Matt and Miller were irresponsible and reckless

S

SteveGarvey

Well-Known Member
Matt and Miller were irresponsible and reckless yesterday on the radio. Ken Miller said that the reason for the players being in the hospital were because Doyle saw how the players were winded at the end of the five games we lost last season and he wasn't going to let that happen again. Perrault agreed with him.

OK, just how do you know that? What evidence is there that this is what happened? Why are you assigning motives to someone without any proof?

It's like blaming Sarah Palin for the shooting in Tucson without having a shred of evidence that anything she said contributed to the psycho attempting to shoot a member of Congress. Even if you hate Sarah Palin and her politics, you would have to admit that there's no evidence that her rhetoric contributed to the tragedy, if you're fair-minded.

Perhaps the workouts weren't any tougher than previous ones. Perhaps there were extremely rigourous, yes, but not any tougher than previous ones. Maybe there were some kind of supplements involved that weren't taken properly and this combination of things led to the 13 players being hospitalized.

It isn't to say that Iowa hasn't handled it poorly. It has. Ferentz and Barta not being at the presser was a poor move to say the least. But still.

I stopped listening after 5:30 p.m. so maybe they backtracked from that position but I thought the accusation against Doyle and, by extension, Ferentz, was wrong without any evidence.

Maybe evidence will come out that demonstrates their hypothesis is correct. But they shouldn't go off making accusations without evidence. Wrong is wrong.
 
It isn't really a stretch though. Everyone commented on their 4th quarter conditioning. Heck, even my mom noticed (and she still asks why they only get one point for the point after kick instead of three like you do on a fieldgoal). If Doyle didn't make adjustments, I'd be shocked. Maybe they went too hard, too fast but you sort of have to know a good coach isn't going to let conditioning be a problem two years in a row.
 
It was a timed test. They weren't conditioning for the season. Only a moron who's never trained (see Matt P's picture) would think a professional like Doyle would be instituting some "extra" conditioning during the winter workouts. Absurd.
 
In the end, it's over and it's done. Hopefully the players all have full recoveries and there isn't any immediate of long lasting complications. I highly doubt we hear anything more from the university on this other than the press conference after signing day is complete. That's just not the Kirk way. I know the media, both local and national, is dragging him through the mud right now but he won't fall to their pressure. If he announces another presser it's just going to show the media the first one was a screw up and they made a mistake. Instead, he will stand by his decision and let the media huff and puff until they find the next big story to go after. Brian Kelly didn't really say or do to much after that kid died under his watch and now the general media doesn't even bring it up. This will go away with time, until then, we just have to ride it out. So I might suggest not listening to local sports radio and turn off the local news the next few days.
 
At what point are the players going to be held for a share of responsibility? From what I've read, it was made clear to the players the off-season workouts were important as well as difficult. It seems to me the players are partly responsible as well since it is on them to continue to condition themselves somewhat during the break.

Poggi's dad said as much during the PC. He stated when Jim was home for break, he "laid around and ate a lot." So it shouldn't come as a shocker that something like this happened since the kids literally took a break from everything. They didn't take the warning regarding the workouts seriously, IMO, and now are paying the price.

Jon's talked to former players. They said they were familiar with these workouts. So it's not like Doyle has changed anything. It sounds like the same process/ ****** was followed. The boys didn't take them seriously when they said they would be difficult. He**, I may not be in the best of shape, but even I know you can't simply do nothing for 3 weeks and then believe you'll be able to come back and jump right in without missing a beat.

It wasn't imperative for KF to be at the presser yesterday, IMO. Would it have been better if he was? Sure. But he would have been more cryptic in his answers than the doc and director of ops was. He's a Belichick disciple. Like Bill, he wouldn't have given any definitives to anything. Which would have infuriated the masses even more because of the myth we have as fans of believing that "we deserve to know". No, we don't.

And don't even get me started on how badly Haddy and the SID botched this. If anyone should be shown the door because of this mess, the first should be Haddy.
 
Could be some truth to the staff being concerned about the media's contention the players are out of shape. In each of the last few games the media commented that they looked gassed on defense. I'm sure that has some impact on the coaching staff.
 
So now we're blaming the players for what happened?

cjhawks said:
At what point are the players going to be held for a share of responsibility? From what I've read, it was made clear to the players the off-season workouts were important as well as difficult. It seems to me the players are partly responsible as well since it is on them to continue to condition themselves somewhat during the break.

Poggi's dad said as much during the PC. He stated when Jim was home for break, he "laid around and ate a lot." So it shouldn't come as a shocker that something like this happened since the kids literally took a break from everything. They didn't take the warning regarding the workouts seriously, IMO, and now are paying the price.

Jon's talked to former players. They said they were familiar with these workouts. So it's not like Doyle has changed anything. It sounds like the same process/ ****** was followed. The boys didn't take them seriously when they said they would be difficult. He**, I may not be in the best of shape, but even I know you can't simply do nothing for 3 weeks and then believe you'll be able to come back and jump right in without missing a beat.

It wasn't imperative for KF to be at the presser yesterday, IMO. Would it have been better if he was? Sure. But he would have been more cryptic in his answers than the doc and director of ops was. He's a Belichick disciple. Like Bill, he wouldn't have given any definitives to anything. Which would have infuriated the masses even more because of the myth we have as fans of believing that "we deserve to know". No, we don't.

And don't even get me started on how badly Haddy and the SID botched this. If anyone should be shown the door because of this mess, the first should be Haddy.
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Yes, Matt and Miller were irresponsible. But like it or not, if 13 players end up in the hospital, the blame is going to be laid at the feet of the staff (as it should) and not the players. The break between the bowl game and the winter workouts is supposed to be recovery time.

If it's revealed that the players were taking something they weren't supposed to, then that's another issue. But nothing has come out indicating that.
 
Re: So now we're blaming the players for what happened?

DodgerHawki said:
Yes, Matt and Miller were irresponsible. But like it or not, if 13 players end up in the hospital, the blame is going to be laid at the feet of the staff (as it should) and not the players. The break between the bowl game and the winter workouts is supposed to be recovery time.

If it's revealed that the players were taking something they weren't supposed to, then that's another issue. But nothing has come out indicating that.
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The Matt & Millers of the world haven't provided one shred of evidence that this years workout was any different than any other year.
 
i find it comical that the members of the media, not only matt and miller, act like they are more concerned about the health of the athletes more than their coaches. they are more concerned with hits on their webpages and call ins to their shows than they are with the health of the player.

guess i should edit: only referring to the media that is providing one side of the story, calling for coaches jobs and such
 
No offense, but when veteran players are commenting on how these have been the toughest workouts they've ever faced, there could be something to the whole "the S&T staff changed workouts". However, to say it happened because of what happened last year, without any evidence, is irresponsible.
 
I have a problem with them bringing some idiot on their show who they KNOW is just going to rip on Iowa the whole time. They read his b.s. article and then reached out to him to come on. I mean what insight is this guy going to bring? Zero. So they bring him on just to get Hawk fans all worked up. Great.
 
As serious as this is, the University is taking the proper steps to make sure this doesn't happened again and it is probably a blessing that no one was seriously injured and now won't be in the future.

End of story.

But, seeing the most popular coach in the state in hot water is exactly what these radio hosts want. They won't just let it go. Scandal is what they live off of and the more they can create the better. They could care less about the health of the players. Its pretty sad really. They probably hope stuff like this happens if you think about it.

Someone's head must roll? Really? The only reason they want this is because it would cause more problems for them to talk about.

That must be one sorry way to make a living. Hoping for the bad to happen so you can have something to talk about.
 
That isn't the point...

Hawke said:
The Matt & Millers of the world haven't provided one shred of evidence that this years workout was any different than any other year.
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it doesn't matter that these workouts are similar to what was done in the past, only insofar as that might protect the UI from being sued. The point is that 13 players end up in the hospital. If that occurs, then something has gone wrong, either with the workout regimen, the players' diet, the ventilation in the workout area, or some combination of all those and other factors. To me, it doesn't matter whether or not these workouts went on in previous years. If a workout puts 13 of your athletes in the hospital, then the proverbial ball has been dropped by someone at some point in the process.

When the kid died at Northwestern, or the kid a few years ago at Missouri died during summer workouts, those schools also claimed that the workouts were similar to what had been done in the past (which was true). In those cases, the focus was on did the players receive treatment/assistance soon enough when it became apparent that it was beyond the normal "worn out from a tough workout" that players go through during these times.
 
For those of you saying that, our 4th quarter conditioning is a legitimate question when asking about this situation. This is January and what they do right now is about strength and speed not 4th quarter conditioning. You have two guys that can't play sports but think they have great opinions because they are in the media.
 
The most damaging and careless thing they did was bring on Gregg Doyel from cbssports.com and let him spew his venum and hatred of Iowa football all over the airwaves. The guy has a sensationalist, reactionary viewpoint and is quick to judgment with almost everything he writes. He poured fuel on the fire with Matt and Miller and further aided the negative perception of this situation.

I will admit that Iowa made a HUGE public relations mistake yesterday with that press conference and the absence of all senior athletic department officials and/or football coaches.
 
Re: That isn't the point...

DodgerHawki said:
it doesn't matter that these workouts are similar to what was done in the past, only insofar as that might protect the UI from being sued. The point is that 13 players end up in the hospital. If that occurs, then something has gone wrong, either with the workout regimen, the players' diet, the ventilation in the workout area, or some combination of all those and other factors. To me, it doesn't matter whether or not these workouts went on in previous years. If a workout puts 13 of your athletes in the hospital, then the proverbial ball has been dropped by someone at some point in the process.

When the kid died at Northwestern, or the kid a few years ago at Missouri died during summer workouts, those schools also claimed that the workouts were similar to what had been done in the past (which was true). In those cases, the focus was on did the players receive treatment/assistance soon enough when it became apparent that it was beyond the normal "worn out from a tough workout" that players go through during these times.
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If this has never happened before at Iowa (which we don't know if it has or hasn't) then how could any "ball" have been dropped.

People die from over exerting themselves (like in situations you mentioned). People will continue to die from it because each person is different and their bodies react differently. People and athletes have to know when they need to stop, how can a coach or anyone for that matter see 50 players sore from a workout and expect that 1 is going to have an adverse reaction.

Now that it has happened, they need to make sure it doesn't again, if it does that would be dropping the "ball", but even then if one player gets rhabdo next year would that be a big deal, NO, 13 again, Yes.
 
They implied that Chris Doyle had an ax to grind because the players were so winded at the end of games and it made him (and Ferentz) look bad. They assigned a motivation to him that isn't substantiated by any facts to this point. They might have added to their workout plans but don't say or at least strongly imply, with the fervor that they said or implied it, that it's because they sought vengeance on the players for making them look bad.
 
We can unequivocally say...

HawkI101 said:
If this has never happened before at Iowa (which we don't know if it has or hasn't) then how could any "ball" have been dropped.

People die from over exerting themselves (like in situations you mentioned). People will continue to die from it because each person is different and their bodies react differently. People and athletes have to know when they need to stop, how can a coach or anyone for that matter see 50 players sore from a workout and expect that 1 is going to have an adverse reaction.

Now that it has happened, they need to make sure it doesn't again, if it does that would be dropping the "ball", but even then if one player gets rhabdo next year would that be a big deal, NO, 13 again, Yes.
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that 13 players have never been hospitalized as a result of a workout. Correct that people die from over-exerting themselves. Those are isolated incidents, and it is later discovered that there was a mitigating factor for that isolated incident. In the case of the Missouri football player who died, it was discovered he had a heart condition.

Back to my point, if you have 13 guys (not 1 or 2 or even 3, but 13!) players end up hospitalized, then something is systemically wrong.
 
INTIMIDATORHawk said:
The most damaging and careless thing they did was bring on Gregg Doyel from cbssports.com and let him spew his venum and hatred of Iowa football all over the airwaves. The guy has a sensationalist, reactionary viewpoint and is quick to judgment with almost everything he writes. He poured fuel on the fire with Matt and Miller and further aided the negative perception of this situation.

I will admit that Iowa made a HUGE public relations mistake yesterday with that press conference and the absence of all senior athletic department officials and/or football coaches.
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Totally agree. It is one thing to have your own opinion and we can agree or disagree with it. But to seek out someone that knows nothing about the program, nothing about the situation other than what everyone else knows, for the sole purposes of bashing Iowa and its staff to get Iowa fans worked up is reckless. As soon as I heard him say I would never tell a kid to go to Iowa I just turned it off.
 
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