Will Norm Retire?

Will Norm retire after this year?

  • Total voters
    74
Even if they do replace Norm with someone from within, say a Phil Parker, this will still open a spot for a younger coach who can fill in the position coaching gap and add some energy to recruiting. It'd be nice to find a Coach Soup for the defensive side of the ball.
 
droidhawk said:
I'm going off of 12 years of Ken okeefe football. Look at our time of possession the years we struggle. The only way I see us limiting possessions is by being inadequate on offense and forcing opponents to nickel and dime us to score. Keep eveything in front. You say we limit possessions. I say our offense stinks and has for 12 years. I say our defense being a top 10 defense 6 out of 12 years as being legit. This isn't basketball. You don't control the game by snapping the ball at the last second. You control it by getting first downs and then playing tough defense. I don't know what you're smoking but if you're in PC (prairie city) I'm about 10 mins away and wouldn't mind some.
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We do snap the ball at the last second a lot. We also run the ball a lot which helps kill the clock. It's not like we go 3 and out all the time. When we do go 3 and out those might be the only 3 plays our offense gets for an entire quarter.
A great defense gets off the field quickly so the offense can get back on the field and find a rhythm. It's hard to find that rhythm from the sidelines watching a team slowly move down the field on you
I'm not even close to saying our defense sucks or our offense is great. I'm just saying that a game plan designed to limit possessions makes our defense look better then it is and our offense looks worse then it is, especially when quoting stats.
I guess i'm not sure if you're arguing that my logic is wrong or you don't think we limit possessions in a game?
 
droidhawk said:
I'm going off of 12 years of Ken okeefe football. Look at our time of possession the years we struggle. The only way I see us limiting possessions is by being inadequate on offense and forcing opponents to nickel and dime us to score. Keep eveything in front. You say we limit possessions. I say our offense stinks and has for 12 years. I say our defense being a top 10 defense 6 out of 12 years as being legit. This isn't basketball. You don't control the game by snapping the ball at the last second. You control it by getting first downs and then playing tough defense. I don't know what you're smoking but if you're in PC (prairie city) I'm about 10 mins away and wouldn't mind some.

Think about last year. We had the 7th ranked scoring defense. Meanwhile, Rick Stanzi was 7th in the country for qb rating. With a stat like that, we should be a scoring machine and Big ten champ right? No, because the offensive scheme does not work even if executed properly. There's no fudging 13 points a game. 13 points/ game means your offense just has to be average to have a great year and yet we go 7-5. This year we do the same with a 1400 yard back. The all-time Iowa receiving record holder and a pretty good QB. Year in year out, our defense gets put in horrible situations and yet time and time again, bails the team out. I'm reminded of Wisconsin 2004. Drew Tate throws 2 first half picks in our own territory and the defense holds both times. This year our defense wasn't loaded with NFL talent and because of it, we were lucky to win 7 games. Lucky because even with most of the talent on offense, the offense once again couldn't get it done. Has the offense ever carried this team? We are so used to dominant offense and lackluster offense, it becomes common and we build defense mechanisms around all of it to justify it. The offense is a joke and always has been. 2002 we had 8 nfl players on offense and were 28th in the country offensively. If not scoring, means controlling the game, then okeefe and kirk ferentz are geniuses.

Mark my words, when we don't and won't have great defenses, we will be bottom of the big ten consistently.
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This year we had a terrible defense and still were in the middle of the conference. If our defense could get off the field sooner like a great defense should then a great offense like 2002 would have more chances to score and would be ranked higher then 28th
 
Don't you ever watch a game and think, wow its almost half time and we have only had the ball 3 times? Its hard to score points with that few opportunities. It also limits opponents points when they have that few opportunities
 
Do any of our defensive coaches go on recruiting trips? I would like to see a guy come in who can get some defensive guys excited about coming to Iowa. With all the guys playing on the defensive side of the ball on Sundays, this shouldn't be a hard sell.
 
droidhawk said:
I don't see why we can't figure out that the Defense has not been the problem at Iowa. First time in 5 years we haven't had a top ten defense. Yes his inability to go out and recruit for physical reason can't help and yeah it would be a good time for him to step aside. But get this through your heads right now. Norm Parker Has been the crutch that Kirk Ferentz has leaned on for 12 years. When he's gone, forget about it. FORGET ABOUT IT.
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I say the 2008-2009 recruiting classes that with had 20 players combined leave for various reason hurt depth the past 2 yrs.

Going into this year I felt we had ability to put points on the board, given OL, WR positions as strength...I have not figured out why we were so bad on the road, I think we are too vanilla on O & needed to use our WR's more(look at ISU game). Vandy showed some signs but we never did anything much on ther road except Purdue & ISU with OT's

Coker needs some help or else he is going to be used up like John Clay minus the buffet line Clay enjoyed.

Kirk needs to trust his players more at the end of the half & regulations when we have the ball with just under 2 minutes instead of "hoping" to bust that 1st run of tackle. Those # of games are starting to build up & losses are more frequent results from running the clock out at half or going into OT IMO.

Think about too, we have not found "those diamonds in the rough" as frequent either as in past years
 
Norm will announce after the bowl game if he announces, he is not the type to bail on recruits after signing,
this way the new DC gets a chance to meet the kids and the other way around, not to mention maybe get a few to replace the few that change their mind
 
HawkPrdatr40 said:
So your saying the University of Iowa will allow Norm to walk when he wants? I mean they are the ones paying him. I'm sorry I just don't buy that at all and if that happens he better be taking a larger pay cut and one much bigger than the what he took a few years back.

If Norm cares about this program and KF he would do the right thing. We all know what that is.


All that said Norm returns in 2012
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Norm has earned the ability to retire when he wants to and not be forced out, unless we start going 3-9.
 
droidhawk said:
(1) I'm going off of 12 years of Ken okeefe football.

(2) Mark my words, when we don't and won't have great defenses, we will be bottom of the big ten consistently.
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Most of this quote is superflous.
I left the, IMO, two sentences that are pertinent.
(1) You mean 12 years of Ferentz football.
(2) BTW, NO team is good when its defense is bad. Ask Indiana and Michigan.


But..... it has nothing to do with KOK... Stop blaming KOK.
As I've said in other threads, Ferentz is a conservative coach.
He wants great defense and an offense that doesn't make mistakes.

As some in this thread have already astutely pointed out: Ferentz runs this team.
The defense always seems to be the better unit because Ferentz wants the defense to be the better unit. Instead of praising Parker, you should be praising Ferentz.

This year, in Ferentz's opinion, the defense, the most important part of the team is down. During the Nebby telecast, I remember Ferentz said this year's team lost players to the pros. When he said that, I wondered how he'd explain last season's record? I wonder if Ferentz thinks anything on defense needs to change?

That's why I voted that Parker wouldn't retire next year. IMO, Ferentz doesn't think the defense needs changing and Parker doesn't want to retire.
 
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homer I agree with you on a lot of what you say here. I disagree however that Kirk has much to do with the defense. All of his coaching experience is on the offensive side of the ball. I do agree that the criticism should start and stop with Kirk. It's his style and his coaches scheme according to what he feels gives them the best chance to win. What I don't get though, is Kirk and every ball control freak knows, is you have to keep the ball. You have to sustain drives and to do so you have to have a dominant offensive line. When you don't, this scheme fails miserably. Unfortunately though, the one great offensive line we had was 9 years ago. 2002.

With this style and a former NFL offensive line coach and the fact we're "not sexy" should be a breeding ground for great o-lines. That 2002 line was the exception and not the norm. So in my opinion, to run this type of scheme, is insane. But I will debate to the end that Norm Parker has been 60% of our success. His defense is good year in and year out, DESPITE an inconsistent at best offense. If someone could show us an offense that could dominate and control the ball consistently like an alabama or the good ohio st offenses do, then I would see your point.

I think overall the product is broken. Norm can't go out and get the horses upfront required to make this defense work. On the other side, without a dominant defense, we have zero chance of success.

Anyone think Oklahoma st has a great defense? Despite that, they win. How about Oregon? I was thinking the other day about something. I think the way people think about Oregon and Oklahoma st was the way people looked at our own Hawkeyes during the '80s. Some fan on this board say's "kirk run's an '80's offense". Well that's pretty offensive to Bill Snyder and those '80's offenses if you ask me and if you go back and watch some of those games, you'll be shocked.

All in all, it IS on Kirk. Success or Failure. And I think what disappoints me the most is not just how inconsistent and poorly we seemed to gameplan this year, it's what's coming back next year. Also the amount of turnover we've had the last 3 years. Not so much to the NFL but transfers and anything else (grades, arrests, etc etc)
 
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