So you are through watching Iowa Football

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longtimer

Well-Known Member
Seen a number of posts suggesting they are through watching mediocre Iowa football. Of course that's OK but somehow it seems to me to be a bit of a fair weather fan mentality. Everything in life is relative and maybe some posters are not aware of the history of Iowa football. I started watching when my dad took me to games in early 60s. We got in for $2 nothole (endzone and grass) I followed Iowa football from that point on Jerry Burns to Ray Nagel to Frank Laterbaur to Bob Cummings to Hayden Fry and finally Kirk Ferentz. We went 20 years without a winning season until Hayden showed up. My freshman year with Laterbaur was 0-11. when Fry finally got that first WINNING SEASON Iowa fans were ecstatic. (kind of like Cleveland a couple of weeks ago) I guess the point is that everything in life is relative. Ferentz has won championships, gone to major bowls and run a pretty clean program. Not easy to do in IOWA there aren't a whole lot of great high school players in the State and we have another major school recruiting them also. Not many kids from Florida want to play in the snow!

Did I want to beat Wisconsin Yes Did I think we could have beat them Yes Do I want Iowa to win a championship Yes Am I going to not watch Iowa football in the future No I guess if you want to watch a storied program that has won National Championships there is one right to the West of us who probably has some empty seats
 
It comes down to expectations. Right now it's at 7-8 wins. I've personally come to terms that we are not a championship caliber team most years. Take the magical seasons when you get them. Theres still tons of programs out there that dream of sustained success we've had.
 
A lot of em complaining - you have to be able to see that they only come here and post when Iowa loses. Bigtenchamp hadn't posted since March of this year - MARCH! But RAN to tell us how he didn't care anymore seconds after Iowa lost. Where has he been? Waiting for an Iowa loss to remind him I suppose. Tons of others that only come on here when Iowa loses and they say things like "Oh, we'll probably only win 2 more games this year" ....or "fire every one" - I get it, it's ok to be upset when Iowa loses. I was upset too. It does look like it's an uphill journey to a B1G West championship now - but really it was before Saturday. Wisconsin was the favorite for a reason, they are good. That said, there's still 8 more conference games for everyone - a lot can happen and probably will.
 
Not giving up, but have accepted that since 2010, we seem to be a 7-8 win team under Kirk. I'm a bit scared that his son will take over when he retires and it will be another 20 years of this 7-8 win stuff or maybe even worse.
 
longtimer said:
I guess the point is that everything in life is relative.
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Yeah, and my guess is that compensation paid or payable to the Ferentz family exceeds all out of pocket outlays (excluding scholarship costs which are not out of pocket) of Iowa football over its entire history and that is a relative bargain.
 
EstronHawkKing said:
Not giving up, but have accepted that since 2010, we seem to be a 7-8 win team under Kirk. I'm a bit scared that his son will take over when he retires and it will be another 20 years of this 7-8 win stuff or maybe even worse.
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It's pretty tough justifying a huge stadium addition and $5.5M a year in salary for an eight-win program that buys two wins every year and can't figure out how to score 24 points a game. If you're going to take it big-boy money, you'd better get used to big-boy expectations.
 
I'll still watch, but only on TV. I have no desire to shell out good money(for me) to go and watch a mediocre offense. Its just not entertaining. If I'm going to have to suffer through 21-17 wins against teams like Illinois each week. I'm going to want my sofa pillow around to punch.
 
Mrke1 said:
I'll still watch, but only on TV. I have no desire to shell out good money(for me) to go and watch a mediocre offense. Its just not entertaining. If I'm going to have to suffer through 21-17 wins against teams like Illinois each week. I'm going to want my sofa pillow around to punch.
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Yep. No point in trekking to that stadium for those prices so I can have some five two manlet cop from Solon sniff my Solo cup to make sure I'm not transporting alcohol across the street. Other thing is, once the Hoks choke a game like they did the other night, the games pretty much go from appointment television to "well, I guess I'll watch if I ain't got nothing better to do."
 
been listening and watching since 1956, so yes I will keep watching and hoping, just don't get as excited one way or the other anymore
 
Yep. I’ll keep watching. Unfortunately, or fortunately, Iowa is my team. Has been forever for me. That’s not changing. And I’d still go to Kinnick again this year if the opportunity came up. The game experience this year was awesome to me. Absolutely great. I hadn’t been to Kinnick since Tim Dwight and Tavian Banks played, I had a blast. Being a fan means going through the ups and downs.

Unfortunately I wasn’t born a ‘Bama fan I guess.
 
phdsvp said:
It's pretty tough justifying a huge stadium addition and $5.5M a year in salary for an eight-win program that buys two wins every year and can't figure out how to score 24 points a game. If you're going to take it big-boy money, you'd better get used to big-boy expectations.
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It is not hard to justify any of these expenses when TV revenue is like $40 million bucks a year and other revenue is so large.
 
No, but I have not sought it out for a while. I typically listen on the radio so I can do other things during it. Last game was a night game on national tv so I watched it and remembered why I prefer radio.
 
uihawk82 said:
It is not hard to justify any of these expenses when TV revenue is like $40 million bucks a year and other revenue is so large.
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Depends on your view of the mission of the University of Iowa and these huge American universities. Like a lot of other ventures, revenue has skyrocketed and without shareholders overseeing the operation and getting dividends, 5 or 10 people end up skimming a huge chunk of what would be profit. Same thing has happened to "non-profit" hospitals.
 
I'm reminded by my wife of 48 years that "football is only a game" every time I growl about an Iowa performance. Saturday's Wisconsin lost was hard to accept because Iowa made mistakes on the field and Wisconsin didn't. I'm sure no one feels worst than the team members. I'll never quit watching or turn down an opportunity to attend a game. If you grew up in the era when the only trophy given was to the champion you learned that to deal with set backs.

I think much of the criticism leveled here on this forum is from the lack of perspective from an age basis. If you're less than 45 years old and a follower of Iowa football you may not know it, but you have had it pretty good. Much of the success in the last 40 years was a result of changes in the number of scholarships permitted and a consistent number of them across conferences. It is also helped to have a stable coaching setting for 40 years. You only need to look west to ISU and NU to be enlightened.

There is 8 games to go and it is still possible for Iowa to have a double digit win season. The B1G championship goes through Columbus OH and there is not a team in the west division remotely close in talent. I will still be watching though I realize winning a conference championship is very, very unlikely.
 
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