My Take on Iowa Football

H

HawkPhreek

Well-Known Member
Kirk is a hell of a coach. Iowa is lucky to have him. That being said Iowa has always sucked at time management. Would like to think a staff that has been together as long as Iowa's has should be great at this. Kirk is always going to coach close games. Iowa is going to win some lose some, but Iowa can play with anyone in the country. I think the most important thing is that Iowa misses Norm. I feel they miss him more than anyone might understand.
 
I think we have the best coaching in the country. The coaches didn't have their best game against Wisconsin. Those of us who have followed college football for a long time understand how good this coaching staff is. This is an "Iowa" team. No other team in the country competes at this level with as much home grown talent. I think if Norm was there Saturday he would have been worth at least a field goal.

As fans a lot of us(and I mean myself and others) have overated the team. They are a very good team, but they are not a great team. It was fun talking about challenging for the NC, speculating about heisman, but it was always a very long shot. After all the dust settles on the year this team may not have done everything we wanted but they are still our team.

Among the remaining games, Iowa has two very tough contests left, if they win them both then they will end up 10-2. If they split then its 9-3. If they lose both its a 8-4 season and still go to a bowl game.
 
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I still don't understand how anyone can call what we will finish right now. EVERY team we have left on the schedule is beatable. Tough games, sure, Are some of the teams Unbeatable, sure, Are we able to beat them, absolutely. I'm not sure if everyone has overrated our team. I think it is that everyone believes and knows what these guys are capable of. I for one every week take our record and say we will win out, if we lose we lose, but if we don't I went into the next game believing that we can beat any team we come up against. Wisconsin was a very good team, beatable for sure.. Az, very good team also beatable.. Take the good with the bad and move on but you cant take away from the fact that this team is great, cause they are.
 
You're right, the loss of Norm is significantly more devastating to this program than I thought it would be. We need him back as soon as he's ready to go.
 
HawkeyeDenis said:
I think we have the best coaching in the country. The coaches didn't have their best game against Wisconsin. Those of us who have followed college football for a long time understand how good this coaching staff is. This is an "Iowa" team. No other team in the country competes at this level with as much home grown talent. I think if Norm was there Saturday he would have been worth at least a field goal.

As fans a lot of us(and I mean myself and others) have overated the team. They are a very good team, but they are not a great team. It was fun talking about challenging for the NC, speculating about heisman, but it was always a very long shot. After all the dust settles on the year this team may not have done everything we wanted but they are still our team.

Among the remaining games, Iowa has two very tough contests left, if they win them both then they will end up 10-2. If they split then its 9-3. If they lose both its a 8-4 season and still go to a bowl game.
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I agree with all of this. But I am also coming to the realization that as successful as we will be, we will not win a National Championship under KF.
 
tubahawk said:
I agree with all of this. But I am also coming to the realization that as successful as we will be, we will not win a National Championship under KF.
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I don't think a NC is impossible. But for it to happen we have to get all the breaks (like not losing your starting QB like last year) and that will be tough. It's not like winning the NC is easy. I mean as good as Texas and USC have been the last decade they've needed some breaks to get there as well.
 
tubahawk said:
I agree with all of this. But I am also coming to the realization that as successful as we will be, we will not win a National Championship under KF.
Click to expand...

I agree I don't Iowa will win a NC, But is a NC all that is important ? Win NC at all cost ? KF does everything the Iowa way. I do think the coaches had a bad game Saturday. I still think losing norm is the BIGGEST factor on a team in a long long time.
 
I don't think Ferentz is the top coach in the country. Never have. However, he is the perfect coach for Iowa. That's all that really matters.
Like our team most years, Ferentz has his strengths and he has his weaknesses. Obviously, player development and his offensive line knowledge are his strengths. While clock management and talent utilization are at the other end of the spectrum.

The key thing is that with football under Ferentz, there is a very small margin of error with the way he manages games. So it's important not to make mistakes on specials teams, commit stupid penalties, or freeze up when the game is on the line.
 
I think the clock management thing is getting blown way out of proportion. We lost the game because we got a PAT blocked, a FG botched after having 3rd and inches negated by two penalties, get a big pick only to go ultra-conservative when you need to put your foot on their throat with a senior-laden QB/WR combo's, should have got out of 4th and long only to have Tolzien throw a miracle 3 yard gain to make it 4th and 4, fake punt, only to have another 4th down conversion later. Asking a team to succeed in 1:06 is difficult, we almost pulled it off but a lot of that late O is easy to criticize when we have hours/days to analyze, they have mere seconds to make important decisions, JMO.
 
HawkPhreek said:
I agree I don't Iowa will win a NC, But is a NC all that is important ? Win NC at all cost ? KF does everything the Iowa way. I do think the coaches had a bad game Saturday. I still think losing norm is the BIGGEST factor on a team in a long long time.
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In all honesty isn't the BCS title the main goal for every team at the beginning of the season? It's the pinnacle reward at the end of the season. The three goals of any team should be in this order...

National Championship
Conference Championship
BCS Game

Like right now for Iowa, National title is off the table, but the other two are in play. For MSU, all three things are in play.
 
Hawkfromnorwalk said:
In all honesty isn't the BCS title the main goal for every team at the beginning of the season? It's the pinnacle reward at the end of the season. The three goals of any team should be in this order...

National Championship
Conference Championship
BCS Game

Like right now for Iowa, National title is off the table, but the other two are in play. For MSU, all three things are in play.
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I would say no, there are only a handful of teams that should really have this as a realistic goal at the beginning of the season. I doubt teams like ISU, Indiana, Duke, Washington St, etc.... had this as a goal.
 
hawkeyescott said:
I would say no, there are only a handful of teams that should really have this as a realistic goal at the beginning of the season. I doubt teams like ISU, Indiana, Duke, Washington St, etc.... had this as a goal.
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Hopefully they all do. MSU this year. KU back in 07. Us last year. Sometimes the chips fall right. Sure, the usual suspects will probably end up getting to the title game, but anything can happen.
 
tubahawk said:
I agree with all of this. But I am also coming to the realization that as successful as we will be, we will not win a National Championship under KF.
Click to expand...

I think that it will be extremely difficult under any coach. Our recruiting base is just too small.
 
Hawkfromnorwalk said:
Hopefully they all do. MSU this year. KU back in 07. Us last year. Sometimes the chips fall right. Sure, the usual suspects will probably end up getting to the title game, but anything can happen.
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I understand what you are saying, but it is one thing to have goals and another to have realistic goals.

Should a high school dropout have a goal of becoming a CEO of a fortune 500 company?

Or a better example is should the Iowa Basketball team have a goal of winning the NCAA tournament this year? They may have this goal but you and I both know along with all them that they won't acheive it, so why not set another goal that you can achieve and make yourself feel better about once you do acheive that goal.
 
HawkeyeDenis said:
I think we have the best coaching in the country. The coaches didn't have their best game against Wisconsin. Those of us who have followed college football for a long time understand how good this coaching staff is. This is an "Iowa" team. No other team in the country competes at this level with as much home grown talent. I think if Norm was there Saturday he would have been worth at least a field goal.

As fans a lot of us(and I mean myself and others) have overated the team. They are a very good team, but they are not a great team. It was fun talking about challenging for the NC, speculating about heisman, but it was always a very long shot. After all the dust settles on the year this team may not have done everything we wanted but they are still our team.

Among the remaining games, Iowa has two very tough contests left, if they win them both then they will end up 10-2. If they split then its 9-3. If they lose both its a 8-4 season and still go to a bowl game.
Click to expand...

C'Mon. This is what is hard to listen to. I am driving back after the game and listening to a fan talking about how we got out-coached in the game. One of the moderators (Lifelong Iowa fan, but don't know the who they are since I have been living out of state for 7 years) argued back right away that if Iowa had won that fans would not have argued against what we did.

I really hate the fact that you can't argue that our coaching staff messed up in the game without, apparently saying, that Kirk is a bad coach. Nobody is saying that. To suggest that is ridiculous.

Kirk is a great coach and deserves everything he has gotten. But in terms of time management, we are awful. I would say something else for the benefit of the doubt, but coach's comments about spiking the ball the only makes it more frustrating.
 
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