Agree. And the thing is, he HAS adjusted over his career .And he could now without sacrificing his core beliefs about how to build a football team (tough, smart, physical). Iowa now embraces analytics much more than they did pre-2014 or so. They review probabilities for winning based on 4th down situations vs kicking FG's. We saw this a lot when he had a competent QB (re: Beathard and Stanley). They went for 4th and short or medium a lot in the plus 40 area of the field. They don't this year my guess is largely due to the ineptness of the offense.
They changed the time they practice to better align with recovery and fitness. They changed the defense to run 4-2-5 as the core defense in a lot of situations after Wisconsin exploited the 4-3 in 2017. He listened to his team/players in the summer of 2020 about loosening restrictions on hair/clothes while in the football building, or players on social media.
For whatever reason, the offense itself is this sacred cow that cannot change. The thing is, you COULD do the things that Iowa does on offense and make it work. The 49'ers, Rams and Packers will go under center to run and set up play action game, will use shotgun, mulitple TE's, use outside zone as the foundation of the running game, etc. But those teams add a lot more variety to it with tons of pre-snap motion and huge difference is they have skilled playmakers on the outside. They don't have to go shotgun, 3 WR, 1 TE formation 100% of the time. But it will take a mindshift away from having the offense do the minimum possible to win a game to actually viewing it as one of 3 equal phases where the emphasis should be on winning that phase against the opponent. On defense and special teams, Iowa attacks the opponent and looks for opportunities to make plays. The offense plays as if its primary goal is to avoid risk at all costs. You can't win playing like that.
