Is the problem with BF the system as a whole, or is it his specific play calling? Greg Davis was a disaster. There were not a lot of KOK fans on this board and I don't hear anyone calling for him to retake the OC mantle.
Good post with good points and I am going to reply to your first part. I think one of the problems with the offense is predictability in the play calling patterns over 23 years, year over year. I think another problem is the conservative nature of Kirk's offensive philosophy which is it is ok to punt the ball at any time and let your defense do its work and the other team can't drive the field.
On offense let's look at a few off schedule type plays. At Nebby this year Brian called a medium range pass to LaPorta on hard play action on 3rd or 4th and 1. Laporta was wide open and the it was a big chunk play. Laporta also had that catch and then bobble of an somewhat errant pass on 4th down in the endzone that was probably a TD but reversed. Those are not the norm of Kirk forcing the run on short yardage. The bombs against Penn St were very unexpected of Kirk's philosophy even though the hawks were behind.
But the hawks do not do this type of stuff and take these chances enough to make defenses have to keep one or two players deeper in coverage and away from the box. So what happens too routinely is just what happened in the game against Kentucky, and many other games, where the hawks run 3 plays against 8-10 guys in the box and have to punt and then give up the late score to lose a game.
We have all seen that a very large number of times. I wish it didnt happen as a fan, I think Iowa's pro style offense could be very exciting like the old raiders of the 60s, Chargers of the 70s-80s, Cowboys, Steelers of bradshaw throwing bombs, etc.
I think Kirk could easily have 30 more wins at Iowa from just not giving up late leads against teams like Wisky, jNW, Minny, and some of the non-blue bloods in the game.
