Relatively clean with good citizens, players develop and get into the NFL, his teams rarely beat themselves, play hard, and his defense and special teams (an area Hayden severely neglected in the late 80s/early 90s) have been borderline outstanding for 18 years.
But for whatever reason, he thinks Iowa has limitations when it comes to recruiting and offense. I get that Iowa isn't an easy place to recruit an inner city 18 year old to and Iowa doesn't produce a lot of outside position type athletes. But if you put an offensive in place that translates to the NFL and values throwing the ball (I'm thinking a toned down version of Green Bay's offense) you stand a much better chance of getting those athletes to come here, especially when many top teams are running spread attacks that don't easily translate to many NFL systems.
Its seems as though Kirk's philosophy on recruiting is, 'Hey that kid is really good, lets see if there is some mutual interest' when it needs to be, 'Hey that kid is really good, lets get him here'. I don't want to hear about in home visits by position coaches. I want to hear about Ferentz doing in home visits. He is a well paid coach and it should be expected of him to visit recruits when the rules dictate he can. He has a private plane on the university's dime, use it.