Never been a big rahrah Kirk Ferentz fan. He does develop talent well in the "non-skill" positions TE being a fringe position, this is well documented and cannot be argued. He is an atrocious game manager an this is well documented as well with all the stats on games being favored by 10 or more. Fry use to **** pound Iowa St. (16 games in a row?) Kirk makes that a 50/50 game. That being said, here is one thing I don't think Kirk genuinely likes doing and that is recruiting.
If I had to guess, he hates the "hat game", the "media hype", the back and forth that we had with the like of Ross P. To him, I think he does enjoy mentoring and building underdeveloped athletes into some of the stars we have produced in the last 15 or so years. I believe deep down inside with guys like Ross P., Ware and Hilliard, he thinks "eh, be nice to have, but life goes on". I don't think his heart is in recruiting. This lack of heart has probably cost us a few guys over time. I think had he had a little more Zooker in him, we might have landed Pierschbacher. We do a good job with OL development so this one to me stings more because he was a lifetime Hawk fan and Saban rolls into our backyard and takes him.
History shows Vejvoda will probably be a contributor. This doesn't excuse Kirk (with the money he pulls down) from not trying harder in things "he doesn't like doing", like recruiting (kissing 18 year old ***, let's call it what it is) athletes who have peaked or require their egos to be stroked to bring in some talent to increase our odds of competing year in and year out.