Kirk's offense is worst in nation and was often mentoned by national pundits as a subject of ridicule. If it wasn't getting embarrassing to Kirk and the program then I have to question how that was the case. I know if I were the subject of that, it would bother me to no end and keep me up nights searching out ways to fix it.
To suggest that running the worst offense in all of football over the last three years while making no staffing changes on that side of the ball doesn't illustrate at a minimum incompetence if not negligence is to ignore reality.
With respect to Fran's defense, it is frustratingly bad. It is nowhere near worst in nation by any metric I can find. He obviously is an offensive guy who finds players that fit the mold of what he wants to do. He is not able to regularly recruit players that fit that mold and are quick and athletic enough to play sound man to man defense. Fran has been unable to consistently land players that are effective on both ends of the court or to coach them into being a good or even average P5 defensive unit. That's pretty much a given.
The difference between basketball and football is that basketball players have to play both ways. Football players do not. They are completely separate units with no tradeoffs necessary with respect to attributes or practice emphasis. Kirk's offensive staff doesn't have that restriction of time and talent. They own those players outright. No consideration needs to be given to whether a recruit is effective on the other side of the ball. No practice time needs to be allocated towards defensive skills. People arguing that an improved football offense would necessitate a downturn in the defense make little or no sense. In fact, the opposite is true. The only positive impact that the offense has on the defense is the ability to complement the defense by consuming time and moving the ball downfield, which the Iowa offense has failed miserably at over the last several years.
-Of course Kirk hasn't been embarrassed by the performance of his team. The objective is to win and his teams have done that quite regularly and at an amazingly consistent clip for over two decades. Kirk is feeling nothing close to embarrassed.
I'm embarrassed for people that are more concerned with tearing down a winning team than they are with celebrating it. Especially when that team has been a winning program for over two decades. Seriously, I really do feel bad for people who think this way.
-When comparing the programs of Kirk and Fran you have to analyze their entire tenure. Fran's defenses are overall last in the big ten in his time at Iowa. He has done literally nothing to address improving the defense. In fact, when asked what can be done to be better on defense, Fran has consistently responded that Iowa is an offensive program. He doesn't even care that the defense sucks. This is negligence. The first fundamental of defense is guarding the ball. Iowa is consistently poor at this. Which is to say that Fran's teams are deficient in the fundamentals.
Never can Kirk be accused of being negligent when it comes to fundamentals. For 25 years his teams and players have been known for being fundamentally sound. His players are technically sound enough to consistently get drafted into the NFL.
Only a few seasons have Kirk's offenses been really bad, whereas almost all of Fran's defenses have been really bad. Just because KF's teams have fallen on a couple bad years doesn't mean that he's negligent. You can't say that he isn't trying to get better in this area. He picked up some important offensive pieces in the portal before last season to try to improve the offense. And another effective change he made last season was a switch to a lot more inside running with pin and pull as the blocking scheme. He is also making a switch at WR coach.
-Defense in college basketball is almost entirely coaching and has very little to do with athleticism. Look at a team like Wisconsin. Traditionally they aren't very athletic. But they are always great defensively. TJ is now doing the same thing at ISU.
But if you do want to use the argument that Fran has difficulty getting enough athleticism and quickness to come to Iowa, then the same argument applies for the lack of offensive game breakers at Iowa for football.
-I don't think anyone is arguing that an improved offense would necessitate a downturn in defense. They are arguing that improving the offense by certain methods could compromise the D. Kirk has flat out said that throwing the ball around hurts the D and makes it harder to win. This is the point that astute fans are agreeing with.
It should again be noted that part of the reason the offensive stats in football have been so bad lately is because the defense and punter were good enough that in many scenarios a conscious choice was made to be conservative on offense and defer to the defense as a method to WIN the game. Again, this is why teams have deferred to their defense for 150 years by way of punting on 4th down. This is the sport of "foot"ball.
In no way do bad defensive stats ever help a team win in basketball. Being good at defense in basketball is much more important than being good at offense is in football.
Also, it's possible to consistently win with the statistically worst offense in football. It's not possible to consistently win with the statistically worst defense in football.
In the end, Kirk's teams are more successful than Fran's teams at Iowa. Football has finished in the top 25 44% of the time under Kirk. While basketball has finished in the top 25 30.7% of the time under Fran