Ferentz: GoAT?
- Thread starter wowski18
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Why do you say that? There may be a small playoff, but it's still some room of people "somehow" choosing who gets in and who doesn't. Not much different than a poll.
Without balanced conferences and schedules, with a clearly defined path to the playoffs, it's still impure.
The "mythical" term referred to the championship being given via the polls. Very different than a playoff of even just 4 teams, where someone has to win 2 games against 2 other really good teams.
Of course it is "impure". So is the 68 team NCAA mens bball tournament. There is no perfect. People are involved.
Is the NCAA title "mythical"? If not, what playoff team count would the football playoffs have to get to to move from "mythical"?
Short of a National title - no way. Lord Fry exhumed Iowa from the graveyard. Made the Hawkeyes into a recognizable brand. Innovative Pioneer in the B10. And I like KF.
I think it actually is, since the selection of playoff teams and the games themselves are not NCAA sanctioned.
Arguably, Fry also allowed the program to go right back the the graveyard near the end there.
Iowa under Ferentz has an Orange Bowl "Big 4 NYD" win...something Fry never did. And if (big if) they go to one of them this year, that's 3 total just like Fry.
In my book, they are pretty much equals. Both took Iowa pretty high into national prominance, and also had maddenly underperforming years multiple times.
But that Orange Bowl win might be the trump card for me. True, Iowa hasn't been number 1 under KF either...but another traditional big time bowl this year and I think KF surpasses him in Iowa resumes.
Has everyone forgotten 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, to name a few? Has everyone forgotten that Fry broke a string of 19 straight losing seasons and took Iowa to a Big Ten title and Rose Bowl in his THIRD year in Iowa City? Fry had Iowa #1 in the nation in his 6th season. Hayden brought the Tiger Hawk, marketing, an indoor facility, and built the foundation for what Iowa is today.
It's still Hayden, Evy, and then KF.
But an undefeated season, a Big Ten title, the playoffs, a national title... some combo of that would be a singular achievement in Iowa football history. Period. There's no denying KF that.
It's still Hayden, Evy, and then KF.
But an undefeated season, a Big Ten title, the playoffs, a national title... some combo of that would be a singular achievement in Iowa football history. Period. There's no denying KF that.
You know what ticks me off?
Look at Fry's last 8 years at Iowa; he did not exactly set the world on fire.
5 of his last 8 years were a huge disappointment, in my opinion (26 total wins in those 5 years); Fry always gets a pass and excuses are made for him; when it comes to KF, however, our current coach is continually raked over the coals and can do nothing right.
Why is that? Is Hayden similar to past Presidents, where we forget about all the negative and focus just on the positive?
Fry's last 8 years:
1991: 10-1-1, 7-1
1992: 5-7, 4-4
1993: 6-6, 3-5
1994: 5-5-1, 3-4-1
1995: 8-4, 4-4
1996: 9-3, 6-2
1997: 7-5, 4-4
1998: 3-8, 2-6
Look at Fry's last 8 years at Iowa; he did not exactly set the world on fire.
5 of his last 8 years were a huge disappointment, in my opinion (26 total wins in those 5 years); Fry always gets a pass and excuses are made for him; when it comes to KF, however, our current coach is continually raked over the coals and can do nothing right.
Why is that? Is Hayden similar to past Presidents, where we forget about all the negative and focus just on the positive?
Fry's last 8 years:
1991: 10-1-1, 7-1
1992: 5-7, 4-4
1993: 6-6, 3-5
1994: 5-5-1, 3-4-1
1995: 8-4, 4-4
1996: 9-3, 6-2
1997: 7-5, 4-4
1998: 3-8, 2-6
The term "mythical" means that not every FBS team has a chance to win. In the BB tourney, every conference champ is invited, so every single Division 1 basketball team controls its own destiny for the national championship. Not so in football - Memphis could go 14-0 and have no shot at the title. So, to answer your question, you would need a minimum of a 16-team tournament (10 conference winners plus enough wild cards to account for all independents) to have a true national championship. Not saying I want that - I don't - just answering your question.
Odd that you would chose those five years.
2010 8-5 Insight Bowl win
2011 7-6 Insight Bowl loss
2012 4-8
2013 8-5 Outback Bowl loss
2014 7-6 Taxlayer Bowl loss
4 of 5 of those years resulted in winning record. By contrast, Hayden Fry only managed 3 winning seasons in his final 6 years at Iowa (2-2 Bowl record). 2012 -for sure, but a winning record is a winning record.
In any event, Hayden Fry is still the man IMO.
Not a knock on Fry, who is primarily credited with smashing the 'Big 2, Little 8' stranglehold, but his timing was perfect. Changing NCAA & B10 scholarship, practice and monetary limits helped level the playing field just a bit. He was wise enough to insist on having much greater control over football decisions than any Iowa coach since Evy. Additionally, although Bo was still on top of his game, Woody was replaced with the Iowa State Coach! Earl Bruce was better than tOSU fans admit, but he wasn't Woody.
Goat is a sucky discussion when you're talking about Iowa football head coaches. Especially when we've had only two for over three decades. Hayden Fry inherited little. Kirk inherited the fanbase rebuilt by HF, but not much else. Kirk should go down as a Hawkeye legend the same way as Hayden and that should have been true before this year.
Kirk will take his place right along side Hayden. If Kirk wins a national title, he will join Evy as an Iowa coach with that distinction. Howard Jones had 2 undefeated seasons so he remains king. If I MUST rank order..
1) Howard Jones
2) Forest Evashevski
3/3A- Hayden Fry, Kirk Ferentz.
1) Howard Jones
2) Forest Evashevski
3/3A- Hayden Fry, Kirk Ferentz.
True. I also believe with facilities and what he is doing with staff and recruiting he has set up Iowa to be a stronger/healthier program after he leaves. Something Hayden didn't quite do.
I do not believe so, nor do several links found when searching "definition of mythical college football championship".
Wikipaedia says, "A mythical national championship (sometimes abbreviated MNC) is national championship recognition that is not explicitly competitive. This phrase has often been invoked in reference to American college football, especially when referring to seasons predating the Bowl Championship Series because the NCAA does not sponsor a playoff-style tournament or recognize official national champions for the Football Bowl Subdivision" So WikiP would even say no "mythical" since 1998 and the BCS.
See also the CBS Sports/Dennis Dodd (no fan here) article, "Fringe benefit of College Football Playoff? No more mythical titles".
Memphis at 14 - 0 (I think it would be 13 - 0) has a shot. Not a good one, but a shot.
Anyways, I believe the sports world consensus is that "mythical" titles are now gone for now and future.
https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&source=hp&biw=&bih=&q=definition+of+mythical+college+football+championship&gbv=2&oq=definition+of+mythical+college+football+championship&gs_l=heirloom-hp.3...905.15716.0.15934.66.22.2.39.3.0.343.2762.0j11j3j1.15.0....0...1ac.1.34.heirloom-hp..47.19.2748.uoa7xTWbDhY
Oh there were a lot of unhappy people. The big difference? There was no social media or forums like this one in 92-94. I can remember some interesting calls on the old call in show with Zabel. At which point Zabel would bad mouth the caller. It was good stuff.
Impure way to decide a champion, absolutely. Mythical? No. It's real. I watch it every year.
Yes, the NCAA tournament is totally jacked up.
What NCAA title are you referring to? The basketball one-no, it's impure but real. The football one-yes, because there is no NCAA football champion at this level.
It's not a matter of pure team count. It's about conference alignment, scheduling, and opportunity. There is still an element of fake-ness to it because there is no defined path to the playoff. You still get there by impressing people.
Back on topic-these guys coached in such different eras, can you really compare them? Let's try anyway, shall we? There's a clear Mt. Rushmore of Jones, Evashevski, Fry, and Ferentz. For reference, here are their records:
The Big Four
Jones 1916-1923, 8 seasons, 61 games, .697 record, 2 Big Ten Titles(1 shared)
Evashevski 1952-1960, 9 seasons, 83 games, .651 record, 3 Big Tens (1 shared), 1-ish national title
Fry 1979-1998, 20 seasons, 238 games, .613 record , 3 Big Tens (2 shared)
Ferentz 1999-2014, 16 seasons, 200 games, .575 record, 2 Big Tens (2 shared) (this year not included)
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Others with 5+ years above .500
Alden Knipe 1898-1902, 5 seasons, 45 games, .711 record, 1 Big Ten (shared)
(would be next best. Won our first Big Ten title and should have been Rose Bowl)
Jesse Hawley 1910-1915, 6 seasons, 42 games, .571 record
Burt Ingwerson 1924-1931, 8 seasons, 65 games, .538 record
Eddie Anderson 1939-1949, 8 seasons, 70 games, .514 record (coached Iron Men, but that's more about them than him, right?)
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The rest combined: 46 seasons, 394 games, .381 record
Jones: yeah we went undefeated but we only played 7 games a season. Iowa will play at least 13 games this year, with a pretty darn good shot at 14. Here were our opponents each year and their record:
1921: Knox *, Notre Dame (10-1), Illinois (3-4), Purdue (1-6), Minnesota (3-4), Indiana (3-4), Northwestern (1-6) (21-25)
1922: Knox *, Yale (6-3-1), Illinois (2-5), Purdue (1-5-1), Minnesota (3-3-1), Ohio St (3-4), Northwestern (3-3-1) (18-23-4)
* I can't find data for Knox. They are currently Division III.
My memory of the early 20s is sketchy, so it's hard to judge the schedule. That won't stop me, though. We played one team each season that finished with a winning record. Notre Dame accounts for 48% of our opponent's wins in 1921! In fact, they have a full 26% of the wins posted by both years' opponents combined. In 1921 our five conference games were against the bottom five finishers of the Big Ten. In 1922, we played one team from the top half of the conference, the #5 team Minnesota. Imagine our season was over now. I'd say the 2015 Iowa season was a bigger success than Jones' heyday.
I don't want to knock the guy completely. He has the highest win percentage of the four named contenders (though he has the fewest years and by far the fewest games). Those two seasons were good, but were they really all that? Do they deserve to be put up against other memorable years? I think they belong in the discussion but I would personally rank those achievements below some others. Jones did well, but it's hard to say his eight years rank above what the others have done.
Then there's another coach with about half the tenure of the modern contenders. Evy may have led a team that one poll voted #1 at the end of the year, but it wasn't undefeated, and it certainly wasn't a consensus champion. He had the program rolling, for sure, and if he had stayed here he may well have set an unmatchable standard. I think this potential is why so many elevate him to the top. But the fact is he didn't stay. The years he had were good, and the three year run from 1956-58 may well be the best. I don't think he has the total body of work to rank above the other two.
Fry and Ferentz are the most similar in terms of tenure, bringing the program up from nothing, and the era of football, so it's a more revealing side-by-side comparison. Fry has four full seasons on Ferentz, so let's look at averages. Fry's win percentage is clearly better, but how does it break down?
Fry -- Ferentz
Average wins per year: 7.15 -- 7.19 (based on this, let's say 6-8 wins is an average year for both)
# below avg years: 6 (30%) -- 3 (19%)
# average years: 8 (40%) -- 8 (50%)
# above avg years: 6 (30%) -- 5 (31%)
Result: Ferentz has been much more consistent. I always perceived the highs had been higher under Fry, but Kirk has the same rate of above average seasons. In fact, if we hit 9 wins this year, he will have above average seasons a full 5% more often than Fry did. One could argue that Fry's numbers are pulled down by the long decline through mediocrity. But Ferentz' numbers are pulled down because his first couple seasons were rougher than Fry's. But then Fry took over when the program has been bad for much longer. So what years do you throw out? That would be arbitrary, so let's stick with the facts for this part. And the numbers are split. Fry won at a higher clip, but Ferentz has done much better at avoiding bomb seasons.
What about the big prizes? Fry is one up on conference titles and major bowl appearances. We love the Rose, but in Ferentz' era the Rose isn't the same, so we have to count the Orange Bowls as equal. Ferentz did do one thing Fry never did, which is win one. But to me that's such a small sample size that it shouldn't be a factor in this. This section is TBD, as Ferentz looks on pace for another. My argument is that a Big Ten West title should count the same, to bring Ferentz to 3. I say this because the title game is a one-game playoff. The division title, like the old conference title, is based on a body of work over eight games. Any team in a conference with split divisions like this should count their division titles in this manner. So odds are KF equals Fry this year, with a chance to maybe do something no one has done.
Another big prize: finishing in the top ten in the polls. Besides major bowl games, it's another flawed way to measure great years. Fry did it twice (10th in '85 and '91). KF's done it four times (8th in '02-'04 and 7th in '09). Given the ever shifting bowl landscape, this is a nice win for Ferentz over the old sly fox.
For the intangibles, there's no contest. Ferentz has done well on the field, but what impact has he had on the culture of the program? Fry made the modern Iowa football program. He emphasized the colors, initiated the logo change, and put a marketing machine in place to push the image. After almost twenty years of irrelevance, he put us back on the major college football map, a position from which we have rarely drifted. He broke the Big Two in the conference, and brought a gung-ho, wild west mentality to a stodgy conference. Maybe I'm missing something, but I just don't see anything during KF's time that approaches these accomplishments. Unless the burrito lift was his idea . . . but I've yet to see him take credit.
As of right now, I rank them thus:
1) Fry
2) Ferentz
3) Evashevsky
4) Jones
How can KF get to #1? An undefeated national championship season would do wonders. Failing that, at least win the West this year. Another one or two before the end would likely put all his on-field numbers above Fry's. But Fry's cultural impact can't be ignored. It's hard to imagine Ferentz would a) be here or b) be as successful without Fry doing his thing first. And, being a former assistant, Ferentz both literally and figuratively owes his career here to Fry. For me, a national title puts Ferentz 1b to Fry's 1a. Without that, I think he's locked in second.
Did you forget about 1989, 1992,1993, 1994, 1998, and 1999.......Love Fry, but KF had to also rebuild Iowa after a 3-8 1998 team.....Fry was brilliant and I love Fry, but Fry also had the benefit of playing in an era where there was far less competitive parity in the BigTen and across the nation. Not to mention Fry never won a "Big" bowl game. They both are tied with 6 bowl victories. Fry has one more BigTen title but KF has that Orange Bowl victory. I would say they are comparable now, slight edge to Fry...so if Iowa goes 13-0 winning BigTen there is no argument that KF>HF, it would be 1st undefeated season in school history and his 3rd BigTen title with 2-4 more teams (makes it less likely) and a chance for National Title
As does every team who does not get an automatic bid to the NCAA basketball tournament.
Jones produced back to back undefeated teams. The win over Yale in 22 was HUGE. They beat them and Minnesota.
Jones produced the best for his time.They outscored opponents 175-36 in 1921.
I gotta go with Jones.
Alden Knipe deserves some mention here. Probably the first great era of Hawkeye Football. He quit and went on to write children's books.
Jones produced the best for his time.They outscored opponents 175-36 in 1921.
I gotta go with Jones.
Alden Knipe deserves some mention here. Probably the first great era of Hawkeye Football. He quit and went on to write children's books.
The team's 1999 record (1-10) should also be assigned to Fry and removed from Ferentz, since Hayden recruited that sad sack of talent to campus. I don't think Bill Belichick could have coaxed more than 2-3 wins out of that squad.
If he just won the Rose bowl is all we'd need for that really. He's pretty much matched him already everywhere else.
Your point?
Please don't make me quote myself when it comes to those two seasons. A perfect record is a perfect record, but take the time to look at the numbers and it's not so pretty.
Jones was good, but doesn't come within a sniff of Evy, Fry, and Ferentz.
I think more important than this season are his next 5. Can he sustain this up tick? I predict he will.
LOL...Thats funny...a sniff? Really?
Guy goes undefeated and dominates including wins over powers ND, Minnesota and Yale...but doesn't sniff it? Yeah...sure
and then throw in the total score domination
He dominated more in his time than they did in theirs. He had a 20 game win streak.
Fry and KF have had longer tenures and went through down periods which Jones never really did.
Guy goes undefeated and dominates including wins over powers ND, Minnesota and Yale...but doesn't sniff it? Yeah...sure
and then throw in the total score domination
He dominated more in his time than they did in theirs. He had a 20 game win streak.
Fry and KF have had longer tenures and went through down periods which Jones never really did.
I guess we're going to have to agree to disagree on the definition, and not turn this thread into a p*ssing contest.
Just ponder this:
If Clemson goes 13-0 and is left out of the playoff because the committee chooses undefeated Ohio St, LSU, Baylor and Utah, I think you'd have a pretty hard time convincing their fan base that this was not a mythical national championship. I think you know where they'd tell you to stick your Google searches and Wiki links.
Fair enough. I would only say that just because some fan base THINKS it is a mythical title, does not make it so.
Fry finished in the top 25 in about 1/2 his seasons. But is was generally somewhere in the teens.
Ferentz has finished in the top 25 in about 1/4 of his seasons but most of those finishes have been top 10.
The football landscape has changed and schools like Toledo are now in the top 25 and weren't in Hayden's days. Is it fair to say Hayden was more consistent while Ferentz had the higher ceiling?
Ferentz has finished in the top 25 in about 1/4 of his seasons but most of those finishes have been top 10.
The football landscape has changed and schools like Toledo are now in the top 25 and weren't in Hayden's days. Is it fair to say Hayden was more consistent while Ferentz had the higher ceiling?
Yeah, really.
The ND win was nice (by the way, how could they play 11 games that year when everyone else played 7??). But, again, they were the only team with a winning record we beat that year. It's a whole heck of a lot easier to win the conference when you only have to play the bottom half. Winning at Yale the next year: again, nice, but again, the only quality win on the docket. Minnesota did not have a good year when we beat them in '22. It's like trumpeting our 2004 win over Ohio State. Yeah, it was really fun to beat their brains in, but that OSU team was not up to their standard of the time.
Undefeated is undefeated, but it's a far sight easier to obtain with so few games played per year, and when your opponents put up little resistance. Jones did well, but the '21 and '22 seasons don't shine so brightly as you make them out to. Not to my eyes.
If he had coached 16 or 20 seasons, would he have managed to avoid a dip? We'll never know.
I think it is, based on how often our record rose above or fell below average range.
Looking a little deeper at top 25 finishes (since I previously only looked at top ten):
Fry: 10 appearances (50% of seasons), average ranking 16.1
Ferentz: 5 appearances (31%), average ranking 10.2 (4 top tens, once #20 which is pulling the average down)
You pose some good questions. It's a judgment call. How much does the modern parity affect how we interpret these numbers? In addition to more parity now, there's a different perception of the program. Under KF, when Iowa has an average, the perception is that the program is dour and plodding. Someone older than I will have to comment about the national perception of the team under Fry, but what I've observed from other fans tells me Fry's teams were perceived as more exciting and progressive, leading pollsters to be more likely to throw Iowa a token top 25 appearance. I see it as a wash, and I value the consistency of win totals above the rankings.
