My family used to have a dog named Snickers, he was smart, independent and lived to be 16 years old. Snickers had a great run despite being epileptic. He was stubborn, he always had to have his end of the couch but we all loved that dog because he had such a great personality. We endured the epileptic seizures because he lived such a great life but in end he was blind and deaf in one ear and his arthritis made it hard for him to get around. My Dad had every intention of putting Snickers to sleep but he was just waiting to give the family one last Christmas with him then on the day after Thanksgiving several years ago Snickers “fell” down the basement stairs and ran into the wall at the end. He was hurt and in pain and my Dad knew it was time and he did what had to be done. I wasn’t there but I have always contended that Snickers didn’t fall down the steps he threw himself down them knowing that if he hit the wall hard enough my Dad would do the right thing and put him out of his misery. Yesterday I watched the Iowa Hawkeyes hurl themselves down a flight of stairs hoping Gary Barta would do the right thing and put us out of our misery. I fear Mr. Barta doesn’t have the same compassion my father has.
Kirk Ferentz has had a tremendous 16 year run as the head coach of the Iowa Hawkeyes and he’s a great person and is a better man than most head coaches in college football today. I truly prefer to have man like Ferentz running the Hawkeye program over a guy like Bo Pelini or someone like Bobby Petrino but that’s not the issue. There are other good men out there and Ferentz’s time has run its course. Gary Barta doesn’t have the guts to pull the trigger and fire Coach Ferentz especially not with a more than $13 million buyout hanging over his head so I’m left hoping he’ll force Ferentz to make staff changes. Offensive Coordinator Greg Davis has to go and I’m not sure how Ferentz can make the argument to keep him, it would be a ludicrous argument to make. After the shellacking the Hawkeye defense took yesterday against Tennessee I can make a pretty good argument for sending Defensive Coordinator Phil Parker on his way too.
Last season Parker did a solid job using the Raider package to generate a pass rush and having three elite LBs like Anthony Hitchens, James Morris and Christian Kirksey made life a lot easier. Against Tennessee Iowa was back to the days of letting a LB (a redshirt freshman who was a walk-on a few months ago) cover a WR and get beat like a drum and Iowa’s pass rush was nowhere to be found. Regression is not a good thing. The specific issue with the defense against Tennessee was poor fundamentals (tackling) more than anything else. There is a serious talent gap and that’s on all of the coaches because recruiting hasn’t been up to snuff the last few years. Unlike the offensive side of the ball I can’t say I disagree with many personnel choices that Parker has made with the exception of strong safety were I can’t believe someone else couldn’t be better than John Lowdermilk these past two seasons. Overall on the defensive side I think Parker was playing his best players he just needs better ones. The LB unit is really young with redshirt freshmen Josey Jewell and Bo Bower along with sophomore Reggie Spearman showing plenty of talent but lacking in experience. I do think Spearman struggled this year and he may not hold onto his spot. The defensive line is stacked with talented players but this year they struggled against talented RBs and again failed to generate the kind of pass rush the Hawkeye defense needs. This was a case of the whole not being the sum of its parts. There is an argument to be made that a better defensive coordinator could do more with the talent on hand and could certainly do more to get more talent on hand. Recruiting is the lifeblood of college football and the Hawkeyes aren’t doing a very good job especially on the defensive side of the ball.
I will have no faith in the Hawkeye program if Greg Davis returns as offensive coordinator. The ineptitude at every turn over the past several seasons is unacceptable. Game planning is one the biggest responsibilities of an offensive coordinator and I have yet to see Davis come up with a useful one. His game plans against Iowa St. and Maryland this past season were especially atrocious. Play calling is another major responsibility of the offensive coordinator and Davis’ philosophy of throwing the ball horizontally instead of vertically is laughable in today’s college football game. Trying to run a 240 lbs. tailback to the edges eventually becomes comical once you get past the sheer disappointment when you realize he actually designed it that way. Taking one of your speediest players (Jonathan Parker) and using him on the jet sweep the way Wisconsin uses Melvin Gordon is a fantastic call until everyone realizes that’s the only play you use him for and every time he enters the game everyone knows exactly what play you’re going to run. Running a four WR set is a good idea on the 3rd down and 6 but designing the play so that 3 out of the 4 WRs run 4 yard routes is not. College football offenses have become about two major philosophical things in the last 10 years; being unpredictable and creating mismatches. Kirk Ferentz has never been one to be unpredictable on offense, even I can’t blame Davis for that one, but the only mismatches Davis creates are to the advantage of the defense. Throwing a WR screen to Kevonte Martin-Manley is ridiculous; he hasn’t run away from a defender since junior high. Earlier this year the Hawkeyes tried to run a play called a hook and ladder, it’s where one WR catches a pass after running a hook route and then laterals the ball to another WR that comes from behind him. Iowa lateraled the ball to Martin-Manley this is poor use personnel and means you’re out of touch with the strengths of your own players.
I said that I only had one issue with the personnel choices on the defensive side of the ball well I’ll make up for that with plenty of issues on the offensive side. As with anything offensive it all starts at QB. Greg Davis isn’t just the offensive coordinator he’s the QB coach too and neither Jake Rudock nor CJ Beathard have progressed at all in the last two years. Rudock is the cerebral type that everyone sees as the risk adverse guy that Ferentz loves because he doesn’t make mistakes. He does keep the turnovers to a minimum but given that he’s so smart shouldn’t the QB coach be able to teach him not to dump it off so often and so quickly? Teach him to look down field a little longer, not to lock onto his target so early and make his progression reads and find the open man? CJ Beathard is the gunslinger, the big arm with the great feel for the game and the ability to pull it down and make a play with his legs if need be. So why is it in two years he’s the same guy? He hasn’t learned that the dump-off pass is okay from time to time and is actually a good play sometimes. From what I see CJ Beathard hasn’t learned a thing in the past two years about playing QB efficiently. Is that on the players? Some for sure but the coaches get paid to coach. My biggest issue with the QB position is with both Davis and Ferentz. Ferentz obviously thought Rudock was the better choice but every week this season he said he was going to give Beathard a chance, of course when the game rolled around that was seldom the case. The old football saying is that if you have two QBs it means you don’t have one. In this case you have two guys that you obviously aren’t completely sold on and you’re hoping one of them will play so well that he makes the decision for you but for two years you don’t coach either one of them well enough to get them to do that.
I mentioned that in today’s college football offense is about creating mismatches. Greg Davis’ scheme doesn’t do that at all, at least not in the offenses favor but his personnel choices aren’t helping either. Iowa fans like to complain that the Hawkeyes don’t have playmakers but I don’t see it that way at least not completely. Tevaun Smith, Damond Powell, Jonathan Parker and Derrick Willies (before he decided to leave the team in the middle of the year) all offer playmaker skills. I already mentioned how Ferentz and Davis negated Parker’s impact by making him the most predictable player in college football. Damond Powell might have been a close second because he only came in to run the go route and everyone knew it. He might have been more useful if he played more than a handful of snaps a game. Derrick Willies was masterful in spring and fall camp and he made a couple of plays early in the year on the few plays he got in the game (we will never know what he could have been here). Tevaun Smith is the one that really bothers me. He gets plenty of reps as a starter but the Hawkeyes never move him around the formation to get him in a favorable matchup. I watch a team like Maryland that has two good WRs and yet they still scheme to get Stefon Diggs in a mismatch when they need a play. If you don’t believe me go re-watch the Iowa/ Maryland game and watch Diggs get lined up on LB or a safety anytime Maryland needed yards. That’s what good teams do even stacked teams like Alabama. WR Amari Cooper didn’t have 115 catches in the regular season by accident. Alabama OC Lane Kiffin is a first rate asshat but Cooper is a special talent and Kiffin knew it. I’m not saying Tevaun Smith is Amari Cooper but if he is we would never know it.
I’m putting a lot of blame on the coordinators and they deserve plenty but there are some position coaches that could go too if Ferentz is forced to make changes. WR coach Bobby Kennedy is most closely associated with Davis and while I like Kennedy’s fiery personality on the sidelines he is also to blame with the misuse of some of the WRs. RB coach Chris White made some questionable personnel decisions also but he might be looking for work because he is the Hawkeyes special teams coach. Early in the season the kicking game was a disaster until Marshall Koehn got it together. The punting was less than stellar all year and this all was taking place while Coach White was working with 2 scholarship punters (Dillon Kidd and Connor Kornbrath) and 2 scholarship kickers (Marshall Koehn and Mick Ellis). That’s a lot of scholarships used on punters and kickers for not a lot of production. The return game wasn’t any better as it became rediculous watching the Iowa punt returner (regardless of who it was) call for a fair catch no matter what. White’s tenure as special teams coach may end up being most remembered for Jonathan Parker’s inexplicable illegal forward pass as he stepped out on the two yard line on a kick return against Tennessee in the TaxSlayer Bowl. I’m fairly sure White never coached Parker to do something that stupid but it sort of sums up Iowa’s special teams’ play under White.
All of this comes back to Coach Ferentz, a good man holding on for too long and it feels like his only plan to make it better is to wish for it. Well if wishing made it so I’d look like a Calvin Klein model and be the general manager of the Patriots. I’ve never been one to complain about the money Kirk Ferentz makes, was he supposed to turn down the 10 year extension and $4 million a year? But 7-6 isn’t good enough and the five years of mediocrity is enough. Gary Barta isn’t going to pull the trigger to get rid of Ferentz but he better insist on major changes and force Ferentz to make a choice. Change or get out. I know there is an argument of “be careful what you wish for”, Hawkeye fans badly wanted Steve Alford to leave and we saw him bolting to New Mexico as a gift and then we ended up with Todd Lickliter. Sometimes you have to take a step back to take two steps forward.
If by some miracle Barta either grows a set and boots Ferentz or he forces his hand on staff changes and Ferentz negotiates a buyout instead then I have some thoughts on Iowa’s next head coach. I won’t go into detail but here’s my quick take. I don’t want Bret Bielema because he’s not the type of guy I want leading the Iowa program. I don’t believe Bob Stoops would make the move but after his bowl blowout and the subsequent fan backlash after a lackluster season he should be Barta’s first call. The more realistic choice in my mind is Kentucky coach Mark Stoops. The youngest of the Stoops coaching brothers isn’t the jackass Mike is and he’s a hell of a recruiter. If Ferentz holds on for a couple of more years I’m going to be keeping my eye on new University of Houston coach Tom Herman. He’s done a masterful job as Ohio St.’s offensive coordinator and it doesn’t seem to matter who his QB is.
The Hott Read 
How much say does the OC/DC have in regards to personnel and schemes and plays and etc? Is Davis just doing what he’s being told/ordered to do? Would a new OC be “allowed” to be creative? If the answer is no, then Kirk has to go. It seemed like Parker was able to do what he wanted last year….but maybe the LB talent made that possible. If the OC has free reign then Davis has to go.
The Offensive philosophy changed when Greg Davis arrived and implemented the horizontal passing game which is an absolute joke. Ferentz’s overall conservative approach still exists and the combination of the two makes the offense painful to watch and completely inept. I’m not convinced that it’s scheme that is hurting the defense but their recruiting is subpar overall and especially on defense. The lack of playmakers at LB and DE is astonishing. Either Ferentz needs to go or there has to be major staff changes and Ferentz has to allow a new offensive coordinator the latitude to make major philosophical changes. Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result is the definition of insanity and in this case is basically surrendering to mediocrity or worse. How far can Barta allow the program to slip before he puts his own job at risk? These things rarely end well because if things were going well they wouldn’t end. If the staff returns next year completely intact Ferentz is a dead man walking and recruiting suffers which prolongs the rebuilding process.