Why Ferentz is a Great Coach

ChosenChildren

ChosenChildren

Well-Known Member
1. He has won almost 60% of his games during his tenure at Iowa. In the modern era, only Forest Evashevski had a significantly higher winning percentage. Fry was about the same. Ferentz in all probability will become the all-time winningest coach at Iowa before he retires.
2. He tries to play by the rules.
3. A high percentage of his players graduate.
4. He gives back to the University and the community.
5. He is loyal to his players and his coaches.

Someday he won't be the head coach at Iowa. I'm not sure when that day will be, but when he is gone you will miss him and the character and integrity he displayed during his coaching days at Iowa. He is one of the all-time greats.

The negativity on this board is hard to understand for me. I guess I'm just too stupid to comprehend it.
 
Negativity results from frustration. It is not the losses. It is the manner a team plays, coaches make decisions and how coaches communicate with media or fans.

The fans certainly deserve an opinion. How did we arrive at the level of money coaches make and all the media coverage or television coverage. Yes, the fans. Would coaches earn the money and contractual arrangements they do if Iowa had a 12-0 record, playing in front of 10,000 people and no TV.

He may be a great coach. Decisions, recruiting, player performance and communication are questioned. Iowa fans take their team seriously and they should. How would SEC fans react to Iowa's performance, even Nebraska Fans. The same or worse, I believe.
 
[h=2]Ferentz is far from a great coach, he always plays the little old Iowa card crap, and lets not even get into what a terrible in game coach he is. Sure he might be a great guy but he far from a great coach.[/h]
 
ChosenChildren said:
1.2. He tries to play by the rules.
3. A high percentage of his players graduate.
4. He gives back to the University and the community.
5. He is loyal to his players and his coaches.

I agree with all of your points and I like KF and I would add how he takes under recruited "athletes" and develops them as football players and students.

But I have to say I also agree with his detractors concerning his snarky replies and non-answers to press conference questions.

I can see he wants to win for his team and himself and coaches. But when you have 500,000 fans or more watching your games who are fairly invested in seeing 2+wins to each loss and the occasional great season then you have to realize you have "customers".

The fans are the customers now and they deserve a better answer than "that's football".
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ChosenChildren said:
1. He has won almost 60% of his games during his tenure at Iowa. In the modern era, only Forest Evashevski had a significantly higher winning percentage. Fry was about the same. Ferentz in all probability will become the all-time winningest coach at Iowa before he retires.
2. He tries to play by the rules.
3. A high percentage of his players graduate.
4. He gives back to the University and the community.
5. He is loyal to his players and his coaches.

Someday he won't be the head coach at Iowa. I'm not sure when that day will be, but when he is gone you will miss him and the character and integrity he displayed during his coaching days at Iowa. He is one of the all-time greats.

The negativity on this board is hard to understand for me. I guess I'm just too stupid to comprehend it.
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While I am not a Ferentz basher, consider your first point. Past Iowa teams (pre-BCS) have not had the benefit of playing two should-be MAC-rifices and an FCS opponent in the OOC. The 1980 Hawks, for ex, OOC included ISU, Arizona and Nebraska. 1975: Syracuse, USC, Penn State. 1960: Oregon State, Notre Dame, Kansas
1950: USC, Notre Dame, Miami (FL)
In this respect, KF's record against BT opponents would be more relevant.
 
ChokingChildren, you should try to look at ferentz and Iowa football from outside of your old-timer cocoon just once.
Try to look at him/it from a modern/current perspective.
You are posting from a very provincial and emotional point of view, and it is severely self-limiting. It makes you sound like you haven't the faintest idea of what has been occurring in college football over the past 10 years or so.
The paradigm has shifted, but ferentz's did not. He has been left behind, and shows no awareness of this fact.
 
I think most of what you've written there, supports that he's a great person. Not necessarily a great coach.
 
archfiend said:
While I am not a Ferentz basher, consider your first point. Past Iowa teams (pre-BCS) have not had the benefit of playing two should-be MAC-rifices and an FCS opponent in the OOC. The 1980 Hawks, for ex, OOC included ISU, Arizona and Nebraska. 1975: Syracuse, USC, Penn State. 1960: Oregon State, Notre Dame, Kansas
1950: USC, Notre Dame, Miami (FL)
In this respect, KF's record against BT opponents would be more relevant.
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Through their first 13 seasons,

HF: 70-32-4 in B1G games (winning percentage of 66.0%)
KF: 57-47 in B1G games (winning percentage of 54.8%)

hawkdrummer1 said:
I think most of what you've written there, supports that he's a great person. Not necessarily a great coach.
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In addition...what hawkdrummer posted above. I don't know that there's ever been much question about his character as a person...but points 2-5 more suggest that he's a good person.
 
BlackGold57 said:
Negativity results from frustration. It is not the losses. It is the manner a team plays, coaches make decisions and how coaches communicate with media or fans.

The fans certainly deserve an opinion. How did we arrive at the level of money coaches make and all the media coverage or television coverage. Yes, the fans. Would coaches earn the money and contractual arrangements they do if Iowa had a 12-0 record, playing in front of 10,000 people and no TV.

He may be a great coach. Decisions, recruiting, player performance and communication are questioned. Iowa fans take their team seriously and they should. How would SEC fans react to Iowa's performance, even Nebraska Fans. The same or worse, I believe.
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Nope. It's the losses.
 
hawkfan2679 said:
Through their first 13 seasons,

HF: 70-32-4 in B1G games (winning percentage of 66.0%)
KF: 57-47 in B1G games (winning percentage of 54.8%)


In addition...what hawkdrummer posted above. I don't know that there's ever been much question about his character as a person...but points 2-5 more suggest that he's a good person.
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Thank you for posting the winning percentage on Big10 games. To me, this is the most important statistic of performance. OOC schedules have become a joke for most teams and particularly for Iowa.
A true measure of a coach's performance is how they do against coaches and players that they see consistently - conference foes. This shows a coach's ability to gameplan, innovate, motivate, adjust, and execute. Sadly, a near .500 record does not qualify as a passing grade.
 
LG210 said:
Nope. It's the losses.
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This is where many would disagree, including me. I can take a loss, if we play hard, aggressively and just get beat by a team that makes more plays.

But the lousy clock management, game management, horrible play-calling, "playing-not-to-lose" approach, sitting younger but better talent on the bench, thinking they'll somehow grow up...just by watching instead of playing (god i feel like a broken record) is what drives everybody mad.

Throwing another 3 yard out on 3rd and 8, running that same damn stretch play into the short side of the field only to watch a "3 yds and a cloud of dust" pileup (make that 1 yard) reminiscent of 1970s football etc etc.

I can take a "down" year. But when we look absolutely pathetic and our coaches incompetent 14 years into it... it's hard to take.
 
hawkdrummer1 said:
This is where many would disagree, including me. I can take a loss, if we play hard, aggressively and just get beat by a team that makes more plays.

But the lousy clock management, game management, horrible play-calling, "playing-not-to-lose" approach, sitting younger but better talent on the bench, thinking they'll somehow grow up...just by watching instead of playing (god i feel like a broken record) is what drives everybody mad.

Throwing another 3 yard out on 3rd and 8, running that same damn stretch play into the short side of the field only to watch a "3 yds and a cloud of dust" pileup (make that 1 yard) reminiscent of 1970s football etc etc.

I can take a "down" year. But when we look absolutely pathetic and our coaches incompetent 14 years into it... it's hard to take.
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So if we were 8-0 you would be equally upset?
 
LG210 said:
So if we were 8-0 you would be equally upset?
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I think what he means LG is yes it's the losses, but more than that it's how we're losing, and who we're losing to. If we were getting our ***** kicked by OSU and MI every single year but were consistently beating the ISU's, NW's, and Indiana's it would be different. If we weren't losing because of the garbage in game coaching decisions and hyperconservativism it would be different. It's not JUST the record/losses.
 
LG210 said:
So if we were 8-0 you would be equally upset?
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Of course winning is the ultimate goal, so 8-0 would be great. But If we were 8-0, most of the above likely would not be true.

But Ferentz himself often says...he's more concerned with "how we play". Even when we've won this year (with the exception of Minnesota) we've looked pretty weak. How we play...leads to the "how much we win" part.

edit: and Travis (above) is right. If we're playing tough,and beating the teams we should... but just can't get over the hump to a Big Ten title or beating the OSUs and Michigans... I can live with that. But losing to weak teams like Minnesota, Indiana, Northwestern, ISU, Central Michigan.. and looking awful in the process. Not so much.
 
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Travisam said:
I think what he means LG is yes it's the losses, but more than that it's how we're losing, and who we're losing to. If we were getting our ***** kicked by OSU and MI every single year but were consistently beating the ISU's, NW's, and Indiana's it would be different. If we weren't losing because of the garbage in game coaching decisions and hyperconservativism it would be different. It's not JUST the record/losses.
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It is overwhelmingly the losses.

I understand that the manner of losses/lack of competitiveness is adding insult to injury, but without the injury, the insult doesn't hurt nearly as much.

If we were 8-0, but were outplayed/outcoached in each game, but won by sheer happenstance each of the games we have played, I don't think folks would be nearly as upset, if at all. For reference, see a few of the first 9 games of 2009 (UNI, MSU, and Indiana come to mind).
 
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