Levar Woods--Assistant Coach of the Decade?

Coaching career (HC unless noted)
2008–2011 Iowa (AA)
2012–2014 Iowa (LB)
2015–2017 Iowa (TE)
2018–present Iowa (STC)

Hmmm, most of the LB credit was given to Jim Reid, who also coached LB from 2013-2015 and left after 2015 to become DC at Boston College. In fact many thought it was strange that Woods was not given the LB job when Reid left.

The TE production seemed to drop off until Brian Ferntez took over as OC in 2017. Then they decided Brian might as well just officially coach the TE starting in 2018.

The special teams I admit are hard to coach, but in 2018 seemed to have a mix of success and failure.

I don't know. Is Woods getting moved around a lot because he is good at his job or bad at his job? If he was really developing all those young players, wouldn't they keep him at the same position coach longer than 3 years?
 
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Talk about opposite ends of the spectrum. First of all Woods is a young position coach they are bringing up through the system. Jim Reid is a long time defensive coordinator, who was between gigs.

Woods didn't do it all himself. He had experienced staff all around him to show him the ropes. The young position coaches tend to get moved around quite a bit, gaining experience along the way.

I would say Seth Wallace is probably the most successful position coach they've brought up within the organization. I expect they had a reason to name him assistant defensive coordinator.

The drop off in tight end production was Greg Davis's schemes. Fortunately the team continued to develop top quality tight ends.

I wouldn't write anything into Woods being moved around. He's held his own and there hasn't been any drop off where he's been involved.
 
Fryowa said:
Who would they be?
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After the mini re-org in 2017 when Davis, Kennedy, and White were let go (ok, Davis "retired") , there was speculation maybe Woods should be let go too in the mini purge. I mean the guy was a LB in college and NFL and they took away the LB coach away from him and gave it to Reid and Wallace.

Now maybe in hindsight, that was more of a nod that Reid and Wallace are great coaches with previous DC experience, but I am.not sure that helps the argument that it is Woods who is the coach of decade.

Let's be serious, the real coach of the decade has got to be Phil Parker. The postion coach for the DB and the guy who got the DC job. The guy who developed King, Jackson, Hooker and many others. This really is no contest.
 
guffus said:
After the mini re-org in 2017 when Davis, Kennedy, and White were let go (ok, Davis "retired") , there was speculation maybe Woods should be let go too in the mini purge. I mean the guy was a LB in college and NFL and they took away the LB coach away from him and gave it to Reid and Wallace.

Now maybe in hindsight, that was more of a nod that Reid and Wallace are great coaches with previous DC experience, but I am.not sure that helps the argument that it is Woods who is the coach of decade.

Let's be serious, the real coach of the decade has got to be Phil Parker. The postion coach for the DB and the guy who got the DC job. The guy who developed King, Jackson, Hooker and many others. This really is no contest.
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I was actually asking @HuckFinn a rhetorical question about who the “usual suspects” were, but he says he has me blocked (he doesn’t).

But Parker is definitely the guy. He’s twice the coach that the Ferentzes are combined.
 
guffus said:
After the mini re-org in 2017 when Davis, Kennedy, and White were let go (ok, Davis "retired") , there was speculation maybe Woods should be let go too in the mini purge. I mean the guy was a LB in college and NFL and they took away the LB coach away from him and gave it to Reid and Wallace.

Now maybe in hindsight, that was more of a nod that Reid and Wallace are great coaches with previous DC experience, but I am.not sure that helps the argument that it is Woods who is the coach of decade.

Let's be serious, the real coach of the decade has got to be Phil Parker. The postion coach for the DB and the guy who got the DC job. The guy who developed King, Jackson, Hooker and many others. This really is no contest.
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I took the whole "coach of the decade" thing as hyperbole on the part of Hawkleberry, a way of saying good job to a position coach. I noted that Seth Wallace, who also started at the bottom as a graduate assistant, has probably made the most progress though the coaching ranks, rising to linebacker coach and assistant defensive coordinator. Of course there are more experienced position coaches that are better. Sorry about the confusion on my part. I took it as more of a shout out, than literally who is the best coach.
 
Fryowa said:
Who would they be?
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?
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Do offensive and defensive coaches count as assistants? Many of Fry’s coaches went on to become successful head coaches. They definitely would surpass Woods. Also the defensive line coach for Iowa that used to be the offensive line coach for Iowa that just retired was a huge part of Kirk’s success and in my opinion Woods has along way to go to catch up to him.

I am going to guess that your fairly young likely under thirty years of age and maybe under twenty-five years of age. Meaning you have a small sample size to compare to.
 
BigD said:
Do offensive and defensive coaches count as assistants? Many of Fry’s coaches went on to become successful head coaches. They definitely would surpass Woods. Also the defensive line coach for Iowa that used to be the offensive line coach for Iowa that just retired was a huge part of Kirk’s success and in my opinion Woods has along way to go to catch up to him.

I am going to guess that your fairly young likely under thirty years of age and maybe under twenty-five years of age. Meaning you have a small sample size to compare to.
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My guess is he meant all Iowa assistant coaches from the last decade, which could mean 2009-2018 or 2010-2019, but it certainly would not mean anybody from the Fry era.

So no need to name all the old timers for this discussion, although the question of who would be the Iowa assistant coach of the 1980's could be another interesting discussion.
 
guffus said:
My guess is he meant all Iowa assistant coaches from the last decade, which could mean 2009-2018 or 2010-2019, but it certainly would not mean anybody from the Fry era.

So no need to name all the old timers for this discussion, although the question of who would be the Iowa assistant coach of the 1980's could be another interesting discussion.
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If I were to choose I would go with Bill Snyder as he went over to Kansas State and built them up from a nobody to become a respectable and consistent program. Speaking of Snyder he took a assistant coach by the name of Bobby Stoops under his wing as a defensive coordinator at Kansas State. Stoops himself served as a volunteer assistant at Iowa but his contribution while at Iowa was so insignificant that I didn’t list him.

Here is an article about Hayden Fry and the assistants that coached under him. A great coach not only coaches and develops great players but also great assistant coaches and to me that is the HUGE difference between Hayden and Kirk. In that regards there is NO COMPARISON.

https://www.blackheartgoldpants.com...e-of-the-tree-hayden-frys-1983-coaching-staff
 
I would lean more towards Coach Doyle as Assistant Coach of the Decade. Hard to argue against Phil, except maybe he is a coordinator, and might be too high in the heirarchy to be called an assistant.(?)
 
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