"We have potential to be a good offensive team" - KF

[AEG82]

Of course all coaches use some form of coach-speak, but you have to admit that KF is the absolute A-1 King of talking to the press and saying absolutely nothing. I have not bothered to listen to him talk for more than 2 minutes at a time for the past 10 or so years with the exception of his weekly press conference following the BF firing.

Concurred. The only time I've seen any media correspondence was when BF was involved. Outside of those debacles and maybe the "Smell a rat" response, which was funny, I don't think I've paid him any attention since about 2011. He undoubtedly likes it that way, I'm sure. He's as uninteresting in the press conferences as are the typically vetted questions being asked. He's wise, and can be quite humorous, of course, but outside of snippets here and there, if you've heard one press conference from him, you've heard them all. The guise of being humble in my opinion, which, of course, KF is has proven to be anything but. He definitely views himself on a pedestal after the BF fiasco. He'll never recover completely, especially if the offense really does get better almost immediately. It's odd but he's almost incentivized to do poorly to prove it was the talent rather than his son that was the problem as odd as that sounds. Of course, it was evident to anyone with a functional brain and even a remote concept of what offense is supposed to look like regarding what the problem is, and continues to be, but we're just little old fans that don't know what we're talking about in KF eyes.

I love KF in a lot of ways while absolutely loathing him in others. After 25 years, he's definitely had a lasting impact in my life. He's synonymous with Iowa football good and bad. Overall, I'd say he's been a great boon for us. I just wish he'd retire sooner rather than later. Football is a young man's game and we definitely need some innovative creativity.

 

[Iron Doc]

You are one of the most useless posters on here.

All you ever say is Iowa needs to run an offense that they are never going to run.

Not sure why you even come on this board

Triggered!!!

 

[HawksRule73]

I think the truth, as usual, lies somewhere in the middle. Personally, I think BF was qualified for the OC job that he got in 2017. He was an all-conference offensive lineman for a P5 team. He analyzed, then was a position coach, on the offensive side of the ball in the NFL. He then became an OL coach for a P5 team and held that spot for 5 years, the last 2 of which he was also run-game coordinator. So remove the name "Ferentz" and if that person was hired as OC at Iowa, I think most would say the career progression would indicate he was qualified.

Then, in his first 4 years, his offense avg'd 28, 31, 26, and 31 ppg....which was good for 66th, 44th, 88th, and 40th in the country in scoring offense....an avg ranking of right at 60th (we'd kill for being ranked 60th in ppg this year). Then even the first half of the 5th year (2021), he avg'd 32 ppg which on it's own would have been ranked around 35th. But then starting with the Purdue game in 2021 thru the end of his tenure, he avg'd 17 (back half of 2021), 18, and 15 ppg, which was damn near DFL in all of D1.

So what happened? I think it came down to 3 factors:

1. The first failure happened by naming BF the QB coach and removing him as TE coach in 2022. He was in no way qualified to coach QBs and it showed immediately. While I wasn't a huge fan of KOK, he did know how to coach QBs, especially in Iowa's system which asks alot of it's QBs in setting protections, audibles, etc. I think that transition started in the back half of 2021 and it showed. Then 2022 and 2023 happened.

2. The 2nd corresponding failure was in recruiting. The number of misses on the OL, QB, and WR was astounding. Some of that is attributable to Polacek and Copeland being terrible recruiters, but ultimately that fell on BF (and KF) for allowing it and signing off on it. The result was having a green and incapable offensive line, an avg QB (but terrible at facing any pressure), and no one to throw the ball to.

3. The final failure was BF's stubbornness to adapt to the personnel hand he was dealt, whether thru lack of talent or the injury bug (particularly in 2023). I don't buy that he was following orders from the old man because I can distinctly remember 2004 and losing nearly our entire RB group and coming out of the bye week with nearly an entire new offense that KOK put together. KF obviously didn't have an issue with going to a more pass oriented offense then, and I doubt he would have this time either. It was BF's hubris that he's always the smartest guy in the room coupled with his lack of knowledge in more sophisticated passing game concepts that ultimately resulted in what we witnessed in 2022 and 2023 (with 2023 being probably more about injuries than lack of talent, but he still didn't adapt to those injuries).

I think he proved a capable OC early in his tenure, when he had the type of players he wanted to run his scheme. But he was ultimately undone by a lack of talent coupled with his inability to adapt to the hand he was dealt and constantly thinking he was smarter than anyone else. Couple that with the fact that he was just a complete asshole, and well, it probably made the decision that much easier (and he proved that with his refusal to wear team gear after being fired).