Miller is Right: It's all about Recruiting

ChosenChildren

ChosenChildren

Well-Known Member
I have been a Ferentz apologist for some time now. I still think he can develop players and I firmly believe there is coaching talent on his staff. Norm Parker is still consulting with the defensive coaches. Not that much has changed.

Having said that, I'm trying to understand why we finished 4-8 this year. The only logical conclusion that I can reach is that we had a glaring lack of experienced, talented players on this team. Miller has opined that the recruiting classes of 2008 and 2009 were the culprits. I believe him. How many seniors off the 2009 and 2010 were NFL caliber players? You know the answer. Fast forward to 2012: How many seniors on this team have a shot at the pros? You know that answer as well.

Put it another way: Three great quarterbacks have played at Iowa. Banks, Tate and Stanzi. Banks played in the AFL, Tate is now a star in the CFL, and Stanzi made an NFL roster. Our senior QB this year was a fine young man, but he had average talent and really struggled in this new system. In short, he simply wasn't talented enough to turn losses into victories. Key plays were not made and key first down conversions did not happen.

Coaching only goes so far. You must have the players. Good players can make any system work, even one as conservative as Iowa's or Wisconsin's.

It was not the system this year; it was the players. We didn't have enough good ones, particularly at the skill positions.

Now the question becomes: Has Iowa recruited well enough recently to turn this thing around? Do we have people in place to do a good job of recruiting in the future? This is not the NFL. You have to recruit. You have to recruit aggressively, toe to toe, against a ton of tough programs.

If I'm Kirk Ferentz, I'm evaluating my recruiting plan. Do I have the right people doing the recruiting? Am I doing a good enough job myself? Am I working as hard as I did at recruiting earlier in my career at Iowa?

Those are the tough questions that need to be answered. It is not the system; it is the players.
 
The system still sucks though. Dos was a great system, worked for awhile, and then new things like windows and Mac OS came along, rendering dos obsolete.

The thing is, systems normally build on themselves to keep pace, hence we are now on windows 8 and mountain lion. The Kurt system is still on version 1.0 and hasn't been updated for 13 years. The reason that these systems are upgraded is because the users change and the needs of the users change. Not changing the system to fit the users is a recipe for failure.
 
Hey kid, wanna come to Iowa and play in a conservative boring offense or a in a passive reactive defense? What? You don't? Why not? WE HAVE CHRIS DOYLE GODDAMNIT!!!
 
clicheusername3 said:
The system still sucks though. Dos was a great system, worked for awhile, and then new things like windows and Mac OS came along, rendering dos obsolete.

The thing is, systems normally build on themselves to keep pace, hence we are now on windows 8 and mountain lion. The Kurt system is still on version 1.0 and hasn't been updated for 13 years. The reason that these systems are upgraded is because the users change and the needs of the users change. Not changing the system to fit the users is a recipe for failure.
Click to expand...

I think the question you have to ask is whether the system damages the effort to recruit good offensive players. If I'm Ferentz, I would be tempted to change the offense as a way to recruit better players. For example, I believe a lot of potential recruits find the Northwestern system attractive. I'm not sure that running a more wide open offense is necessarily inconsistent with having sound defensive schemes. Ohio State ran the spread this year under Urban Meyer but still had a pretty effective defense.

I'm still holding out hope that Ferentz will institute a different offensive scheme. Or, at least, let a QB play who is a dual threat. I wonder how we would have done this year with a mobile QB who looked to run when his first and second options were covered.
 
ChosenChildren said:
I have been a Ferentz apologist for some time now. I still think he can develop players and I firmly believe there is coaching talent on his staff. Norm Parker is still consulting with the defensive coaches. Not that much has changed.

Having said that, I'm trying to understand why we finished 4-8 this year. The only logical conclusion that I can reach is that we had a glaring lack of experienced, talented players on this team. Miller has opined that the recruiting classes of 2008 and 2009 were the culprits. I believe him. How many seniors off the 2009 and 2010 were NFL caliber players? You know the answer. Fast forward to 2012: How many seniors on this team have a shot at the pros? You know that answer as well.

Put it another way: Three great quarterbacks have played at Iowa. Banks, Tate and Stanzi. Banks played in the AFL, Tate is now a star in the CFL, and Stanzi made an NFL roster. Our senior QB this year was a fine young man, but he had average talent and really struggled in this new system. In short, he simply wasn't talented enough to turn losses into victories. Key plays were not made and key first down conversions did not happen.

Coaching only goes so far. You must have the players. Good players can make any system work, even one as conservative as Iowa's or Wisconsin's.

It was not the system this year; it was the players. We didn't have enough good ones, particularly at the skill positions.

Now the question becomes: Has Iowa recruited well enough recently to turn this thing around? Do we have people in place to do a good job of recruiting in the future? This is not the NFL. You have to recruit. You have to recruit aggressively, toe to toe, against a ton of tough programs.

If I'm Kirk Ferentz, I'm evaluating my recruiting plan. Do I have the right people doing the recruiting? Am I doing a good enough job myself? Am I working as hard as I did at recruiting earlier in my career at Iowa?

Those are the tough questions that need to be answered. It is not the system; it is the players.
Click to expand...

For the sake of discussion, lets agree with this premise.

Then why would you not "develop" players this season by giving them some playing time.

I don't want to hear next year that our troubles are an inexperienced QB. There is no reason only JVB took snaps behind center this year.
 
tubahawk said:
For the sake of discussion, lets agree with this premise.

Then why would you not "develop" players this season by giving them some playing time.

I don't want to hear next year that our troubles are an inexperienced QB. There is no reason only JVB took snaps behind center this year.
Click to expand...

Oh, there's a reason. And whatever it is, it should terrify all of us.
 
ChosenChildren said:
I have been a Ferentz apologist for some time now. I still think he can develop players and I firmly believe there is coaching talent on his staff. Norm Parker is still consulting with the defensive coaches. Not that much has changed.

Having said that, I'm trying to understand why we finished 4-8 this year. The only logical conclusion that I can reach is that we had a glaring lack of experienced, talented players on this team. Miller has opined that the recruiting classes of 2008 and 2009 were the culprits. I believe him. How many seniors off the 2009 and 2010 were NFL caliber players? You know the answer. Fast forward to 2012: How many seniors on this team have a shot at the pros? You know that answer as well.

Put it another way: Three great quarterbacks have played at Iowa. Banks, Tate and Stanzi. Banks played in the AFL, Tate is now a star in the CFL, and Stanzi made an NFL roster. Our senior QB this year was a fine young man, but he had average talent and really struggled in this new system. In short, he simply wasn't talented enough to turn losses into victories. Key plays were not made and key first down conversions did not happen.

Coaching only goes so far. You must have the players. Good players can make any system work, even one as conservative as Iowa's or Wisconsin's.

It was not the system this year; it was the players. We didn't have enough good ones, particularly at the skill positions.

Now the question becomes: Has Iowa recruited well enough recently to turn this thing around? Do we have people in place to do a good job of recruiting in the future? This is not the NFL. You have to recruit. You have to recruit aggressively, toe to toe, against a ton of tough programs.

If I'm Kirk Ferentz, I'm evaluating my recruiting plan. Do I have the right people doing the recruiting? Am I doing a good enough job myself? Am I working as hard as I did at recruiting earlier in my career at Iowa?

Those are the tough questions that need to be answered. It is not the system; it is the players.
Click to expand...
Sorry, dude, JVB tossed 25 TDs as a junior. So you are right, he is a average big ten QB. But for goodness sake, you don't go from 25 to 7 TDs without a massive degree of incompetence in the coaching ranks. Hell, the schedule was tougher last year, too, because we had Pitt and the B1G didn't stink nearly as bad as it did this year.
 
ChosenChildren said:
I think the question you have to ask is whether the system damages the effort to recruit good offensive players. If I'm Ferentz, I would be tempted to change the offense as a way to recruit better players. For example, I believe a lot of potential recruits find the Northwestern system attractive. I'm not sure that running a more wide open offense is necessarily inconsistent with having sound defensive schemes. Ohio State ran the spread this year under Urban Meyer but still had a pretty effective defense.

I'm still holding out hope that Ferentz will institute a different offensive scheme. Or, at least, let a QB play who is a dual threat. I wonder how we would have done this year with a mobile QB who looked to run when his first and second options were covered.
Click to expand...

I'm still holding out hope that Ferentz will institute a different offensive scheme.

14 years history says he won't do anything on offense that will be very effective save 2002.

FreedComanche



 
tubahawk said:
For the sake of discussion, lets agree with this premise.

Then why would you not "develop" players this season by giving them some playing time.

I don't want to hear next year that our troubles are an inexperienced QB. There is no reason only JVB took snaps behind center this year.
Click to expand...
Because I guarantee you that the QB coach has no idea how good the other QBs are and you can bet your bottom dollar no QB but JVB practiced with the ones. Again, you don't oversee an 18 passing TD drop off without being a complete and utter failure. To put this in perspective, the offense put up an average of about 2 passing TDs a game last year and about half a TD this year. Now think of our record if we could have just met in the middle and pulled out just one more passing TD per game. Looks like an actually respectable season, doesn't it?
 
okeefe4prez said:
Sorry, dude, JVB tossed 25 TDs as a junior. So you are right, he is a average big ten QB. But for goodness sake, you don't go from 25 to 7 TDs without a massive degree of incompetence in the coaching ranks. Hell, the schedule was tougher last year, too, because we had Pitt and the B1G didn't stink nearly as bad as it did this year.
Click to expand...

He didn't have McNutt this year. That made a huge difference. We were 4-2 when two of our best offensive linemen went down and our best running back. That made a huge difference as well.

There wasn't enough talent on the team to fill those gaps and you have a QB with no mobility; no threat to run.

I still think it comes back to talent or the lack thereof.
 
BS. The system is not the problem. I have said this before if you were a 5 star wr do you go to Iowa, Nebby, Mich or NU? How about a 5 star qb (a real throwing qb) or rb? When 50 plus percent of an O is made up in ONE player, who wants to ge there? I can not argue with the recruiting process, it needs work and is the biggest fault of the staff. They are running around rubbing sticks together while everyone else is using a bic. Other teams look like gods and are years ahead in recruiting compared to us.
 
ChosenChildren said:
I have been a Ferentz apologist for some time now. I still think he can develop players and I firmly believe there is coaching talent on his staff. Norm Parker is still consulting with the defensive coaches. Not that much has changed.

Having said that, I'm trying to understand why we finished 4-8 this year. The only logical conclusion that I can reach is that we had a glaring lack of experienced, talented players on this team. Miller has opined that the recruiting classes of 2008 and 2009 were the culprits. I believe him. How many seniors off the 2009 and 2010 were NFL caliber players? You know the answer. Fast forward to 2012: How many seniors on this team have a shot at the pros? You know that answer as well.

Put it another way: Three great quarterbacks have played at Iowa. Banks, Tate and Stanzi. Banks played in the AFL, Tate is now a star in the CFL, and Stanzi made an NFL roster. Our senior QB this year was a fine young man, but he had average talent and really struggled in this new system. In short, he simply wasn't talented enough to turn losses into victories. Key plays were not made and key first down conversions did not happen.

Coaching only goes so far. You must have the players. Good players can make any system work, even one as conservative as Iowa's or Wisconsin's.

It was not the system this year; it was the players. We didn't have enough good ones, particularly at the skill positions.

Now the question becomes: Has Iowa recruited well enough recently to turn this thing around? Do we have people in place to do a good job of recruiting in the future? This is not the NFL. You have to recruit. You have to recruit aggressively, toe to toe, against a ton of tough programs.

If I'm Kirk Ferentz, I'm evaluating my recruiting plan. Do I have the right people doing the recruiting? Am I doing a good enough job myself? Am I working as hard as I did at recruiting earlier in my career at Iowa?

Those are the tough questions that need to be answered. It is not the system; it is the players.
Click to expand...


The main problem with this is, how many teams did we play this year that had more then one or two NFL players on it? Our team that had a bunch of average to below average players lost to a lot of teams with average to below average players because our schemes and game day coaching were worse than theirs.
 
Scorpio79 said:
No, he isn't. But you might be.
Click to expand...

The feeling, I assure you, is mutual. About 5 of you clowns have highjacked this board. I guess that is what happens when a team has a losing season.

Miller's analysis is correct. You ought to think about it occasionally.

I will say one thing; you guys are great comedians. It is a shame you can't get paid for it.
 
ChosenChildren said:
He didn't have McNutt this year. That made a huge difference. We were 4-2 when two of our best offensive linemen went down and our best running back. That made a huge difference as well.

There wasn't enough talent on the team to fill those gaps and you have a QB with no mobility; no threat to run.

I still think it comes back to talent or the lack thereof.
Click to expand...
Have you seen what this clown Davis did with nfl caliber receivers at Texas? Hell, you could give him the USC receiver corps and he would still stink. You cannot run a college offense that allows multiple independent passing route reads. There isn't enough practice time to make it work.
 
ChosenChildren said:
The feeling, I assure you, is mutual. About 5 of you clowns have highjacked this board. I guess that is what happens when a team has a losing season.

Miller's analysis is correct. You ought to think about it occasionally.

I will say one thing; you guys are great comedians. It is a shame you can't get paid for it.
Click to expand...

Clearly you haven't spent any time over at Hawkeye Lounge.
 
okeefe4prez said:
Have you seen what this clown Davis did with nfl caliber receivers at Texas? Hell, you could give him the USC receiver corps and he would still stink. You cannot run a college offense that allows multiple independent passing route reads. There isn't enough practice time to make it work.
Click to expand...

Word. That ain't Peyton Manning back there taking snaps from Kurt's progeny.
 
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