I wish
- Thread starter Champions-Not
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Send in your resume today and let's fix this problem once and for all!!
Thats it! That's what you waste your wish on? I wish for a billion dollars! A supermodel wife! And of course world peace!
I made some calls today. Barta says he cares about winning, Fran says he thinks defense is important, and KF wants a good passing game.
Maybe it's something more than just caring about it?
Define caring please.
Caring as in say offering $15M a year for Saban in football and Calipari in basketball type of caring (and still probably get turned down)? Or say organizing cheating in both sports enough to make SMU of the 80's and UNLV during the Tarkanian eras seem pale by comparison? Throw away the concept of a student athlete like UNC did, or recruit a bunch of felons to come to town like Baylor?
That kind of caring?
I got news for you. It's hard to do these sports at Iowa, history proves this out. Harder than it is at most P5 schools. Nike wasn't founded in Iowa City, either - so nobody anytime soon is going to hand out a cool hundred million to make things easier.
It's not impossible, but to expect it...since that's your only definition of success for Iowa...you're probably going to be miserable most your natural born life. Iowa will always need a combination of talent, depth, and experience along with good coaching to even sniff doing what you ask on even a semi-regular basis.
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anon_i8nzeu2gbf0ba
Guest
Well, I guess it's a lot easier then at Wisconsin and Michigan State. But why would that be? Please feel free to explain. I'll hang up and listen.
He sure doesn't care about softball. Under Coach Looper (6+ yrs):
132-183 overall record
53-83 overall Big 10 record
13-39 last season
6-19 this season with a 12 game losing streak
Zero NCAA tourney berths
*All in a conference that is considered the weakest of all Power 5 conferences
He's let a pretty good program under Coach Blevins regress into the crapper. How does this woman keep her job other than the fact Barta doesn't care in the least?
132-183 overall record
53-83 overall Big 10 record
13-39 last season
6-19 this season with a 12 game losing streak
Zero NCAA tourney berths
*All in a conference that is considered the weakest of all Power 5 conferences
He's let a pretty good program under Coach Blevins regress into the crapper. How does this woman keep her job other than the fact Barta doesn't care in the least?
That's a simple answer. She's a woman and Barta has been under fire for letting go all the other women coaches.
Not to mention a larger population base, within a couple hours drive of Milwaukee and Chicago. No other D1 colleges in the state to compete for football recruits and only real instate competition for basketball is private school Marquette.
Kind of overlooked that possibility, but you're probably right.
To be fair and objective, it looks like Barta made a couple pretty good hires a couple years ago in the baseball and volleyball programs.
While that's a valid point, why not include Illinois (much larger population base), Nebraska, or the Purdue and Indiana football programs?
I'll hang up and listen....
I realize there are no moral victories, but its not like were miles apart from the two schools you mentioned. Probably the two schools in the BIG most similar to Iowa in football anyway. Every year our game with Wisky is a fist fight, toss up kind of game, usually decided by 3 points or so. MSU is pretty much the same story. Unfortunately Iowa finished about 6 inches short, of rewriting that chapter with them. I'll grant you in basketball, we havent kept up with these schools. Since Izzo took over for Jud they've been the most consistent team in the BIG. Wisky under Ryan as well. We'll see next season, if Gard has the chops to keep it going. I like the direction Fran has things going, so hopefully he can get one in the next couple of years.
On a purely demographic and recruiting base standpoint, Iowa should not win a conference title in anything. With a state of about 3M people and another P5 school in the state, Iowa is at a disadvantage right out the gate. Combine that with the approach Iowa seems to take of not even approaching bending the rules, and it gets even more difficult. I do chuckle at the folks who say that just caring about it more would fix the issue. Iowa fans/alumni support the program very well. But when you are competing Ohio State (Ohio population 11.6M), Michigan (10M), Illinois (12.8M), Pennsylvania (12.8M), Indiana (6.6M), Minnesota (5.5M, with only 1 major school in state), it's going to be tough to finish on top of the heap.
Not to mention there's an obvious pecking order for schools in football and basketball, for everything from preseason polls to better TV slots, to in game officiating.
Lots of excuses here....that's part of the problem. Look, I'm not expecting to be an Alabama or Ohio State, but we competed pretty well in the 80's. are you telling me that's not attainable? Why even compete then? We probably shouldn't be in the Big Ten. Look at Gonzaga, they don't seem to throw in the towel. They play with a chip on their shoulder. We play with a loser attitude, like we should lose because we're little old Iowa and we can't do any better. If that is the expectation from the top down, and I believe it is, then our current will become the norm. Depressing to think about.
Gonzaga is your comparison huh? Should they really be puffing their chest out about all those West Coast Conf. championships?...........Yes, the 80's were some great times. Hayden got football rolling. I think it was when they went to 81 when they went to the Rose Bowl and coach Banks told our baseball team "Boy's the just bought us a whole lotta new jockstraps!". I think 80's football had one shared conf. title (6-2) and one outright (7-1). While yes 80's basketball had some nice tourney runs I believe it produced ZERO conference championships. So the 80's football/basketball produced 1 outright league title.
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There is not a single solitary era in Iowa football or men's basketball history where they legitimately competed for conference regular season titles over more than a 5 year period. This alone should prove that it's pretty damn hard to do here. That isn't an excuse, that's a fact. The ONLY way to redress that is to get better coaches in both sports - coaches that can overcome the natural disadvantages Iowa must cope with no matter who the coach is.
Name the coach alive in both sports today that CAN overcome what a century's worth of fact has proven, and explain how Iowa is going to get that coach to come here and redress the situation...and I'll hang up and listen.
Do I lament the fact Iowa doesn't compete at the level you're wishing for? Hell yeah. I just accept the fact that finding those Iowa Coach Unicorns for a school like Iowa is in most all cases damn near impossible.
They'd have to be some really big names to pull it off. Now, one can then say hey hire this young guy or that young guy, he's good and can take us there...but if you go that route, it's just as likely to swing and miss on the hire as to hit a home run. Then chances are a young guy will probably get taken from us by the mammoths of the college sports world in due time because Iowa was "never his dream job" etc.
Name the coach alive in both sports today that CAN overcome what a century's worth of fact has proven, and explain how Iowa is going to get that coach to come here and redress the situation...and I'll hang up and listen.
Do I lament the fact Iowa doesn't compete at the level you're wishing for? Hell yeah. I just accept the fact that finding those Iowa Coach Unicorns for a school like Iowa is in most all cases damn near impossible.
They'd have to be some really big names to pull it off. Now, one can then say hey hire this young guy or that young guy, he's good and can take us there...but if you go that route, it's just as likely to swing and miss on the hire as to hit a home run. Then chances are a young guy will probably get taken from us by the mammoths of the college sports world in due time because Iowa was "never his dream job" etc.
Yes, wrestling was on quite a run under gable in the 80's. And I guess it would be "nice" to have competitive women's programs but I really couldn't tell you how any of them are doing (because I don't really care). I can't recall an AD being fired because their women's field hockey team was not winning conference championships. For instance you point out Gonzaga as your example. Do you know how their other sports compete? I imagine quite well in that conference but I have no idea if their tennis or swim teams are winning championships.
Looper is not the right fit, that's for sure. She's a bit of a protected class right now given recent history. She's getting a free pass.
Thanks bagdropper. Those of us who point out the issues Iowa deals with just get shouted down by folks saying "try harder" or that we are "accepting" less. Never really addresses the point being debated. Yes Gable produced a dynasty. And it took a generational coach in the sport, combined with a sport where Iowa could commit as much/more resources to it than any other sport. Women's sports enjoyed a very good run at Iowa, due in large part to the fact hat Iowa was a leader in putting resources into those sports. Other schools started doing the same with the advent of more TV money, and Iowa's financial advantage in women's sports went away.
Combine this with Iowa's focus on not breaking NCAA rules (or even coming close to bending them) and you have a very high hill to climb. Hell, they state "win, graduate, do it right" as the guiding principles for the athletic programs. This bothers me to some extent as Iowa doesn't seem to be willing to do what other programs will. None of that changes that coaches at Iowa start out at a disadvantage to most of the other conference teams in most sports in terms of natural recruiting area. Call that defeatist or whatever. But what exactly do people reasonably expect a coach to do? Should the expectation be that KF go into Ohio and convince a player to come to Iowa when that player has an offer from OSU? Or one in Michigan that has an offer from Big Blue? Or a guy in Florida with offers from FSU, Florida, etc. Or Fran going into another state and convincing that player to leave the home state power? It makes the job hard. Fran did awesome with getting Aaron White who OSU had overlooked, the undervalued guys don't always work out. Patrick Ingram - transfer, Kyle Meyer - transfer, Fleming - transfer, Hutton - transfer, and so on. Ellingson wasn't offered by home-state Wisconsin, and while he's turned into a solid role player, I don't think Gard is losing any sleep over not offering him.
