Welcome to the Tom Davis era of Hawkeye Football

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silkhawk

Active Member
Tom Davis was good. Actually better than a lot of us realized. But towards the end of his tenure, going to the NCAA Tourney and winning a first round game wasn't enough. It became common place and expected. Iowa fans wanted and demanded the next level. The fans got what they wanted, but the next level was a few levels below what Mr. Davis had provided all those years.

Enter the 16th year of the KF era. KF is a good coach, probably better than we think. But going 7-6; 8-5; 6-6 just isn't cutting it anymore. Going to the "Who Cares Bowl" does nothing to excite the fan base. Watching what has basically been the same style of football for 16 years has grown old and stale. The fans will demand a change and we will probably get it. As KF said in his pres conf yesterday, change for the sake of change isn't always a good thing. But right now, any change would probably energize this fan base again.

There's an old saying, "Familiarity breeds comtempt", and just as we grew all to familiar with Mr. Davis, the same has now happened to KF. Nobody's fault. Just the reality of this situation.
 
silkhawk said:
Tom Davis was good. Actually better than a lot of us realized. But towards the end of his tenure, going to the NCAA Tourney and winning a first round game wasn't enough. It became common place and expected. Iowa fans wanted and demanded the next level. The fans got what they wanted, but the next level was a few levels below what Mr. Davis had provided all those years.

Enter the 16th year of the KF era. KF is a good coach, probably better than we think. But going 7-6; 8-5; 6-6 just isn't cutting it anymore. Going to the "Who Cares Bowl" does nothing to excite the fan base. Watching what has basically been the same style of football for 16 years has grown old and stale. The fans will demand a change and we will probably get it. As KF said in his pres conf yesterday, change for the sake of change isn't always a good thing. But right now, any change would probably energize this fan base again.

There's an old saying, "Familiarity breeds comtempt", and just as we grew all to familiar with Mr. Davis, the same has now happened to KF. Nobody's fault. Just the reality of this situation.
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For both in their later years, bringing in quality recruits became an issues. That's probably where most the problem lies.
 
I respect others opinions on this, but to me I personally don't think KF is a good coach whatsoever, and I definitely don't think he's as classy as HN makes him out to be. His contempt for us (fans) and his son living in section 8 housing should speak to what kind of character he really has.. I have no problem with the type of men he turns these kids into, but it's certainly a "do as I say, not as I do" type of instruction.
 
IowaHOCKS23 said:
I respect others opinions on this, but to me I personally don't think KF is a good coach whatsoever, and I definitely don't think he's as classy as HN makes him out to be. His contempt for us (fans) and his son living in section 8 housing should speak to what kind of character he really has.. I have no problem with the type of men he turns these kids into, but it's certainly a "do as I say, not as I do" type of instruction.
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Even during Kirk's good years he made mistakes you rarely see a D1 head coach make. Because of that I never thought he was a very good coach. He has fielded some really talented teams though so he did something right. The talent just isn't there any more though.

There are a few possible reasons for that. It might be because he hasn't put in the effort like he said in the presser (unlikely). Maybe it was his assistants that were the ones responsible for the talent and they're long gone (likely). Or it's possible that he just got really lucky a couple times and hit the jackpot with an abnormal amount of low ranked players.

It really doesn't matter which reason is the right one because none of them can be fixed in time to save him. Maybe the luck reason I guess.
 
Mr. Davis's teams beat the cupcakes they played. Kirk struggles to do that. The comparison is Apples and oranges.
 
The last five years we have done the equivelant of making the tourney once and that was going 8-7 with a really easy schedule.

For the last time, this is not comparable to Tom Davis, its comparable to Alford.
 
Not fair to Mr. Davis. Like others have said, 6-6, 7-6, 8-5 are more comparable to the NIT. Mr. Davis's teams beat the teams they were suppose to beat most of the time. When Mr. Davis was forced out, his last team was a top 16 team in the NCAA Tourney.

The program at the time of Davis's departure compared to where the football program is now is apples and oranges.
 
PCHawk said:
Even during Kirk's good years he made mistakes you rarely see a D1 head coach make. Because of that I never thought he was a very good coach. He has fielded some really talented teams though so he did something right. The talent just isn't there any more though.

There are a few possible reasons for that. It might be because he hasn't put in the effort like he said in the presser (unlikely). Maybe it was his assistants that were the ones responsible for the talent and they're long gone (likely). Or it's possible that he just got really lucky a couple times and hit the jackpot with an abnormal amount of low ranked players.

It really doesn't matter which reason is the right one because none of them can be fixed in time to save him. Maybe the luck reason I guess.
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Or one you may have forgotten, and I'll go with this one... the Norm Parker reason!
 
This assessment is completely unfair. Making the NCAA tournament itself is at least 8 wins in football, sweet sixteen is ten wins. Tom Davis had way more up side at this point in his career as than Kurt.
 
Tom Davis still had it when he left and the program had leveled off but we never saw the inept Ness of in game coaching or mismanagement of players like we have seen recently with Iowa football. There is no comparison imo.
 
Great, another "be careful what you wish for, remember Tom Davis" type of thread.

Tom Davis' last 5 seasons:

1994-95: NIT (tie 7th in Big Ten)
1995-96: NCAA Second Round (6 seed), tie 4th in Big Ten
1996-97: NCAA Second Round (tie for 2nd place Big Ten Finish - 8 seed?? NCAA Second Round)
1997-98: NIT, tie for 5th Big Ten
1998-99: Sweet 16 (5 seed), Tie 3rd Big Ten

Kirk Ferentz's last 5 years:

2010: 8-5 (unranked), tie 4th in Big Ten
2011: 7-6 (unranked), 4th in Legends Division
2012: 4-8 (unranked), tie for 5th in Legends Division
2013: 8-5 (unranked), tie for 2nd in Legends Division
2014: 7-6 (unranked), 4th in West Division

It's pretty hard to compare football and basketball, and I don't have the final rankings for Iowa's hoops teams, but pretty sure Iowa hoops finished ranked in the 1995-96 and 1998-99 seasons, where KF hasn't had a team finish ranked since 2009. And, that's with college football having roughly a third as many teams as hoops, competing for those Top 25 spots, so technically should be easier to be ranked.

Tom Davis was also usually finishing as high overall in the Big Ten as Kirk Ferentz has typically been doing in just the Legends/West division.

While I think KF's "highs" were higher than Tom Davis (two conference championships, 4 Top 10 finishes), I'd say that KF is no longer producing the same kind of results in his last 5 years that Davis produced in his last 5.

At the risk of sounding like a "what have you done for me lately?" type of guy, most of KF's success is getting to be pretty distant in the rear view mirror. Most of his accolades came in the 2002-04 seasons, over a decade ago. The only recent thing is the Orange Bowl in '09, but I'm not sure I even call that "recent" anymore.
 
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I agreed with this a couple years back but not any more. We have to be able to beat a 2-10 Ronald McDonald in our own stadium. Just no way around that. Kf has always been my guy but losing to clown town 9 of 16 years is the decider for me. Time to move on.
 
TD had enough in the tank to get Drake up and going and pass it on to his son.......KF is running on fumes. That being said like many others have pointed out it is an apple to oranges comparison.
 
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