Tired of this excuse

Iowa has fared better than Nebraska over the past 10 years as well. Iowa is 85-41 winning 67.5% of their games from 2001-11 whereas Neb is 84-46 winning 64.6% of their games.

Nebraska is 4-4 in bowl games beating MSU, Mich, Clemson, Arizona in a way less impressive bowl line-up: Holiday, Holiday, Gator, Cotton, Alamo, Alamo, Independence, Rose. B10 bowl affiliations are far greater than B12.
 
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and I too want better success in recruiting than we have had, but we are not that different from other programs in the Midwest (NE, WI, IL, MO, MSU) when it comes to recruiting success. The teams doing well year-in and year-out are in the South (SEC) and West (Pac12) or name Mich or OSU and most/all are in highly populated states.
 
hawks365 said:
You're missing the point that I'm actually getting at.

This post and thread has hardly anything to do with the loss at Minnesota, although the lack of depth is very apparent. It's more based at the general recruiting of the football program as a whole.

Whether you believe it or not, Iowa has a top 15 football program in the country. Coaching staff, facilities, academics, fans, etc.

There is no excuse for us to not have be in the top 15 or around the top 15 recruiting classes year in and out.
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I was with ya right up until that last sentence. the fact that we should be top 15 in recruiting class year in and year out is ridiculous. There's a reason the SEC and other southern schools are in the top 25 of recruiting every single year (besides cheating and over signing), ummmm, thats where the future college football players are, and ummmmmm, it's warm there.
 
One thing to note about recruiting classes, the more kids you sign, the more points you earn in the rankings and the higher you move up the list.

Oversigning. Look at the Top 10 Classes any year and half of those teams sign 30+ kids or very close to it. A bunch of those kids never make it to campus but end up in JUCO or Prep School. I think the most Iowa has ever signed in one class is 25 and we've had years with 18 signees.
 
HawkinGoferLand said:
I know the perception is that Wisc is a better program than Iowa but based on what?

Iowa is 20-8-1 vs Wisc since 1980 winning 6 of last 9 good for 71% winning percentage vs the Badgers. Iowa is 26-12-1 vs WI going back to 1970.

Iowa is 6-3 in bowl games under Ferentz with victories over SEC teams LSU, Florida, South Carolina; B12 TT, ACC Georgia Tech.

Wisc is 4-5 in bowl games over same period witch victories over Miami, Ark, Colorado and Auburn.
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Wisconsin beats teams their supposed to beat easily, at least 90% of the time, and they put some big numbers on the board against crappy teams.

It would appear to the common person they are a much better team than Iowa most Saturdays. When people see Iowa struggle to beat an ISU, Minn, or Indiana it's like wtf? Beating Indiana by 6 doesn't get you on ESPN but beating them by 50 does.

idk, it's a perception thing, that's my guess anyway.
 
I will agree with acouple of pts; one we are at a recruiting disadvantage with Norm not being on the road, KF needs to get off; this is Iowa and we are not sexy BS comments, its his job to make it sexy by improving the style of play, to a exciting style, Boise St, plays exciting FB, that is why they win and will get better players down the road
 
Intersting stat 75thi in 2009 two seasons later we lack talent. HMM Coinsidence, I think not. What the hell happened in 09 we had a great season in 08. I thought kids had short memmories.
 
I'm tired of some fans accepting the loss and moving on like its ok to lose. I hate how Ferentz just puts the loss off like its - in his words "Just part of the game". He really has an attitude that promotes losing. There isn't any confidence or cockyness in that entire locker room and there definitely isn't any fire in our coaching staff. I love the Hawks but we aren't going anywhere in the national climb for supremacy.


SteveGarvey said:
I'm tired of haters posting that they're tired of this or that re KF and the Hawkeye football program. This fanbase dwells on losses like no other.
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Maybe the Hawks moved into the visitors pink locker room. Their style of play has been somewhat mellow..............
 
This is an argument that can be looked at a hundred ways. I remember 7 or 8 years ago, I was at the Boone County IClub banquet and Bowlsby said something that still hits home. Now keep in mind, that Nebraska wasnt even a thought yet... He said, that with the exception of Northwestern as they are a private school, Iowa was the smallest school in the smallest city in the smallest state in the Big Ten...He wasnt using this as an excuse at the time, but rather as a benchmark of budget vs other demographics.

I bring it up as a reference to the fact that perhaps our coaching staff do have some additional hurdles to overcome on the recruiting trail.

I grew up in both Iowa City and then West Branch(just east) and other than Des Moines, Iowa City would be the place to live for me in Iowa. It is a great city, but by no means a metropolitan area and certainly not a ethnically diverse city. Keep in mind that I realize that not all football players are minorities, but I found one article that said that a little over 50% of all "college" football players are african american. This 50% wasn't specific to D-1 or BCS, but all college levels. With that said, Iowa City is has a 2010 census population of approximately 67,000(no students) and among that( and again no students), approximately 82% are caucasian, 5.5% are asian and 4% are african american.

So, as many of us have stated on this board, we need to be more aggressive in our recruiting and that we need to get out of Iowa and the Midwest if we want to compete with the big boys where we "rightfully" should be. This may be easier said than done. As we have seen in the past years(maybe more so in basketball), kids do transfer out of Iowa(in all fairness, out of all schools). Why is this? Is it because of being "homesick", or is it also the fact that some of these student athletes dont feel comfortable in their surroundings? As our coaches try to convince these kids that they should live the next five years of their young life in Iowa City, do they really know how different a city that it can be from where they have spent their entire lives? Again, this may be too broad a stroke, but just a thought.

So maybe, there is more to recruiting a high school football player than tradition, facilities, coaching staff, fan bases. We do have all of these, maybe not on the level of some schools, but certainly more than most. But the athletic dept, the donors, nor the fan base can change some of the inherent differences in Iowa City, and I am not counting in weather, nightlife options etc.

Go Hawks!
 
Good points Molson and good stats gopherland.
I happen to think that the staff does a good job recruiting most years,and it is because of all the reasons cited here,plus the relationships that the Iowa staff has built up over 13 years.
Football recruiting is very different than bb recruiting. The key people in football are high school coaches and family. In BB it is often AAU coaches and street agents,and then family.
Iowa,like most state schools,is somewhat dependent on a strong in-state class to put the icing on the cake,like with Wegher, or Derby/Morris. Last year it was Blythe,but that was it. When the state produces 4 or more 4 star players,we usually do well. But getting those guys to come from out of state is very hard.
Chicago is one area we do that with Bulaga,Walsh,Ward,Steinbach,Moeaki,Richardson ect. IF we did not do well in chicagoland we would be screwed.
State population is a huge drawback,and then when you have only 70k african americans in the whole state? Not good for recruiting.

Sorry if the OP does not like to hear it,but Iowa has about the worst recruiting base of any BCS school outside of ISU. Boise is not BCS...which is why they only play two tough teams a year.
 
Basketball different than football..

PatrickAdamovicz said:
I agree witht he OP. I'll say again, show me the recruiting dynamo that Iowa has on staff. What I mean is, take Frank Martin at K. State for example. The only reason K. State has been able to land supreme talent is because of Frank Martin. Iowa doesn't have that and most years Iowa is able to land 3 or 4 four star recruits and even better than that they are able to land many players that have offers from pretty darn good programs yet the choose the University of Iowa.

To me it's an easy sell. A great stadium, with a great atmosphere. Damn good facilities and as we speak new ones are going up. Damn good tradition since 1980, which is 30 years worth of success. And the willingness to pay a top notch head coach 3.5 to 4 million dollars.
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Martin retained Michael Beasley due to having Delonte Hill, the assistant on staff. Martin also coached HS basketball in Florida for years, so he also had long-lasting connections there.

Yes, Iowa has a lot to sell. But all of us Iowa fans are prejudiced, we don't comprehend how someone could turn down Iowa if offered a scholarship. Our facilities are good, but so are most teams in the B1G. If a player is down to Illinois, OSU, Iowa, Wisky, MSU, Michigan and OSU, our facilities keep us in the conversation, but that's all they do, keep us in the conversation. High school players really don't care a lot about what happened in 1980, they do care what is happening now and how likely the team is to win while they are on campus. And players certainly don't factor the coach's salary into their consideration.
 
JHHawk said:
Good points Molson and good stats gopherland.
I happen to think that the staff does a good job recruiting most years,and it is because of all the reasons cited here,plus the relationships that the Iowa staff has built up over 13 years.
Football recruiting is very different than bb recruiting. The key people in football are high school coaches and family. In BB it is often AAU coaches and street agents,and then family.
Iowa,like most state schools,is somewhat dependent on a strong in-state class to put the icing on the cake,like with Wegher, or Derby/Morris. Last year it was Blythe,but that was it. When the state produces 4 or more 4 star players,we usually do well. But getting those guys to come from out of state is very hard.
Chicago is one area we do that with Bulaga,Walsh,Ward,Steinbach,Moeaki,Richardson ect. IF we did not do well in chicagoland we would be screwed.
State population is a huge drawback,and then when you have only 70k african americans in the whole state? Not good for recruiting.

Sorry if the OP does not like to hear it,but Iowa has about the worst recruiting base of any BCS school outside of ISU. Boise is not BCS...which is why they only play two tough teams a year.
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I think you are right. I have been saying it starts with the young kids and their coaches. You watch Penn or OH or TX and those people live and breath football at every level. When those little kids get older, they are better players. We need to support the young kids in state, buying cookies from them just isnt cutting it. Show up to the games and drag every person you know with you, help in any way you can. If you have experience coach. I have seen some of the coaching of the little kids and it is pathetic at best. "They are just kids" is BS, teach them the game, instill some competitiveness in them. When I was a pee wee, if anyone from grown ups to HS to jr high to little league was practicing I was there. When a game was played the whole frigging town showed up. Then when I had kids I spent 2-3 hrs a night playing with and teaching not only my kids but all the kids in the neighborhood and that was after 10 hr days at work 6-7 days a week.
Stop complaining and help the kids and in return you are helping the Hawks. Those are the facts. If your not doing your best to help, then sit down and STFU.
 
gohawks71 said:
I'm tired of some fans accepting the loss and moving on like its ok to lose. I hate how Ferentz just puts the loss off like its - in his words "Just part of the game". He really has an attitude that promotes losing. There isn't any confidence or cockyness in that entire locker room and there definitely isn't any fire in our coaching staff. I love the Hawks but we aren't going anywhere in the national climb for supremacy.
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You seriously have a problem with FANS accepting the loss and moving on with their lives?

Really? How pathetic do you want our lives to be? Is "The National climb for supremacy" really worth it?
 
Hawkcrush said:
Intersting stat 75thi in 2009 two seasons later we lack talent. HMM Coinsidence, I think not. What the hell happened in 09 we had a great season in 08. I thought kids had short memmories.
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in 2009 we had a small class; just 18 kids. All but 10 schools signed more kids than us out of 115 schools. By contrast, 23 schools signed 27 or more kids. Remember recruiting rankings are based on points. The more kids you sign, the more points you earn.

Now granted, Iowa did not sign any top100 kids that year, but did land 2 four stars. The problem was only 2 three stars players signed as well leaving a whole lot of diamonds to be polished.

Here is probably the most telling fact of the 2009 class; of the 18 signees, just 4 were defensive players . And only 2 of them I believe are still with the team.
Scout.com: Football Recruiting
 
Sorry, I should clarify what I meant. I don't like it if you move on with your life but one don't accept the lose as trivial and two don't put down the fans that stand up and fight for something better.

As far as the climb to supremacy goes, if that's not our goal then why fight? IMO, we should accept nothing less. I am not attached to the coach or his staff in anyway so if they have to go in order to reach our goal then so be it. Next coach in then.

I think we could do better then we are doing and that is why this losing to inferior opponents all time is absolute BS.

GhostofBTT said:
gohawks71 said:
I'm tired of some fans accepting the loss and moving on like its ok to lose. I hate how Ferentz just puts the loss off like its - in his words
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Two reasons to play fb at Iowa. 1- good shot at NFL. 2-great education and if not nfl, set up for success. all the rest is ******** excuses.
 
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