I wanted to pull a few conversations from the message boards here to the front of the site as I think there could be a theme developing that we will see a lot of this off season...I hope it doesn't turn into Hatfield's vs McCoy's...or the Stoops vs Ferentz meltdown we had for nearly two years on the first message boards I moderated related to Hawkeye athletics.
The conversation sampled below is similar to several others I have seen this week and comes from Rawhawk73 on the boards:
This "woe is us, we're just little ol' Iowa" doesn't hold water any longer. We have elite level money, elite level players, elite level facilities and elite level exposure. But only 2 shared conference titles, no National Championship appearances, and seven 5 loss teams (with two of those teams that flat out quit on the season). So if it's not money, not players, not facilities and not exposure.....what is it?
Now, I haven’t seen anyone saying ‘woe is us’ and ‘Iowa cant do great things’.
Iowa has been doing great things and is in the midst of that run. I realize this year and the disappointment of a 7-5 season stings. It stings for me, too.
But I wonder if some people have really and truly appreciated what has taken place the last decade and weren't just looking on the horizon for what's next, we want more, onward and upward, etc.
As for Iowa not having played for the national title, which was part of the post cited above....
With the exception of Virginia Tech & Tennessee, every school that has played for a BCS title had previously won a national title in either the 1970's, 1980's or 1990's. Ohio State won it in 2002, and their next most recent is 1970. So you can add them to the group of Tennessee and VT if you want to say 1980's and 1990's.
Here are the programs that have played for the BCS national title since it began in 1998, and in parenthesis, their all time rank in winning percentage in the history of the game:
Texas (3)
Ohio State (4)
Oklahoma (5)
Alabama (6)
USC (7)
Nebraska (8)
Tennessee (9)
Florida State (11)
LSU (13)
Miami (14)
Florida (15)
Virginia Tech (21)
How about them apples, huh? Interesting how it matches up pretty nicely with the history of the sport, right? So much for history and tradition not being huge factors when trying to break through to the next level as a program.
Michigan & Notre Dame are 1 and 2 in all time wining percentage, and have never played for the BCS title, nor has 10 Penn State, 12 Georgia. It's why Notre Dame has had a barrel full of coaches since their last title in the 1980's and Michigan might be looking for a new coach.
Auburn is 16th on the all time list and is line to get to the BCS title game this year. Oregon probably gets their shot and would really be the only true outlier to have ever played for a BCS title because Virginia Tech is 21st all time in winning percentage.
Iowa is 57th on this list.
Now, some will say that how Iowa fared in the 1960's and 1970's when a lot of losses mounted up does not have ANY effect on Iowa in 2010.
I don't necessarily agree and you can read the next post in this thread to see what I am talking about.
It's really good right now when you look at the last decade, yet everyone would love for it to be better and no one is happy about this year's 7-5 record.
This is where I agree with most everyone; not coming through in a year like this might not just be one step back in the effort to bang the door down to become an elite because you need to take advantage of seasons like this to keep pushing that bar. So there's no need for any arguments on this front.
Yet I see so many people seemingly ignoring the reality that Iowa is in the tier just beneath the historical elites, over the past decade.
One final thought. I read a post on Wednesday night where someone said that Iowa has the 10th most players in the NFL right now of any school in the nation, and therefore we should expect better results.
It's one of two things; either Iowa has recruited with the big boys in the sport year in and year out and is an NFL football factory because they get the best of the best, or they have an amazing eye for talent and do an even better job at turning players that few major schools want into kids that dot NFL rosters.
Having covered Iowa football recruiting for the entire Ferentz era save for this last year, but having paid attention to it, I can assure you its the latter, not the former. At best, Iowa has averaged the 5th or 6th best recruiting classes in the Big Ten over the past 10 years.
Yet no other school outside of Ohio State has more Big Ten wins than Iowa.
For those that want to see people get fired because Iowa went 7-5 this year, be sure to remember you are talking about the same people that have turned nobody's into NFL millionaires and people that have built Iowa into a Top 15 program in the sport, despite the challenges they face that the aristocracy of the sport do not have to deal with.