We’ve all seen it a thousand times - too many points can bite you in the a$$…Well, if we score too many points too quickly...
…Especially when you’ve got a defense good at preventing the opposing team’s offense from scoring.
Points are dangerous.
Coordinators met with Media Today. Marco getting more reps than Deacon. Offense 85% installed
- Thread starter Franisdaman
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…Especially when you’ve got a defense good at preventing the opposing team’s offense from scoring.
Points are dangerous.
Well, if we score too many points too quickly...
Exactly. Pretty funny how so many people say “it’s going to cost the defense” like we aren’t already going 3 and out 400 times per game and turning the ball over at an alarming rate.Well, if we score too many points too quickly...
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Watch the Iowa offense improves quite a bit. Scores more points. Isn’t punting 500x a game
Yet Iowa loses a few more games than expected.
The blind KF supporters will come in here telling us this is all our fault for wishing more points all those years! You see Kirk was such a genius that his philosophy of NOT scoring too often was the real reason the defense and team held on for those 10 wins. We should have never broken up such a team of father and son
Yet Iowa loses a few more games than expected.
The blind KF supporters will come in here telling us this is all our fault for wishing more points all those years! You see Kirk was such a genius that his philosophy of NOT scoring too often was the real reason the defense and team held on for those 10 wins. We should have never broken up such a team of father and son
Not true at all.
College football exists as an extracurricular educational opportunity.
The players and coaches are involved for the purpose of being able to compete at a game. The purpose of the game is to win.
Then the overall product is available to be consumed by fans as entertainment should they choose. But nearly the entirety of players and coaches do not get involved in football for the purpose of being an entertainer. They get involved for the purpose of competing. And the purpose of competing is to win.
As for fans' desire to complain; there's a lot that could be said about that, but in short, really nothing good can come of it.
I'll give you that in this day and age, one could say that part of KF's job is to entertain. But primarily that should be accomplished by winning. And winning is certainly a higher priority. And if a coach has consistently been winning for 20+ years but at times isn't the most entertaining, it shouldn't carry the level of fan negativity that it has
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I think you miss my point. How does any of this warrant the level of negativity that's existed in the fan base?
For the sake of close wins having become easier wins? Come on.
For the sake of getting backups playing time? Really?
Experience for backups has its importance. But Iowa is one of those good teams that has stayed good for a long time. If you're looking for a higher level of success, then you're talking about blue blood programs. And the primary reason they sustain greatness is because they are able to reload every season with 4/5 star players.
As for the Marco situation, I've covered that enough. But to address the certain games you mentioned, ML did play against Tennessee, and he was not the #2 vs PSU. Michigan was the most competitive 26-0 game you will ever see. I don't think anyone was interested in pulling the plug in that game. And even if ML could have gotten some time late in the game, that fact that he didn't shouldn't give rise to such an intensely negative fan reaction. And in the Rutgers game the offense finally started to click a little bit. When you have the sustained struggles on offense that Iowa had, you don't pull the plug when things finally start to click. You try to build off of any momentum you can possibly come across.
Something that hasn't really been talked about pertaining to who should have been playing at QB last season is the team dynamic. Part of what probably made playing ML a dangerous idea is the fact that the offense as a whole wasn't very good. The weakness at OL and receiver for example made it a lot harder for a backup QB to have succeeded. The offense as a whole wasn't really good enough to give ML the support he needed. But more importantly, changing QB's affects the rhythm of the whole offense. The offense wasn't really good enough and didn't have the margin for error to sustain skipping a beat. Any bit of footing, rythm, or success that the group could possibly come across was vital for trying to build upon and improve as a group
The "best during practice" trope is not old. It's the reality of football. This is how playing time is won. Not sure what fans' problem is with this. I guess maybe because the big picture hasn't been presented as clearly to fans because they don't have the opportunity to see what happens every day in practice.
The difference between the two crowds you mentioned is one of them has the potential to negatively affect the program. Whether an effect has been reality or not, I can tell you that the level of fan negativity the past couple seasons has made life harder for the team than it's needed to be. Stuff spreads. In the fishbowl community that is Hawkeye athletics, the players hear everything. There's no avoiding it. Even their friends and classmates say things when they think they are just joking around with the players. Overall, the players and especially coaches are great at blocking out the noise. But they do hear it, and they are human
I wasn't stating why players participate (other than those with NFL dreams, which is most of them), I was stating why college football exists in its current form, which is purely entertainment.
If it wasn't entertainment, it wouldn't exist in its current form because the money wouldn't be there. If intramural football was entertaining enough it would gather thousands of fans as well, but it isn't, so it doesn't.
Several things to unpack here.
You do earn playing time in practice. If that is the only criteria then we probably shouldn’t see any back ups play because the starter earned those plays. Yet we see rotations to get younger players a taste. Games are very different than practice. Without seeing the field you won’t know how they respond.
I won’t lie, there are times that I think that KF either digs in his heels and says ‘I don’t care, I am sticking with my guy’ or doesn’t want to put the backup in and have them show promise. Marco runs for a first down and the crowd gets excited and more questions are asked.
The two extreme crowds both can create problems. The extreme negatives are clear what they can cause.
The blind loyalists can provide a false sense of nothing is wrong.
As far as the downside of working in a small change up package and altering the rhythm of the offense….. is there a spot lower than last? What rhythm is lost?
What’s the upside? Change up makes the defense prepare for more things.
Downside? Still finish last.
I know an offense that would practice a play that had 4-5 options off that play, spent about 5 minutes on it. Ran it once and knew that each defense they played would need to spend 10-15 minutes each week prepping for that play. A small change up.
In FOUR of those FIVE games, we had statues at QB AND couldn't seem to run the ball. But hey, no cherry-picking here!
I, for one, have never been against using other QBs in certain patterns or packages. But it begs the question: do you practice said QBs exclusively for said package(s)? Do you use a scholly to bring in a wildcat or goal-line QB?
What you say has its truth.
But the truth remains that winning is the priority for KF and the players over entertaining. They're doing their job.
So the point remains, if they're doing their jobs, why are they receiving complaints? Because fans can have the desire to complain if they aren't entertained?
Who are the complaints to be directed at? Because if it's no one in particular, the reason for complaining becomes a lot less important.
Stuff spreads. Stuff builds. And I can tell you who ends up hearing the complaints.
And again, winning, itself, is entertaining
If winning were entertaining enough, there would be no complaints. Also, I don't care what the players/coaches priorities are. The reality of today's college football landscape is all about entertainment whether they want it to be that way or not. If it weren't for the money involved in the sport (because of entertainment dollars), we wouldn't have college players available to the highest bidder. You think they care more about winning when they can bounce from team to team and get paid? Again, you are willfully ignorant to the reality of the situation. The players and coaches may not want it to be that way, you may not want it to be that way (neither do I), but it is reality.
What exactly defines winning? Beating teams you should? Is that entertaining?
Is it entertaining knowing that you have no chance to beat the better teams you play?
I would argue that player development comes before winning in Kirk's eyes with the hope that the player development leads to wins, of course.
Turning a blind eye to a major team deficiency does not give the appearance that winning is the main objective.
I would say that Iowa fans are more in love with the culture surrounding the program (gameday experience, tailgating community, etc.) than they are with the program itself.
Again, entertainment. When people spend money on entertainment and are not entertained, they have a right to complain.
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I agree that player development is a priority, as it is part of the educational process.
But I think we are primarily talking about two different things.
Fans may want to be entertained in a certain way, but the reality of the situation is that coaches and players participate for themselves, not fans. And it should be expected to remain this way. No decisions by the team are going to be made with the fans in mind.
To me, by definition, in all sports a fan is to be entertained if the team he is rooting for wins. The fan is choosing to watch an activity in which the goal is winning.
Yes, the team is trying to produce on offense. But at no point does that become more important than winning.
If a fan's purpose for watching is to be entertained by offensive production, they have the wrong priorities, and any lack of entertainment that is experienced by the fan in a win has been brought upon by himself.
Having a right to complain, and complaining being the right thing to do, are two different things
Also, go back and check KF's career record against the top teams. It's more than respectable.
Is he allowed to have a couple seasons where Iowa doesn't beat the best teams? Where the team struggles more than usual on offense but still wins?
KF can only beat teams that are on the schedule. To minimize wins of a 20+ year winning program because of the "strength" of opponents is pretty silly. 20+ years of winning should gain the benefit of the doubt that their current wins are still going into the record book. If the wins Iowa has been getting aren't impressive, then why week after week were fans predicting that Iowa would lose to those teams?
It's also pretty silly to minimize any wins that are accomplished with a backup QB.
Being ahead on the scoreboard at the end of the game defines winning. If that's not good enough, being the most winning non blue blood program over the last 10 years defines winning. If that's not good enough, being a consistent winner for 25 years defines winning
Or do you take an existing scholarship player with a different skill set and create a package for them? Marco has a small playbook of rpo, movement plays. Michigan did a little of that.
Need to agree on the ‘who defines winning’
Is it beating Troy? Directional schools? Hooray we aren’t Nebraska?
Being largely non competitive against good teams is a big driver of dissatisfaction. Being a national punch line for offense doesn’t help either.
Iowas record against top 10 teams the last few years has not been good. Since we beat Penn State, I don’t believe we’ve beaten another top 10
opponent, I’m not sure the offense has even scored a touchdown in any of those games save for garbage TDs when we hosted Michigan.
The recent trend of the offensive performance the last 3 years especially argues strongly that the offense simply has to get better if we want to beat the best. We can still win 8-9 games most years, but those great seasons will remain out of reach if we can’t score points.
Despite everything you say, it still gives the fan a right to complain, a right to not attend and a right to ask for better. The program can either listen to the fan (who pays the bills) or choose to ignore them and live with the consequences. Heck, the fan can even define success. Many here don't see losses to quality teams without scoring a point as success.
In the end, the fan can do whatever they want...message board police be damned.
I've never said a fan doesn't have the right to complain. I've said having that right doesn't necessarily make it the right thing to do.
And the AD is paid plenty of money by being capable of deciding what's best for the program independent of fan feedback.
And no, the thought's expressed on this message board do not end up confined to this message board.
And in the end, the coaches will not make any decisions that take the fans into account. So set yourself up for potential disappointment if having it your way is your criteria for being entertained
Nope; to have the worst offense so many years in a row is ridiculous! That’s the bitch we as fans have had. Don’t change the subject nor the narrative. Regardless of record to have OCs that were clearly wrong hires for so long is a frustration no one can brush off as being bad fans.
I simply disagree. I think the decision to let Brian go was to be made regardless of fan feedback
Since you asked, yes, I would be quite satisfied with that season
You can think whatever you want, but the fact that it was done mid-season speaks volumes.
Exactly. If fan feedback wasn’t a consideration there’s no reason to make the decision mid season.
No. I’d rather win fewer games while watching an exciting product if it has to come to that.
Why not? I'm not following.
I don't think in any way the decision was made to lesson fan negativity for the remainder of the season
That’s the good ole
‘Don’t care if Deacon is turning the ball over and going against everything I have preached for a long time nobody else is getting a snap’ approach. KF would be proud, right after he snorted and said ‘we won ten games last year’
While I don't think it was a primary reason, we'll just have to agree to disagree if you don't think fan feedback didn't play a role in making the decision at that point. It was getting absolutely toxic from fans by the end of the MN game. making the announcement after that game took a ton of pressure off the program. I don't want to think what it would have been like had we headed into bowl season with it still undecided whether or not BF was returning.
Yes, I remember.
But certainly every AD in the country would have been considering the move regardless of fan feedback. If the need to get rid of Brian was as obvious as people said it was, there would be no need for fan feedback. It's interesting how the narrators are also shape shifters.
Maybe the fan position was considered, but I stand by my opinion that the move was to take place regardless.
And I stand by my position that AD's in general are plenty capable of making correct decisions independent of fan feedback.
And I stand by my opinion that, overall, a toxic community, if anything, is going to hurt a program
I agree, I think that is why they did it then, The sad part was everyone knew he was not going to make the 25ppg, but got out the pitchforks anyway. Probably the same fans that are complaining about the OL and want Barnett gone and we might have had Brian back at OL but that got ruined now didn't it?
Doesn't matter where it came from. Goetz is the one who gets paid to make the final decision
