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Recruiting Failure?

BVHawkeye

HR Legend
Jan 6, 2003
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I've given a lot of thought to KF staying with Petras. I've coached some myself albeit not near this level. Unless a player was just an a**hole or not coachable I would never leave the best talent on the bench. I find it hard to believe that, with the coaches we have on the staff, the best guy wouldn't be in there. I also find it difficult to believe, knowing how precise KF runs his program, that he is too stubborn to make a change if there are better players on the team.

With that said, it sends a poor message to any backup player that the guy in front of you will continue to play if he doesn't perform. I'm just puzzled. That leads me to the title. It has to be a recruiting failure. Correct me if I'm wrong, but KOK went out to watch 2-3 QB's throw in person. One was a QB that I think ended up at BYU. He chose SP. I've seen so little of the #3 & #4 QB's to even know much about them. Just have HS game films. So there is no one in the program that can do as well? In my playing career, again not near this level but DIII, I've seen guys that were not the best practice players. When they got in the game they performed well.

Your comments?
 
Yes, it is a recruiting failure. All of our QBs probably looked great at the high school level but that does not guarantee the same at the P5 college level. It is painfully obvious they were way off the mark with their evaluations. We are paying the price now for those mistakes. It is time to give Padilla a chance to start the next game.
 
I've given a lot of thought to KF staying with Petras. I've coached some myself albeit not near this level. Unless a player was just an a**hole or not coachable I would never leave the best talent on the bench. I find it hard to believe that, with the coaches we have on the staff, the best guy wouldn't be in there. I also find it difficult to believe, knowing how precise KF runs his program, that he is too stubborn to make a change if there are better players on the team.

Your comments?
Were you in the stands when Kyle McCann was chosen over Brad Banks (the guy that finished second in the Heisman voting the next season)? KF has had several unexplainable QB decision gaffes throughout his career with Brad Banks junior year the most glaring.
 
Go back and look at those 2018-2019 classes. Devoid of offensive talent. Major misses at OL, WR and clearly QB with Petras and Padilla. You don’t get this bad with it being “one” thing. It’s a lot of things and I don’t believe a fix is coming this season. Hopefully once we get some players back, we can win 6-7 games but it’s hard to be that optimistic after what we’ve seen through 2 games.
 
I think it’s less about a talent/recruiting problem and more about a bad scheme and the inability to get our best players on the field with the ball in their hands.

Charlie Jones is exhibit A in this argument. At Iowa, he’s the #4 receiver, with 21 catches all year. He transfers to Purdue has his production jumps dramatically— with 21 catches (and a bunch of TDS) in just 2 games.

Jones did not get more talented. He just moved to a team that knows how to utilize offensive talent.

I actually believe any of our QBs could look great in the right system. We’ve even seen that it the past with backup QBs who transferred away.
 
I think it is both recruiting and coaching.

We've had some good players. We have had some good QBs. But Kirk's "avoid creativity and mistakes at all cost" mentality ruins them. Conservative, predictable play calling and fear of making a mistake handcuffs our QB and is frustrating to our WRs who rarely get a chance to show their skills.
Players in good offenses have fun. There is no fun in Kirk's offense.
 
I've given a lot of thought to KF staying with Petras. I've coached some myself albeit not near this level. Unless a player was just an a**hole or not coachable I would never leave the best talent on the bench. I find it hard to believe that, with the coaches we have on the staff, the best guy wouldn't be in there. I also find it difficult to believe, knowing how precise KF runs his program, that he is too stubborn to make a change if there are better players on the team.

With that said, it sends a poor message to any backup player that the guy in front of you will continue to play if he doesn't perform. I'm just puzzled. That leads me to the title. It has to be a recruiting failure. Correct me if I'm wrong, but KOK went out to watch 2-3 QB's throw in person. One was a QB that I think ended up at BYU. He chose SP. I've seen so little of the #3 & #4 QB's to even know much about them. Just have HS game films. So there is no one in the program that can do as well? In my playing career, again not near this level but DIII, I've seen guys that were not the best practice players. When they got in the game they performed well.

Your comments?
Agree. Some kids don’t practice worth a crap but in a game they are a different person.( In a good way) Some players are practice players but when the lights turn on, crap their pants.
Just the way it is, recognize it and get his ass out of there because it ain’t going to change.
 
Were you in the stands when Kyle McCann was chosen over Brad Banks (the guy that finished second in the Heisman voting the next season)? KF has had several unexplainable QB decision gaffes throughout his career with Brad Banks junior year the most glaring.
I was in the stands. I remember Banks running out of bounds three yards eary the year before. He is one I don't believe was ready. Not sure about Stanzy, Beathard, etc. I do know it makes no sense to have better talent on the bench unless there is a good reason. As precise as KF is in every other part of the football program it makes no sense.
 
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I think a big component is trying to mold QBs to fit into our awful system rather than adapting the system to fit the QB.
How are we molding QB's into our system? What QB couldn't run it? We are best when we have a running game and can play action pass. That is, actually, a pretty good system. We haven't run the ball very well for awhile now. I don't see the downside in recruiting mobile QB's to run our system. They don't have to run that often. Just avoid the rush when they need to.
 
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I think it's more sticking with this system and recruiting kids who have no base for it leading to long growing pains. If our coaches once they get the kids here should be able to tell if the system will be productive or not. You should always play to the strengths of your athletes.
 
Wr as an over all group is bad and no wr's for the 17 commits so far for 2023. Not sure how you can convince recruits now days to play in a very outdated passing scheme.
 
Keegan could be back next week. Iowa since 2017 has done a nice job in recruiting WR, hanging on to them is tough, the TE spot has dropped off a bit, but anyone complaining about recruiting isn't paying attention.
 
I was in the stands. I remember Banks running out of bounds three yards eary the year before. He is one I don't believe was ready. Not sure about Stanzy, Beathard, etc. I do know it makes no sense to have better talent on the bench unless there is a good reason. As precise as KF is in every other part of the football program it makes no sense.
Can we just stop with the “Banks ran out of bounds short of the first down one time” nonsense as “proof” that he wasn’t ready? Good grief.
 
I put the majority of it on the coaching. They have been recruiting talented QBs but Iowa is terrible at developing them.
 
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Keegan could be back next week. Iowa since 2017 has done a nice job in recruiting WR, hanging on to them is tough, the TE spot has dropped off a bit, but anyone complaining about recruiting isn't paying attention.
I'm not sure how you can say this. We don't recruit high level wide receivers. We haven't done so for many years. Bruce and KJ are excellent athletes but they didn't come in as top receivers. They have a lot of ability and they may develop into very good receivers, but they are not there today.
 
I think it’s less about a talent/recruiting problem and more about a bad scheme and the inability to get our best players on the field with the ball in their hands.

Charlie Jones is exhibit A in this argument. At Iowa, he’s the #4 receiver, with 21 catches all year. He transfers to Purdue has his production jumps dramatically— with 21 catches (and a bunch of TDS) in just 2 games.

Jones did not get more talented. He just moved to a team that knows how to utilize offensive talent.

I actually believe any of our QBs could look great in the right system. We’ve even seen that it the past with backup QBs who transferred away.

Arguably from a recruiting standpoint we have as much talent as at any point in the Kirk era. Most also had decent offer lists so it’s not like Iowa was signing no name recruits. Player development is a problem, attrition/injuries is a major problem right now; but scheme is a problem.

I don’t have an issue with the basic ball control philosophy but clearly we need more than simple tweaks to the system.

I was in the stands. I remember Banks running out of bounds three yards eary the year before. He is one I don't believe was ready. Not sure about Stanzy, Beathard, etc. I do know it makes no sense to have better talent on the bench unless there is a good reason. As precise as KF is in every other part of the football program it makes no sense.

Can we just stop with the “Banks ran out of bounds short of the first down one time” nonsense as “proof” that he wasn’t ready? Good grief.

Banks himself has said he didn’t know the playbook well enough that first year. He dazzled because Iowa gave him certain packages to master and built from there. We saw the results the following season.
 
Iowa has taken the approach that they are going to line up and be better and more fundamentally sound than the guy lined up across from them. As part of this approach, the scheme is basic and focused on fundamentals. This approach simply does not work when they guy lined up across from you is better - and that is what we have this year. When the guy lined up across from you is better, you have to have a scheme that can compensate for that - and Iowa does not.
 
Can we just stop with the “Banks ran out of bounds short of the first down one time” nonsense as “proof” that he wasn’t ready? Good grief.
And make sure not to use the quote from Banks saying he wasn’t ready that year as well….
 
I was in the stands. I remember Banks running out of bounds three yards eary the year before. He is one I don't believe was ready. Not sure about Stanzy, Beathard, etc. I do know it makes no sense to have better talent on the bench unless there is a good reason. As precise as KF is in every other part of the football program it makes no sense.
Do you mean as opposed to our 4th year player sliding 3 yards in front of the marker? The guy made a mistake that he wasn’t going to make again. We play quarterbacks today that make a half dozen mental errors every game.
 
I'm not sure how you can say this. We don't recruit high level wide receivers. We haven't done so for many years. Bruce and KJ are excellent athletes but they didn't come in as top receivers. They have a lot of ability and they may develop into very good receivers, but they are not there today.
I don't know where to start at with this, to say that Iowa hasn't recruited WR at a higher level since brian has been OC is far fetched. ISM is actually in the league, Smith was more than solid. Ragaini if the dude is ever healthy is solid. I was more than wrong about Charlie Jones in the offseason, but he was/is an absolute beast. Oliver Martin = bust. Now moving forward if something doesn't give in the portal or recruiting wise, we are headed into a black hole of zero offensive production from the WR.
 
Keegan could be back next week. Iowa since 2017 has done a nice job in recruiting WR, hanging on to them is tough, the TE spot has dropped off a bit, but anyone complaining about recruiting isn't paying attention.
He was in street clothes on the sideline. I don't know at times to me it seemed like he walked funny yet, but it could have just been me.
 
I don't know where to start at with this, to say that Iowa hasn't recruited WR at a higher level since brian has been OC is far fetched. ISM is actually in the league, Smith was more than solid. Ragaini if the dude is ever healthy is solid. I was more than wrong about Charlie Jones in the offseason, but he was/is an absolute beast. Oliver Martin = bust. Now moving forward if something doesn't give in the portal or recruiting wise, we are headed into a black hole of zero offensive production from the WR.

We need Johnson, Ragaini and Vines back. We have a lot out at that position.
 
I don't know where to start at with this, to say that Iowa hasn't recruited WR at a higher level since brian has been OC is far fetched. ISM is actually in the league, Smith was more than solid. Ragaini if the dude is ever healthy is solid. I was more than wrong about Charlie Jones in the offseason, but he was/is an absolute beast. Oliver Martin = bust. Now moving forward if something doesn't give in the portal or recruiting wise, we are headed into a black hole of zero offensive production from the WR.
I'm not going to argue with someone who believes that Iowa's WR recruiting is high level. Ragaini was a fall back recruit with BC as his only other FBS offer. He is slow and dropped way too many balls last year. He was the 200th ranked WR in his class. That's some high level recruiting right there.
 
I'm not going to argue with someone who believes that Iowa's WR recruiting is high level. Ragaini was a fall back recruit with BC as his only other FBS offer. He is slow and dropped way too many balls last year. He was the 200th ranked WR in his class. That's some high level recruiting right there.
Iowa has 2, 4 star athletes turned WR, one of which isn't currently healthy. when is the last time they had that? Missing on Kasper sucks, losing Jones sucks, and the class right now is not looking great either. It is going to become a recruiting issue, but right now the problem is entirely on the scheme.
 
Year after year after year we have some of the most average, non physical and slow WR's in all D1...and its been the case even when we've had decent QB's, so don't say they don't want to come here....Ferments absolutely HATES flashy!!!!!
 
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Were you in the stands when Kyle McCann was chosen over Brad Banks (the guy that finished second in the Heisman voting the next season)? KF has had several unexplainable QB decision gaffes throughout his career with Brad Banks junior year the most glaring.
That one to me isn’t nearly as bad as Christensen/Stanzi, or Rudock/Beathard. BB in year 1 was not the Heisman runner up in year 2.

more than anything, I wish Ferentz would remember that when he poo poos rotating QBs. The Hawks needed every bit of what they both brought that year
 
Yes, it is a recruiting failure. All of our QBs probably looked great at the high school level but that does not guarantee the same at the P5 college level. It is painfully obvious they were way off the mark with their evaluations. We are paying the price now for those mistakes. It is time to give Padilla a chance to start the next game.
Then that's not a recruiting failure, it's a development failure
 
Can we just stop with the “Banks ran out of bounds short of the first down one time” nonsense as “proof” that he wasn’t ready? Good grief.
This. Kyle McCann threw two interceptions in that game. I think that had more to do with losing the game than one play by Banks.
 
Were you in the stands when Kyle McCann was chosen over Brad Banks (the guy that finished second in the Heisman voting the next season)? KF has had several unexplainable QB decision gaffes throughout his career with Brad Banks junior year the most glaring.
The way you've worded that post is implying Banks was here three years prior. He has just shown up that year.
 
It all starts with the line. If you can't run block or pass block then your offense is not going to be very good. There are obvious recruiting misses here because everyone playing right now is playing before they are ready. To not have atleast 2 but hopefully 4 JR and SR scholarship offensive lineman is a huge problem. But it is also a development problem because this line is the worst of the KF era, but, the coaching here has been declining steadily for quite some time.

There is definitely a lack of focus on the playmaking positions. We consistently recruit 1 or 2 WR's in a class where a team like Ohio State is consistently atleast 4.

To me, ever since Brian came here from New England they have been trying to replicate what they were doing up there at the time. Brian was the tight ends coach and had Gronk and Hernandez and they set all kinds of records the last year of Brian coaching up there. It seems that Kirk and Brian probably talked about it a lot and said with the talent available to them at Iowa this scheme would work. We can get guys to be really stout up front and can focus on development of the TE position. Plus, when all the flashier teams all fight over the very very rare mobile QB that can throw (Vick, Murray, Jackson, Lawrence, Fields, etc.) we have the ability to recruit the best of the big arm immobile guys. So I think they doubled down on it and tried to turn Stanley and Petras into Tom Brady. Tall, immobile QB with a big arm. I think it even went down to the RB's, so trying to get those swiss army knives out of the backfield is better than having an offense built around a bell cow back.

But, if you can't protect the QB, you are doomed from the start. If your immobile QB is not accurate, no matter how big his arm is, you are doomed because you negate any advantage that you could possible have with that type of passer. If you don't have a downfield threat, it isn't a deal breaker but you are now trying to play to win in the high teens and low 20's, instead of winning in the 30's and 40's.

I understand the experiment and in theory it could work. My main concern though is that is there enough time in college and enough continuity to be able to maximize that potential? And we all have to realize that this program his moved from expecting to be a development program that has really good seasons once out of every 4 or 5 years to having the expectation of re-loading and being good every year.
 
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