, I decided BF wasn't the right guy for the job, and I feel the program would be best served by finding someone else, but it wasn't her. She is just the person who signs the U's name on the contracts and officially signs the U's name on the termination letters. She is a puppet just like the rest of the ADs at big name programs. That's not to say she isn't a greaat asset to the U (I think she eats Barta for breakfast any day of the Week), but when it comes to football and basketball she's along for the ride in any really major decisions.
Fun side fact, wrestling at the bigger programs is even worse than football or basketball by a mile. I do in fact have more experience in that arena observationally. Wrestling obviously gets VERY little money from the athletic department, and I can tell you for a fact that Iowa/Penn State/Nebraska/what have you is run at the strict behest of the bigger donors. Iowa is lucky that Tom has great relationships with people tied to the Iowa wrestling program who also have money, but the way major wrestling programs wine and dine donors and allow them access/influence would blow your doors off. The folks who paid for the new facility essentially own our program, but it works because they are wrestling people, they have huge pride in Iowa wrestling, and we have pretty much the 2nd most "Iowa" wrestler in history as our head coach. There's a definite royalty system but like I said it works.
NorthKCHawk
Well-Known Member
Respectfully, Fry regularly discounts Beth doing her job and inflates the role of the megadonor class. As any good executive and quasi politician, Beth will take input from many sources, including KF, the current staff, player leaders, and yes, donors. But, she is going to hire a national search firm to gauge interest. That firm will help her vet who is a serious candidate and who is not. While Beth may not be an expert in Xs and Os in football, she will hire a search firm whose job is to separate serious candidates from unserious ones. I suspect she will take a number of in-person interviews and ultimately SHE will do her job and make the pick. Maybe I am wrong and she is a mere donor puppet as Fry suggests, but if you hire an AD with the expectation that she will make coaching selections based solely upon the opinions of those with the largest checkbook, you have hired a shitty AD or defined your AD's responsibilities as a farce. You hire leaders to lead.
Fryowa
Administrator
She is required to do that. It is a CYA dog and pony show. I don't expect you to change your mind, btw. Not trying to persuade you.
She will make the pick based on the "recommendation" of a select group made up of very rich people and Kirk Ferentz. In that sense, she is doing her job as a technicality.
Beth Goetz is in fact a leader and by all accounts that I've heard, a good one. She absolutely leads, influences, and makes decisions outside of football and basketball. When it comes to those sports, she is not the leader. She's a consigliere.
