Hawkeye Football
Fourteen years is a long time. You can become a doctor in less than 14 years. You can start grade school and graduate from high school in less than 14 years. I’ve been out of high school longer than 14 years. In 14 years the game of college football has changed and unfortunately Kirk Ferentz hasn’t changed with it. I don’t want to disrespect the job Ferentz has done at Iowa, I was here when he took over and I know how far down the program was when Hayden Fry left and my final year in college was 2002 when Iowa won a share of the Big Ten title and played in the Orange Bowl. I’ve seen the highs and the lows up close but even back in 1998 and 1999 this program wasn’t this low. Back then there was a sense that things were going to get better, a new coaching staff, new players and an optimism that things could be turned around. You won’t find any of that in Iowa City right now. Fourteen years is a long time to coach in one place especially in today’s game. The era of Bobby Bowden and Joe Paterno coaching in the same place for decades is gone, like it or not that is reality. Look around college football and Ferentz isn’t the only example of people itching for something new. Mack Brown has been feeling the heat at Texas the last few years and even Bob Stoops at Oklahoma hears grumbling that things are stale in Norman and both of those guys have National Championships. Blame it on the instant gratification society we live in today or the over blown sense of entitlement fans feel when they buy tickets to the games and donate money to the athletic departments, whatever the cause it is the sports world we live in. I want Kirk Ferentz to go out on top but that just doesn’t seem realistic. It is, however, equally as unrealistic to think the University of Iowa is going to come up with the $20 million it would take to buy out the remaining years of Ferentz’s contract and fire him after this abysmal season. He’s going to get more time because the University is not going to fire a good man because of a bad season the real problem is that this season is becoming closer to the norm for the Hawkeyes than the two Orange Bowl seasons we have experienced in the past 14 years. The issue I have with Coach Ferentz is that not only is he ultra-conservative in his approach but he refuses to evolve with the college game. Offenses in college football are now run by coaches like Urban Meyer, Chip Kelly and Dana Holgerson, the spread offense is not a gimmick and it’s not going away. It is the standard not the exception. When Ferentz took over at Iowa the only coach that had heard the phrase “spread offense” was Joe Tiller and now the revolution has taken over and Ferentz is left in its wake. Ferentz seems determined to prove himself right by sticking with a quarterback that is historically bad but I can tell you that if you can’t beat Purdue you probably aren’t going to beat Michigan or Nebraska. Vandenberg was only a part of the problem against Purdue instead of the entire problem like the previous few weeks. The defense has been a major disappointment the past few weeks after starting the season pretty well. The defense lacks talent on the line and I’m fairly certain I’ve beaten that dead horse more than a few times in this blog. Unfortunately poor line play on defense leads to tough days for the linebackers and asking too much of the secondary in coverage. The struggles on the offensive side of the ball aren’t just about a lack of talent at quarterback and wide receiver (although those are huge problems) or the new offensive system. It’s not just about poor decisions by the QB or the revolving door at RB. It isn’t just about throwing a 2 yard pass on 4th and 3. It’s not just about punting with 4 minutes to go in a game when you haven’t demonstrated once that your defense can get you the ball back. It is all of it. I can go back to last season’s loss at Iowa St. I know I don’t want to talk about it either but stick with me. Iowa couldn’t stop Steele Jantz all game long and yet with the game tied and Iowa getting the ball back with about a minute and a half left in the game the Hawkeyes kneeled on it and played for overtime. When asked why he didn’t try to score on the last possession Ferentz said he thought the defense had a good chance of stopping them and we could win in overtime. What game was Ferentz watching? The Hawkeyes couldn’t stop Jantz when they had 80 yards behind them why would he think giving Jantz the ball at the 25 was a good idea. That was the beginning of the end for me with Ferentz. I didn’t even know it at the time but I’ve come around to the fact that Ferentz just seems to be going through the motions. Every press conference is the same coach speak regardless of the outcome of the game. He seems oblivious to the most blatant problems and he refuses to even engage about them. It is one thing as a coach to not throw your players under the bus but willful blindness is unacceptable. The critics would say to me “How many college football games have you coached? What do you know?” and they are right I have never coached a football game but Kirk Ferentz has spent 14 years coaching in the Big Ten and it doesn’t seem to be doing him a whole lot of good at the moment. As with any relationship if it is going to end ugly the best thing to do is end it quickly unfortunately I believe it is going to end ugly but not quickly. I hope beyond hope that Kirk Ferentz has an epiphany during the offseason when he’s sitting at home over the holidays instead of going to a bowl game. I hope he realizes that college football today has changed and he has to change with it or get out of the way. Otherwise I hope that when his good friend Kansas City Chiefs GM Scott Pioli gets fired he lands a new job with a team that needs a coach and he calls up his old buddy Kirk Ferentz with an offer he can’t refuse. Neither of these scenarios have a high enough likelihood to make me feel better. Fourteen years may be too long to coach at one place and I’m afraid we are going to find out how bad year fifteen can be.
The Hott Read 
Wow. That is certainly going to create some comments. It’s tough to argue with what you said when I find myself screaming at the tv week after week (and now year after year). But if Iowa did make a change and brought in a completely new staff/philosophy then what? A spread offense would be fun but you have to have the talent. And if you don’t have talent on both sides of the ball then you’re just a 7-5 version of a big 12 team. Sure every couple of years you’ll win a few more games and head to Flr for some Jan 1 bowls. But you’re still not going to compete for a national championship. Especially if you are playing by the recruiting rules.
In an ideal world Kirk would bend and change and conform and keep up with the times. But we know that’s not going to happen. This team is a few plays away from being 2-8/1-9 but also 7-3/8-2. If this team were 8-2 would we be having this kind of talk?
Maybe I have a tough time with change. Maybe I think a better wave of athletes will improve things if they can stay on the field. Maybe I’m worried that if we push out what we have we’ll end up with an Alford and then a Lickliter and then years later finally bring things back to where they were.