What every fan likes to hear from a new commit!

Mac50702 said:
And if the poster I responded to wants to provide a good reason why we should be telling this 16 year old kid that he sucks and should never play football that does not include your offer list is not good, then please be my guess.
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LOL

A 16 year old in Juco, impressive to say the least.
 
On a serious note. A couple things about USC. They have absolutely lousy facilities. And SC is located in the ghetto. Academically how could you argue that ISU is better academically than SC? SC is one of the top 20 colleges in America. It very prestigious academically.
 
tiggerhawk said:
Apparently despite your illustrious educational preparation and that of your girl friend, friends, family dog, whoever, you seem not to have mastered simple reading comprehension.

NO WHERE, NO TIME in my post here or any where else have I suggested that Southern Cal is not an excellent academic & research university, that attracts top quality students (especially to its undergraduate schools).

(In another post on this topic I compared USC to the U of Michigan as another example of an outstanding, prestigious academic & research university that has allowed its athletic dept to operate as a virtually autonomous seperate entity, beyond the oversight and control of the academic administration and influence of the faculty; admittedly, the notorious "sports management school" at Michigan was structurally more independent of the academic administration that at USC--but in practice there may be as little or even less actual constraints.)

When you learn to read well enough to understand what is there in the actuall written words you will discover that what I said is that the USC's athletic department runs a "football factory" --and has for years.

What I very clearly & explicitly said was that the Trojan football program is conducted in a manner that makes it very difficult for a student-athlete to be a student as well as a football player. If living in California or even just rreading the LA newspapers wasn't enough to learn this notorious fact than I recommend you immediately give that girl friend power-of-attorney before you bankrupt yourself buying orange groves in Antarctica.
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Nice.

First, if you go back and read your original post, practicing what you preach with respect to reading comprehension, you will see that you do not distinguish the athletic department from the university when you call USC a football factory. Sure, you did some of that after my post. But, calling me out for reading comprehension issues for content that hadn't yet been posted is pretty low.

Second, do you have any proof regarding your claims of USC running their football program in the manner you describe? Sure, they have had booster and agent issues, but they have not been called into question for extended practice times (ala UM). And Carroll held his practices open so there were lots of people who could hold their stopwatch to it. They also have not been brought up for academic misconduct (ala FSU) in quite some time.

Sure, they recruit and sign players that are only interested in playing pro ball and some of these students just stop going to class when they decide to go pro (See this year's Emerald Bowl). But that happens at Iowa too. We just don't have as many going pro. However, I know plenty of ex-Trojan football players that are successful professionals outside of football in Southern California. USC's harsh football factory mindset didn't seem to stop them from learning how to be successful, nor did it stop Pat Haden from being a Rhodes Scholar even in the days when USC didn't have the academic standards it has today.

Finally, their football GSR rates over the last 4 years are 55, 57, 54, and 58. Compare this with ISU's numbers of 52, 55, 55, and 64 and you see that they end up with USC at 56% and ISU at 56.5%, even with the one pretty significant outlier 2009 number for ISU. Consider that ISU is ranked so far below USC academically that the academics cannot be considered comparable and this actually shows USC in a much more favorable light.

What I see are the same rampant claims based on some "inside" knowledge that you often post on this board and often end up proving to be incorrect. For instance, how are things going for Todd Lickliter right now? Remember when your "insider knowledge" supported your claim two weeks before he was fired that the administration liked him too much for Barta to be able to fire him?

I can't remember what the one after that was, but a lot of people called BS on you with that one as well.

The thing is that in all these posts of yours that while you claim to have some kind of elite insider knowledge, you never have any observable data to back up your claims. We are supposed to take it for granted because of your claim to authority. Or, in the case of your response to Homer, your daughter's claim to authority.

How about throwing in a stat or two next time. Yunno, something that any of us could possibly check for accuracy?
 
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Shada...are you kidding. ISU and Iowa are not rivals? What?

And when it comes to recruiting, Iowa and ISU compete directly for the best recruits in our state, each and every year. Iowa has generally won most of those battles, though far from ALL of them. This makes ISU's recruiting capabilities, and the factors which effect its ability to improve its recruiting, directly relevant to Iowa. Its absurd to imply otherwise...it is not possible to make a case that ISU and Iowa recruiting are independent of one another.

In a broader sense, the recruiting success of every "yearly" opponent of Iowa is relevant to Iowa itself...because it effects the quality of talent each of those teams can put on the field when it plays Iowa. Are you really disputing that fact?
 
Mesa...ask yourself these questions - do you think anyone here gives a **** that ISU got this kid? Do you think anyone here even knew who this kid was before you decided that we needed to know? C'mon man, you can't possibly think that anyone here cares.
 
Actually, I think many do care. As I said, there are more people than you think who happen to be fans of both in-state schools. A decided minority, no doubt, but a significant number of people nonetheless. I'm a 9 year confidential member on the ISU rivals board (with over 10,000 posts), and I read with great interest postings about Iowa's recruiting endeavors that occasionally pop onto that board. And I'm not the only fan of both teams on that board...though I'd venture that ISU is the "1st" team of everyone there, a good number of us also root for Iowa and thus care about Iowa recruiting. Others realize that ISU must compete against Iowa in recruiting and so are interested in how Iowa is proceeding with its own recruiting battles.
 
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tiggerhawk said:
homer--
You misinterpreted my post. I was NOT dissing USC as an academic institution in the broader perspective. I was specifically directing my harsh criticism to the FACT that the football program not only makes excessive demands of time, energy on players, but actively discourage them from taking more demanding courses, clearly indicate to them that "outside interests" (such as academic goals) can jeopardize their prospects of playing time, and are insistent that players once on campus must make football the all-consuming priority.

Of course there are other programs, basketball as well as football, where this indictment applies. But there are few, if any, that are well-endowed prestigious private major research universities comparable to Southern Cal.

Incidentally, while USC's film programs are excellent, that is primarily true of the production side, far less so for film studies/film criticism students, at both the undergraduate & graduate levels. One of my daughters (teaches film at Queens College, Belfast, Northern Ireland) is a doctoral candidate at Trinity in Dublin, has her MA from Iowa, MFA from U of British Columbia; she chose Iowa over USC, tells me that the best program in the nation is New York University, consider(ed) Ohio U and the U of GA better alternatives from the student's perspective than USC, and even in the Hollywood vicinity she gave more consideration to the U of Cal-Noridge than to USC.

But you certainly are correct that the school is a top-flight academic institution. Just not a place well-suited to be a student as well as an athlete. It was my firm impression that USC resembled the U of Michigan with its notorious separate school for "sports management", not structurally but even more acutely an environment discouraging "student-athletes" from working at being students as well as athletes.
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tigger -

It has less to do with misinterpretation and more to do with the fact that you were expecting readers of your post to read what your mind was thinking.

On the internet, that is a very common thing to do. Especially since so many of us write in a "stream of conscious" manner.

While the USC AD might not encourage its football players to truly challenge themselves, the fact of the matter remains that the resources are available at USC for students to tap into the excellent academic programs that USC offers.

A common denominator for almost ANY student who excels (be they an athlete or not) is that they push themselves. Thus, the academic success of students is still very much dependent on the INDIVIDUAL. To that end, really motivated student-athletes at USC have every opportunity to do really well (and be impressive while doing so).

I think that your point also may have pointed more at the TYPE of student athlete USC was targeting in the recruiting process. Apparently they were trying to land guys who were treating USC more as a vocational football training institution ... and one that could potentially only be a 2 or 3 year program at that! LOL ... and also apparently one where you could get paid and receive perks too!
 
CAARHawk said:
Nice.

First, if you go back and read your original post, practicing what you preach with respect to reading comprehension, you will see that you do not distinguish the athletic department from the university when you call USC a football factory. Sure, you did some of that after my post. But, calling me out for reading comprehension issues for content that hadn't yet been posted is pretty low.

their football GSR rates over the last 4 years are 55, 57, 54, and 58. Compare this with ISU's numbers of 52, 55, 55, and 64 and you see that they end up with USC at 56% and ISU at 56.5%, even with the one pretty significant outlier 2009 number for ISU. Consider that ISU is ranked so far below USC academically that the academics cannot be considered comparable and this actually shows USC in a much more favorable light.

What I see are the same rampant claims based on some "inside" knowledge that you often post on this board and often end up proving to be incorrect. For instance, how are things going for Todd Lickliter right now? Remember when your "insider knowledge" supported your claim two weeks before he was fired that the administration liked him too much for Barta to be able to fire him?
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Your paragraph one: No, it still simply your poor reading comprehension.

The FULL extent of my reference to USC in pointing out that a better opportunity to concentrate on academic priorities for a kid who does not entertain thoughts of a being a pro football player could--not necessarily would--be better at Iowa State was to write(Exact quote): USC is a football factory; WHERE FOOTBALL PLAYERS ARE CONCERNED its purpose, its function is to polish the skills and prepare future pros for the NFL." PERIOD. Just football players.

Clearly my reference is limited to FOOTBALL PLAYERS, NOT any other undergraduates at USC. There is no implication that there are not other college football programs where this is also true. As for the distinction you insist is necessary, the answer is obvious: the extent to which the administration at USC tacitly accepts the transgressions of its football program is likely a complex matter but one that is largely IRRELEVANT to my point: which is that the University leadership has allowed the football program to operate with virtual autonomy and has not provided stringent oversight--it has allowed its football program to be a FOOTBALL FACTORY.

My ONLY ther sentence referring to USC was (exact quote) "Ayone familiar with USC and Iowa State knows that a kid will have more time to concentrate on academic work and will be a far, far better situation in regard to being a student as well as an athlete in Ames. "

Again this is NOT a statement about the academic rigors or standards of either school, not about the quality of intellect of students entering and matriculating at eithe school. It does rest on unspoken facts that are in the public domain--Ames is a less stressful, less crime-ridden, less congested community (which is repeatedly named as one of the top places in America for high quality of life) while USC is in, to put it less bluntly, a deteriorating slum area. Iowa State has more general distribution requirements in its curriculum, USC's greater latitude facilitates the power of coaches to influence players to take less demanding courses, especially in the first several years which have the principal impact on eligibility.
And even though the NCAA has restrictions in place in regard to practice, workouts, etc you cannot help but be aware that it is commonplace to find ways to concentrate on football (or basketball or other sport) for endless hours beyond those formal limits on structured workouts--truth is, Moo U athletics probably wouldn't be so consistently inept if athletes had access to and the means of the same extensive involvements in their sport as is true for USC football.

The kid's reference was to USC AND UCLA: I added a comment pointing out that his remarks probably have less validity in regard to UCLA. I pointed out that the emphasis for players to put football ahead of all academic priorities is less evident at UCLA.

Your paragraph 2. Your emphasis upon graduation rates is further indication that you really are not knowledgeable about post-secondary admissions procedures, selectivity, academic requirements and standards, and the nuances of both NCAA and institutional rules and procedures for both initial & continuing eligibility.

The facts are that the NCAA has struggled unsuccessfully for years to find ways to diminish the amount of fraud and academic abuses in member schools, but has to operate within the stringent limititations of the facts-of-life reality that NO college or university is going to grant effective involvement in its academic requirements and admissions policies to an outside private organization like the NCAA. So the NCAA has come to relie upon two measures that its hopes will help reduce the abuses in college athletics: first, establishing its Clearinghouse on Initial Eligibility and slowly raising the requirement for "core courses" (English, science, math, etc) for initial eligibility and refusing to recognize non-accredited "prep schools", etc, and secondly by tying the number of schollies to the graduation rate of every school--but with so many loopholes and qualifications as to make it a relatively ieffective reform to date.

The reason why the NCAA is having trouble making graduation rates an effective tool is simply that it is a much, much too complicated matter to cover all the exceptions, legitimate and otherwise. Student transfer rates are up, not just for athletes--and as more families respond to rising college costs at the same time grant money has sharply declined and scholarship funds become less adequate to demand by enrolling their kids in jucos or local commuter schooling, the more complicated the problem becomes.

USC's football graduation rates ARE NOT GOOD. They are far below those for USC undergraduates as a whole. They ARE POOR compared to other selective, prestigious private universities like Duke, Northwestern. Stanford, etc. They are below the mean for NCAA member schools with football programs.

That Iowa State's are even lower is a scandal that is well known in Iowa, and one that has brought repeated efforts at house-cleaning in both its football and basketball programs (hopefully the new hires Rhodes and Hoiburg are the beginning of progress in the reform efforts). Iowa State's poor graduation record is simply the consequence of too many transfers, not an abnorally high rate of dismissal from Moo for academic failure. Iowa State has had a decade of coaches (especially in hoops) who for the most part knowingly recuited gypsies and mercenaries that they did not expect would ever graduate.

But just as the dubious qualities of USC's football program do not reflect the high academic standing of USC itself, the same is true of the scandals at Moo U. One of the biggest mistakes that people outside of acadmic life make is to take seriously such as the US News ratings of colleges & universities. US News makes use basically of two criteria neither of which is a particularly valid or useful measure (but which unfortunately too many parents & HS seniors believe to be meaningful): the first is "reputational"--what do admissions staff & faculty at other schools think of Whazzamatta U; the second is "selecltivity". i.e. how high are board scores and GPA of applicants, and what percent of them admitted and, most of all, how many of these most "desirable" applicants actually accept & enroll (the obvious weakness of the first is that people at other institutions rarely have first-hand knowledge & experience of either Whazzamatta U or other schools; the second is that it only provides potentially reliable data about the applicants, nothing about the quality of instruction, the resources, the positives & negatives of the schools themselves).

Moo is a very, very good major research PUBLIC university, one of three excellent academic institutions in a small state with a demagraphic severe tilt toward older residents (three schools admitting up to 15,000 newcomers in a state with only about 35,000 HS graduates each year, with one of the most extensive and highly respected juco systems in the nation, as well as about thirty good to excellent private colleges). The math tells you immediately that Iowa State (Iowa, UNI) are not going to be as "highly selective" as even the U of Illinois (taking 8,000 freshmen in a state with 200,000 HS grads in an average year--so imagine what the math tells you about California with its roughly 12 times the population, more than twenty times as many HS seniors, but only about five times as many freshmen admitted to the campuses of the U of California.

On the other hand, for decades the kids coming out of Iowa high schools have been among the best prepared in the nation, Iowa has consistently ranked in the top five in SAT and ACT scores, and the grads of Iowa & Iowa State are among the highest levels in admission to profession and graduate schools.

As reality, there really isn't much of an edge to USC in comparison to Iowa State; indeed, probably none in the sciences, and obviously not comparable in agriculture, agronomy, alternate energy research, etc. Nor does USC have an edge on Iowa in respect to medical education and medical research, nor in most of the Fine Arts (certainly not in literature, poetry, writing, print-making).

Your third paragraph: the insulting tone and character attacks are not worth responding to; of no interest to other posters.

But clearly you have no clue to the events and determinants in the abrupt change from Barta's public statements that he & the University were pleased with Lickliter's conduct of the basketbll program to the final agreement by President Mason that Barta could/should ask for Lickliter's resignation less than two weeks later.

The FACTS: On Wednesday night, Eric May's father called Barta wanting to know what was being done about the turmoil and dissension on the Hawkeyes--young May apparently having mentioned to his dad that some of the time supported Matt Gatens who felt that Payne's handling of the team on the floor was hurting his game and making it difficult for him to provide the scoring & leadership needed (not to mention Payne's unwelcome self-appointment as spokesman for the team to the media), but a few of the team (Fuller, the walk-on freshman guard who was Payne's HS friend) sided with Payne.

The next day May called Barta, who obviously did not know what was going on. Barta called Mark Gatens, then talked to Matt, Eric, Fuller.
On Thursday & Friday, Barta called Betsy Altmaier (the Faculty Athletic Rep), Tom Rocklin (Veep for Student Services), Tony Constantino (probably the most influential & knowledgeable faculty member about Hawkeye athletics, Ellie Herman (Chairman of the President's Committee on Athletics), and , eventually, was able to get in contact with Mason to bring her up to date on the surprising developments, unexpected crisis.

In the meanwhile, Iowa was knocked out of the BT tournament, ending its season. At which point, Barta declined to talk with the media; instead directed the Sports Info Director to prepare a brief statement to give to the press, basically stating bromides about the season just ended but pointedly declining to make any mention of Lickliter's status--which, of course, set off mass speculation that Lickliter would be fired within the week.

Either late Saturday night or early Sunday, Barta talked again with Mason, and later said of the conversation that they agreed that a coaching change had to be made, that it would only get worse into the next season & sos the change should be made quickly. Barta was given permission by Mason to buy out Lickliter's remaining salary. Later on Sunday, Barta met with the team, but did not inform them at that point of the change. He called Lickliter to ask him to meet on Monday morning.

On Monday Barta met very briefly with Lickliter, told him he was out with no assurance that all or any of the assistants would be kept on. Barta then met again with the team to tell them Lickliter was fired, set a press conference for later.

On Tuesday, Barta conferred with Altmaier, Herman & Rocklin along with Meyer, the Asst AD. He then proposed a selection Committee of himself, those four, and possibly a former player and/or active alum to conduct the search for a new coach, and Mason quickly approved it.

My post to which you refer appeared in this and two other internet boards several days to more than a week BEFORE any of these events, well before May's call to Barta, days before the Big Ten tournament. Barta's public statement supporting Lickliter was just few days before my post.My post was based on conversations with the former faculty athletic rep.

Clearly I was not wrong AT THE TIME I posted; Barta did NOT intend to fire Lickliter. He said so himself on numerous occasions. He did NOT have permission to buy out Lickliter's contract, a necessary pre-condition to any firing. Barta explicitly said that he didn't get that permission until the weekend before the Monday Licklter was bought out of his contract.

THINGS CHANGE. On December 6, 1941 Roosevelt did not intend to declare war on Japan & Germany two days later. Hate to end any childhood illusions about warm, fuzzy certainty in your world.
 
This is a very strange thread. If the kid had offers from these other schools, then his comments would have more relevance. If a recruit ever turns down USC for ISU and then makes those types of comments, then let me know.

I think it's cool he likes ISU's campus. And I hope he becomes a good player for them. But I have no idea why an ISU fan would come to this site bragging about the pick up.
 
I hate the message board guy that takes way too many words to get his point across- Does anyone seriously read that?! ... Oh wait... wrong thread? Sorry!
 
PlanoHawk said:
I hate the message board guy that takes way too many words to get his point across- Does anyone seriously read that?! ... Oh wait... wrong thread? Sorry!
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No need to apologize. I understood your point and it only took a couple of sentences.:)
 
New ISU commit David Irving:
"I've seen a lot of colleges, I've seen USC and UCLA and LSU and a bunch of others," Irving said. "And everything about Iowa State just blows everything else away. The academic center is really nice. The dorms are spectacular. I like the tradition there with the stadium named after Jack Trice and the whole city of Ames is built around Iowa State. It's 'Go Cyclones' everywhere."

This kid is ridiculous, i dont know where this traditon comes from and my fiance went to ISU in 07 and half of the dorms didnt even have air conditioning.
 
hawkeye2188 said:
New ISU commit David Irving:
"I've seen a lot of colleges, I've seen USC and UCLA and LSU and a bunch of others," Irving said. "And everything about Iowa State just blows everything else away. The academic center is really nice. The dorms are spectacular. I like the tradition there with the stadium named after Jack Trice and the whole city of Ames is built around Iowa State. It's 'Go Cyclones' everywhere."

This kid is ridiculous, i dont know where this traditon comes from and my fiance went to ISU in 07 and half of the dorms didnt even have air conditioning.
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Half? Wrong...plus the dorms he'll be in are very nice.
 
The tradition of the stadium being named Jack Trice. Trice the man/player/student was well deserving of all honors and the use of his name for the stadium is a worthy tradition...which is what the player was referring to.
 
Mesaclone said:
The tradition of the stadium being named Jack Trice. Trice the man/player/student was well deserving of all honors and the use of his name for the stadium is a worthy tradition...which is what the player was referring to.
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Point taken, i took him out of context.
 
Now, personally... THIS is what I like to hear from a recruit.


"It was the right fit," (Torrey) Campbell told the Naples News. "It just felt right. The other schools, there were some things I didn't like about them. I didn't have that at Iowa."


The 5-foot-10, 180-pound standout drew offers from Boston College, Duke, Tennessee, West Virginia, Kansas, Louisville, Maryland, Kentucky, Purdue, Rutgers, South Florida and Wisconsin, among others.
 
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