Let's face it - moving forward 12-0 is the only acceptable record for Iowa football

[Northside Hawk]

Back in the day my sisters high school coach implemented this in the late 80's because they were going up against a team with a top quality offensive player. This was implemented in a 6 on 6 women's basketball game so you can imagine how horrific it was to watch, pretty comparable to watching Iowa's horrific offense I guess!

The six on six game occurred back when Iowa had one champion for girls, regardless of school size. It leveled the playing field considerably and gave the small schools a chance to compete with the big ones. Especially if they had that country strong farm girl.

AAU probably killed the six on six game, which was probably time to go away anyhow. And how could someone recruit a player that only saw one end of the court.

 

[#1DieHardHawk]

I lose my shit when "fans" claim that Kirk and Brian don't care, think they're untouchable, and are interested first and foremost in giving Hawk fans the middle finger. These guys are putting in sixteen to eighteen hour days and dont have time to take fans feelings into account. No one feels worse than those players and coaches when they lose. It's the Nancy's that construe maturity in dealing with a loss into apathy for them the paying fan. And how much they make themselves available to the media during bye week, or how much coachspeak they use when they do meet the media, is their business and perigative.

Kirk is probably as close to untouchable as anyone, but he still has boosters to answer to. Paul Chryst once thought he had the boosters in his corner as well

Not sure I completely understand your point here, but I completely agree that the coaches care - a lot. It's impossible for me to believe that Kirk would intentionally damage the program in any way imaginable. He has his faults, but lack of integrity is NOT one of them.

 

[justwinbaby]

We can agree that Kirk has been good for Iowa football. He’s had a really good run and developed a program that many fans of other teams would love to have. He’s put together a team that has top ten defenses and special teams year after year. The problem is he’s also put together the team with the worst offense in the country. This offense is so bad I can’t remember ever seeing a worse offense in my 50 plus years of watching football and he refuses to acknowledge how bad it is. Furthermore he doesn’t seem to have any interest in improving the offense. It seems crazy to us fans that Kirk seems to have no desire to win championships. It’s obvious that with an average offense little old Iowa could be one of the juggernauts. Phil and Levar have their guys playing at a championship level. Don Patterson says Hayden would have informed the offensive coaches that they needed to get improvement from their players or they should look for another job. I believe he also said something to the effect of he would tell the players that if they liked their coach that they should work on improving. Sure things could get worse with a different coach but Kirks attitude of just be happy with being little old Iowa sucks.

 

[HuckFinn]

Knight, who's program benefitted and profited from it as much as anyone, hated the "commercialism" of his sacred game in the 1980's. From the proliferation of televised games to in game TV timeouts. He was a staunch proponent of the old Thursday-Saturday format for Big Ten games because it minimized loss of class time for the traveling team. By the end of the 1980's you could have league games just about any evening of the week.

Sometime just before the Iowa example you mentioned Knight went ballistic over a TV timeout being called that either stopped a run his team was on or helped the opponent weather the storm. Like so many changes to the game in the 80's, he saw the TV timeout as a means to level the playing field, to make it more difficult for him to dominate like he did in the '70's. Since there still was no shot clock in 1984, he whipped out the delay game as his middle finger toward television. And like you said, it was about a twelve minute stall, almost as legendary as the Jud Heathcote stall and 8-6 first half at the old Iowa Field House in 1980.

Or Bill Musselman at Minnesota earlier on…

 

[HuckFinn]

I lose my shit when "fans" claim that Kirk and Brian don't care, think they're untouchable, and are interested first and foremost in giving Hawk fans the middle finger. These guys are putting in sixteen to eighteen hour days and dont have time to take fans feelings into account. No one feels worse than those players and coaches when they lose. It's the Nancy's that construe maturity in dealing with a loss into apathy for them the paying fan. And how much they make themselves available to the media during bye week, or how much coachspeak they use when they do meet the media, is their business and perigative.

Kirk is probably as close to untouchable as anyone, but he still has boosters to answer to. Paul Chryst once thought he had the boosters in his corner as well

This is a great post. KF critics, take note!

 

[thedukeofearl]

I don't know how many in a fan base can be appeased when they're used to having control and instant gratification at their fingertips, with modern technology and everything, and yet they will go 0-12 in being able to control the outcome of a college football game.

You saw it when the Cubs won their first world series in 108 years and many Cub fans' first reaction was to call for Joe Maddon's head.

You saw it when Wisconsin basketball reached two consecutive final fours and because they came up short the Badger boards were on fire with talk to fire Bo Ryan.

Much of the viatrol directed toward Iowa athletics is an adult temper tantrum, nothing more. Haters believe they are owed something for their allegiance, that when the coaches screw up it is a personal middle finger to them the fan base.

Such tired boring takes. Come up with something new Nancy. Since they won't I'll go back to my own tired take. Anyone who feels any emotion stronger than ephemeral disappointment over the outcome of a sporting event is revealing the true issue. And I don't care how much time and money they've invested. They must be real dandies to work with on the job.. Or do they constantly switch those then things don't go their way as well.

Next time thise people are tempted to type the same rubbish they should walk the floors of the children's hospital and sit with the exhausted and scared parents and see what having problems is really like. And perhaps they would get a grip on things. And it would put their "I Want My Maypo" temper tantrums in just a little perspective.

 

[thedukeofearl]

Damn fine Piece, Northside

 

[MelroseHawkins]

It's not that winning 8-10 games a year is bad thing. Its just that Kirk Ferentz has hit a plateau and his teams play a boring style of football. If you had a sense he was building to something bigger where one day Iowa could beat Ohio St and win the conference and make the playoffs, then this would be fun. But Kirk has decided what Iowa does is good enough, which is depressing.
Iowa will probably finish 9-3, maybe even win the West this year. Then get blown out 31-0 in the CCG and that's when it sinks in Iowa was never even close to winning the Big Ten.

Being one yard away isn't close to winning The BIG??? Cmon.

Iowa has been the closest than any BIG West team.

 

[CP87]

Being one yard away isn't close to winning The BIG??? Cmon.

Iowa has been the closest than any BIG West team.

That was 8 years ago, an eternity in CFB. That was during a time when Iowa almost always played the good teams close, even in losses. Since the PSU victory in 2021 (the last time we beat what we thought was a good team, though they went on to lose 5 of 7 after us), we have been run out of the stadium by good teams.

20 points loss to Wisconsin in 2021, 156 yards and 3 TOs

39 point loss to Michigan in 2021, 175 yards and 3 points

A decent showing vs Mich in 2022, but were still down 20-0 with minimal offense before a bit of a surge in the 2nd half; lost 27-14 (this game is an exception to the last 3 year trend)

44 pt loss to OSU in 2022, 158 yards and 6 TOs

31 pt loss to PSU in 2023, 76 yards and 4 TOs

And that is blowouts to good teams. We also have numerous losses to mediocre teams (2021 Purdue and Kentucky; 2022 ISU, Illinois, and Nebraska; 2023 Minn) because our offense has been non-functional for 3 years.

 

[MelroseHawkins]

That was 8 years ago, an eternity in CFB. That was during a time when Iowa almost always played the good teams close, even in losses. Since the PSU victory in 2021 (the last time we beat what we thought was a good team, though they went on to lose 5 of 7 after us), we have been run out of the stadium by good teams.

20 points loss to Wisconsin in 2021, 156 yards and 3 TOs

39 point loss to Michigan in 2021, 175 yards and 3 points

A decent showing vs Mich in 2022, but were still down 20-0 with minimal offense before a bit of a surge in the 2nd half; lost 27-14 (this game is an exception to the last 3 year trend)

44 pt loss to OSU in 2022, 158 yards and 6 TOs

31 pt loss to PSU in 2023, 76 yards and 4 TOs

And that is blowouts to good teams. We also have numerous losses to mediocre teams (2021 Purdue and Kentucky; 2022 ISU, Illinois, and Nebraska; 2023 Minn) because our offense has been non-functional for 3 years.

Valid points. Boy, how time flies.

 

[Hawkfnntn]

That was 8 years ago, an eternity in CFB. That was during a time when Iowa almost always played the good teams close, even in losses. Since the PSU victory in 2021 (the last time we beat what we thought was a good team, though they went on to lose 5 of 7 after us), we have been run out of the stadium by good teams.

20 points loss to Wisconsin in 2021, 156 yards and 3 TOs

39 point loss to Michigan in 2021, 175 yards and 3 points

A decent showing vs Mich in 2022, but were still down 20-0 with minimal offense before a bit of a surge in the 2nd half; lost 27-14 (this game is an exception to the last 3 year trend)

44 pt loss to OSU in 2022, 158 yards and 6 TOs

31 pt loss to PSU in 2023, 76 yards and 4 TOs

And that is blowouts to good teams. We also have numerous losses to mediocre teams (2021 Purdue and Kentucky; 2022 ISU, Illinois, and Nebraska; 2023 Minn) because our offense has been non-functional for 3 years.

8 yrs is a very long time.. Pre NIL/transfer portal/conference expansion. Everything is changing and anyone stuck back there will be just that stuck. How many programs even have the same coach they had 8 yrs ago?

So yeah now is now and acting like 8 yrs ago matters very much towards how things should be done is pretty Wild. KF has evolved some over the yrs but he does it as his own slow pace and often has to be publicly called out and humiliated into doing so. He doesn't just change things pre-emptively to try and improve things. It takes things like Rhabado/Racial lawsuits to get him to change much very fast.

He went yrs and yrs where he tried to cover slot WRs with slow LBs. He's had the cash position be a thing for awhile now but it hasn't been all that long for those of us that remember.

 

[InGoodCo]

That was 8 years ago, an eternity in CFB. That was during a time when Iowa almost always played the good teams close, even in losses. Since the PSU victory in 2021 (the last time we beat what we thought was a good team, though they went on to lose 5 of 7 after us), we have been run out of the stadium by good teams.

20 points loss to Wisconsin in 2021, 156 yards and 3 TOs

39 point loss to Michigan in 2021, 175 yards and 3 points

A decent showing vs Mich in 2022, but were still down 20-0 with minimal offense before a bit of a surge in the 2nd half; lost 27-14 (this game is an exception to the last 3 year trend)

44 pt loss to OSU in 2022, 158 yards and 6 TOs

31 pt loss to PSU in 2023, 76 yards and 4 TOs

And that is blowouts to good teams. We also have numerous losses to mediocre teams (2021 Purdue and Kentucky; 2022 ISU, Illinois, and Nebraska; 2023 Minn) because our offense has been non-functional for 3 years.

You know that you are going to be able to go and look at many programs and see several lopsided loses in a 3 year stretch right? You came up with 5 games in the last 25 or so where Iowa was outmatched. Are you believing that there are a lot of schools out there that don't face this? That aren't outmatched at least a couple times every season on the football field?

This is my point of this post, 12-0 is the ONLY acceptable outcome for our fan base.

You went through and picked 5 games against elite teams over 3 seasons where Iowa didn't perform well, and on top of that, completely left out any of the games where they beat a quality opponent and just said "hey, they also lost to Purdue and Nebraska"....which again, ALSO happens at many schools. Even good programs have lower level programs step up and smack em. It's a humbling sport

Look, they have performed poorly against better competition and frankly they've been embarrassed in some of those games....but like, besides maybe 6 or 7 programs in the country, they're in the same boat as Iowa and they are not being competitive in the games either.

 

[kicker22]

Not sure I completely understand your point here, but I completely agree that the coaches care - a lot. It's impossible for me to believe that Kirk would intentionally damage the program in any way imaginable. He has his faults, but lack of integrity is NOT one of them.

Agreed in theory but also disagree. Lack of integrity is not definitely not a fault, but stubbornness is. And those posting that we have not control and are not invested as much as they are are absolutely right. But those very same fans that have zero control or investment into the program can tell there's definitely a problem not being addressed because they're not connected.

Teams should progress as the season does. Generally the mentality is week one you want to be a better team then you were in the preseason and come bowl time you want to be better then you were when the season ended. We can argue reason's as much as we want but we are not trending that way. Our offense is getting worse and changes that should have been made were not and changes that need to be made are not being made. I have nothing against Hill and think he seems like a good guy, but our offense if built on TOP, eliminating turnovers and winning the battle of field position and it's not happening. Hill is turning the ball over, we're not moving the chains and getting killed in TOP, and not getting any points on the board. It is their job, not ours, to figure out what the problem is and fix it, and if they can't fix it then I'm sorry but they're not getting their job done.

I agree KF is in the hot seat because his son is the OC whether calling the shots or not. We know the OC isn't going anywhere so IMO if the offense can't figure itself out (which it hasn't the past few years) then the coaching staff is failing to do their job. Not many employers are ok with an employee doing 66% of the job and not addressing the inadequacies of the remaining 33%. I'm not saying it's time for KF to go, but I'm not going to say that I think things will improve either.

4 games left and a bye week this weekend I think they need to figure out what changes are needed and fast, because what they're doing right now isn't working and every opponent seems to be progressing as the season moves on and we're stuck.

 

[CP87]

You know that you are going to be able to go and look at many programs and see several lopsided loses in a 3 year stretch right? You came up with 5 games in the last 25 or so where Iowa was outmatched. Are you believing that there are a lot of schools out there that don't face this? That aren't outmatched at least a couple times every season on the football field?

This is my point of this post, 12-0 is the ONLY acceptable outcome for our fan base.

You went through and picked 5 games against elite teams over 3 seasons where Iowa didn't perform well, and on top of that, completely left out any of the games where they beat a quality opponent and just said "hey, they also lost to Purdue and Nebraska"....which again, ALSO happens at many schools. Even good programs have lower level programs step up and smack em. It's a humbling sport

Look, they have performed poorly against better competition and frankly they've been embarrassed in some of those games....but like, besides maybe 6 or 7 programs in the country, they're in the same boat as Iowa and they are not being competitive in the games either.

I don't get why you are digging in so hard, refusing to admit that what is going on offensively is the primary reason people are upset, not that they occasionally lose a game.

From 2017 - 2020, the fanbase tenor was completely different. They were not winning more games during that stretch (fewer, actually), but the offense was not a national laughingstock. We went toe-to-toe with OSU, Mich, PSU, even though we experienced some heartbreaking losses. People still got frustrated at the losses, and some on the fringe would call for coaching changes, but the majority of us had hope. We could see the trajectory of the D, ST, and recruiting, and though O wasn't dominant, there were flashes (a few big Stanley games, some great ISM performances, great rushing in 2020). We could talk ourselves into a brighter future. We had hope.

The offense over the last 3 years has killed hope, and that is why people are upset, not because we currently stand 6-2 vs. 8-0.

 

[InGoodCo]

I don't get why you are digging in so hard, refusing to admit that what is going on offensively is the primary reason people are upset, not that they occasionally lose a game.

From 2017 - 2020, the fanbase tenor was completely different. They were not winning more games during that stretch (fewer, actually), but the offense was not a national laughingstock. We went toe-to-toe with OSU, Mich, PSU, even though we experienced some heartbreaking losses. People still got frustrated at the losses, and some on the fringe would call for coaching changes, but the majority of us had hope. We could see the trajectory of the D, ST, and recruiting, and though O wasn't dominant, there were flashes (a few big Stanley games, some great ISM performances, great rushing in 2020). We could talk ourselves into a brighter future. We had hope.

The offense over the last 3 years has killed hope, and that is why people are upset, not because we currently stand 6-2 vs. 8-0.

I fully acknowledge that it's our offense, Iowa continues to win at a really high level despite it. People should be frustrated and I am too. I do get it, but Iowa is 9th.... 9th in wins out of P5 schools the last 5 years. I can live with that and in no way or fashion do I want THAT to end. People call me names over it in fact. It's great

 

[BigD]

I barely remember when college basketball implemented the 45 second shot clock. But I do recall stories, including from my dad, about how teams would hold the ball near midcourt and stall for the better part of a half.

I always wondered what it would be like to be a fan of a team that won games doing that.

I feel like I finally know.

Well said,

 

[#1DieHardHawk]

Agreed in theory but also disagree. Lack of integrity is not definitely not a fault, but stubbornness is. And those posting that we have not control and are not invested as much as they are are absolutely right. But those very same fans that have zero control or investment into the program can tell there's definitely a problem not being addressed because they're not connected.

Teams should progress as the season does. Generally the mentality is week one you want to be a better team then you were in the preseason and come bowl time you want to be better then you were when the season ended. We can argue reason's as much as we want but we are not trending that way. Our offense is getting worse and changes that should have been made were not and changes that need to be made are not being made. I have nothing against Hill and think he seems like a good guy, but our offense if built on TOP, eliminating turnovers and winning the battle of field position and it's not happening. Hill is turning the ball over, we're not moving the chains and getting killed in TOP, and not getting any points on the board. It is their job, not ours, to figure out what the problem is and fix it, and if they can't fix it then I'm sorry but they're not getting their job done.

I agree KF is in the hot seat because his son is the OC whether calling the shots or not. We know the OC isn't going anywhere so IMO if the offense can't figure itself out (which it hasn't the past few years) then the coaching staff is failing to do their job. Not many employers are ok with an employee doing 66% of the job and not addressing the inadequacies of the remaining 33%. I'm not saying it's time for KF to go, but I'm not going to say that I think things will improve either.

4 games left and a bye week this weekend I think they need to figure out what changes are needed and fast, because what they're doing right now isn't working and every opponent seems to be progressing as the season moves on and we're stuck.

Couple of things.

Kirk definitely is resistant to change, which is not necessarily a bad quality, but as you intimated, stubbornness does not necessarily equate to lack of integrity. A lot of it boils down to intent. If the program suffers due to his decisions or non-decisions it won't be because he intends to do so. Perhaps his view of the "right way" differs from many fans and pundits but he sincerely cares IMO.

Secondly, my post in no way was defending our offense. I would refer you to my post on Rob's game review thread.

 

[kicker22]

I fully acknowledge that it's our offense, Iowa continues to win at a really high level despite it. People should be frustrated and I am too. I do get it, but Iowa is 9th.... 9th in wins out of P5 schools the last 5 years. I can live with that and in no way or fashion do I want THAT to end. People call me names over it in fact. It's great

I tend to agree with you, but can despite KF's past history of winning despite having an offense continue. I've said it in other threads as you have the change has to come from the top. Whether I want to see him go or not as bad as our offense has gotten I don't see him sustaining the legacy that he's built if changes aren't made. I'm astonished that were 9th in wins the past 5 years, but do you honestly see that trend continuing if our offense continues to get 2 2nd half yards against defenses that are far from elite.

It's never about just one game and I'm sure my thoughts and feelings are still reeling from what I saw on Saturday, but the offense is getting worse and not better and I don't know how long our defense and special teams can continue to carry us if we maintain this course.

 

[okeefe4prez]

I'm astonished that were 9th in wins the past 5 years,

I'm not. Wisconsin is probably pretty close to that as well. It's simply a function of how absolutely awful our division is. Iowa and Wisconsin could be the 35th best teams in P5, but will look top 15-ish due to records thanks to the dog crap floating around. That tailwind is going to be substantially removed going forward. The biggest change in our program the past few years is that we went from having a puncher's chance against the big boys to being absolutely outclassed by them, but we have maintained that steady "better than trash" floor that Ferentz has established for the vast majority of his tenure.

 

[BigD]

Damn offense