Washington fan dropping in here…I kind of hate what realignment did. I realize there’s some irony there, but it seems like the former Pac-12 schools screwed not only Oregon State and Washington St. … but also … some of the schools in the Big Ten like Iowa.
Washington was in survival mode, so I’m happy it made the move, but I just hate all of this. The Rose Bowl was the gold standard for decades…losing the meaning behind that crushed me. Ugh.
I think the most telling state of the program, and the one that speaks most directly to the malaise that is spreading across the fanbase, is that Iowa hasn't beaten a single team that ended the season ranked since 2019. Even the vaunted 2021 PSU was exposed as fool's gold as that iteration of PSU would go 7-5 in the regular season--similar Iowa's wins over "ranked" ISU and Indiana that went 7-5 and 2-10 respectively. It's not just that Iowa isn't getting the "big" upsets any more--and we are falling further and further away from being competitive in those games at all--it's that we're not even getting real "quality" victories over teams that are not complete vaporware.
I've never been one to believe that Iowa would ever win a national title, too many things would have had to fall into place perfectly for that to be an honest goal; but what has made me depressed is the near certainty that Iowa will never win another conference championship in my lifetime. This is made worse by the acknowledgement that KF essentially squandered the decade following the 2015 season not leveraging that success for future success but instead only exerting himself in an effort to foist Brian on the program as Kirk's successor.
...but it's more than that. How many opportunities do we even have against ranked teams? We're not getting any "big" upsets anymore... but we're also getting very few opportunities... and when we do, it's again top 4 teams... not anyone like 8-25.
Usually 2-4 per season. This year it could be a single chance at 1, but as many as 4 or 5 depending on how Washington, Nebraska, and Wisconsin do from here out, as well as ISU.
And the "getting few opportunities" cuts both ways, because KF sure likes to point at season win totals as filling, even though they tend to contain more empty calories than a box of Twinkies.
2021 - 0-2 including #2 Michigan and Close Kentucky bowl game
2022 - 0-2 including Top 5 Michigan and OSU
2023 - 0-2 - Including Penn State & Michigan
I think we're still in Small Sample Size territory, but I would absolutely agree that this year is crucial when it comes to determining if we can compete among the NEXT Tier. We're def not a top 5 or even top 10 team... but can we compete admirably against 11-20? I honestly don't know. If we can, is THAT good enough?
Dammit Patrick, I was JUST doing this rant to my dad and brother about the St Louis Cardinals. Especially after the announcement of the new zero-sum budget in which they’ll probably have to jettison Arenado, Sonny Gray and Wilson Contreras. Are the Cardinals (in particular STL fans) willing to become the Central division’s version of the Pirates? Develop talent but not compete? Am I supposed to watch that product and buy new merch and tickets? Same thing with the Hawkeyes except they aren’t investing in new coaches and gadgetry to make the most of what they got.
Someone on Twitter mentioned Iowa as a mid-table Premier League team, where they're never breaking into the top six or European competition, but a respectable ninth is pleasant in and of itself. It's the same for a lot of baseball teams, even if we see a young, talented core of players break through into the now-expanded playoffs almost yearly.
My enjoyment in football has seen a drastic decrease in recent years and I largely credit my Iowa fandom to that. Three and a half hours is too long to subject myself to a Kirk Ferentz-designed offense.
I know you and I have discussed some of these things before, with me on the side of more patience and tempered expectations... but you are absolutely right. In this new era, these are great questions.
I honestly don't have answers. IF, as you say, bowl games will likely be falling by the wayside, it is reasonable to expect that the playoffs will expand further... perhaps as large as 24 teams? If that happens, does 'making the playoffs' become the new standard of success? Or does that get us into first weekend Iowa basketball bounce out territory, where it's still not good enough? I don't know... but I'd be curious to hear your thoughts
Rumor was that last week's meetup between the B1G and SEC was about already moving to 16 teams and locking in 4 guaranteed bids for each of them, so yeah, it could be headed that direction. The basketball tournament standard of "Did you [make the tournament] [make the Sweet 16] [make the Final Four]?" expectation management could be on the way.
I don't think it will get much past 16, maybe 24. There are simply too many games if you get to five rounds, and teams aren't going to want to give up the revenue from the seventh home game for more playoffs.
24 makes sense to reward the top teams with byes... and to make the percentage of teams competing comparable to Basketball (when compared to total teams).
Regardless, none of it matters until we get to a direct payment from Universities system with a CBA and some form of salary cap/floor... Until then the differences between the top 10 and everyone else are just going to continue to expand.
What should the goals/expectations be for a program with Iowa's revenue? What about for a program with Iowa's recruiting rankings? What is Iowa's ranking in player/roster salary and what does that tell us we should expect? Iowa was #21 in revenue last year with $151M ($100M behind #1 OSU). We're a top 25 progrum when it comes to money, which isn't enough on its own. That's nothing new or surprising. Iowa was #32 in recruitment last year which seems surprisingly decent, but nowhere near good enough when you consider the talent and NIL disparity that was on display last Saturday. Couple all of that with Kirk Ferentz and understand that Iowa should never have expectations, only hope.
8 wins is not enough for me to get excited and get out my checkbook, but i don't really matter. i always reframe this to my dad and the fans like him, a late generation boomer who has done reasonably well, is a proud iowan and about to retire, has had season tickets for long enough to remember a lot of bad years and for whom 8-10 wins, some nice fall saturdays in iowa city and a warm bowl game is absolutely enough to be happy and keep making donations. the cautionary tale at the end can't be over stated enough, maybe we don't know exactly how Wisconsin will end up in another year or two but MSU, purdue, jNW, nebraksa and more have all paid dearly for the sin of chasing more success than was realistic. michigan may well drive themselves into the crust of the earth trying to recreate the taste of peak success they've had, ask florida about coaching hires and playing in a new, bigger conference - there are just so many cases of the tom davis thing playing out. i'm not ready to quit on KF because it's almost becoming two different sports. the upper echelon dozen or so teams playing pro rosters looking for playoff spots, dominating the daytime talk shows and podcasts and then everybody else who is just trying to play college football. the gap is only widening.
Whether you (or anyone else) are ready to "quit" on KF is basically irrelevant at this point.* The simple fact is that he is going to be gone much sooner rather than later and some sort of transition is coming. Chasing the new hotness can lead to poor results as you note in your examples, but so can stubbornly clinging to old habits and ways in a changing environment.
*REALLY wanted to make a "but KF has quit on the fans" joke here, but that was being way too unfair on the guy, even for me.
I really get frustrated by the “careful what you wish for” narrative about the replacement for KF. The Big 10 and SEC are the big dogs in college football and there are only so many head coaching spots available. Iowa will have a long list of coaches who would love to take over the reins of the program. My personal choice would be Kleimann an Iowa native at Kansas State who has won every where he’s coached. As for all those Debbie Downers who point to Nebraska, Florida etc there are plenty of successful hires, as well. Indiana is a great example.
I think the bigger issue than even the non-competitiveness the last few years is that Iowa just doesn't play very smart football anymore or recruit offensive players that would make this team mildly exciting. More than 1/4 of the games since Stanley featured a quarterback that threw for less than 100 yards, on top of never getting a QB that could hold a backside defender from tackling the running back in that phase. Its beyond the pale how bad and how stale the offense is, and it all starts with QB. There's been a clear backslide in recruiting on the offensive line lately too at tackle.
Watching this program is like watching four separate plane crashes featuring the same pilot and the same errors, and its never an emergency they need to fix. Like the basketball program which seems like it has the same issues, it is going to be hard as a fan to invest in the program without change at the top. I know I'm checked out....
Washington fan dropping in here…I kind of hate what realignment did. I realize there’s some irony there, but it seems like the former Pac-12 schools screwed not only Oregon State and Washington St. … but also … some of the schools in the Big Ten like Iowa.
Washington was in survival mode, so I’m happy it made the move, but I just hate all of this. The Rose Bowl was the gold standard for decades…losing the meaning behind that crushed me. Ugh.
I think the most telling state of the program, and the one that speaks most directly to the malaise that is spreading across the fanbase, is that Iowa hasn't beaten a single team that ended the season ranked since 2019. Even the vaunted 2021 PSU was exposed as fool's gold as that iteration of PSU would go 7-5 in the regular season--similar Iowa's wins over "ranked" ISU and Indiana that went 7-5 and 2-10 respectively. It's not just that Iowa isn't getting the "big" upsets any more--and we are falling further and further away from being competitive in those games at all--it's that we're not even getting real "quality" victories over teams that are not complete vaporware.
I've never been one to believe that Iowa would ever win a national title, too many things would have had to fall into place perfectly for that to be an honest goal; but what has made me depressed is the near certainty that Iowa will never win another conference championship in my lifetime. This is made worse by the acknowledgement that KF essentially squandered the decade following the 2015 season not leveraging that success for future success but instead only exerting himself in an effort to foist Brian on the program as Kirk's successor.
...but it's more than that. How many opportunities do we even have against ranked teams? We're not getting any "big" upsets anymore... but we're also getting very few opportunities... and when we do, it's again top 4 teams... not anyone like 8-25.
Usually 2-4 per season. This year it could be a single chance at 1, but as many as 4 or 5 depending on how Washington, Nebraska, and Wisconsin do from here out, as well as ISU.
And the "getting few opportunities" cuts both ways, because KF sure likes to point at season win totals as filling, even though they tend to contain more empty calories than a box of Twinkies.
2019 - 2-3, including bowl game
2020 - Faced zero final ranked teams
2021 - 0-2 including #2 Michigan and Close Kentucky bowl game
2022 - 0-2 including Top 5 Michigan and OSU
2023 - 0-2 - Including Penn State & Michigan
I think we're still in Small Sample Size territory, but I would absolutely agree that this year is crucial when it comes to determining if we can compete among the NEXT Tier. We're def not a top 5 or even top 10 team... but can we compete admirably against 11-20? I honestly don't know. If we can, is THAT good enough?
Dammit Patrick, I was JUST doing this rant to my dad and brother about the St Louis Cardinals. Especially after the announcement of the new zero-sum budget in which they’ll probably have to jettison Arenado, Sonny Gray and Wilson Contreras. Are the Cardinals (in particular STL fans) willing to become the Central division’s version of the Pirates? Develop talent but not compete? Am I supposed to watch that product and buy new merch and tickets? Same thing with the Hawkeyes except they aren’t investing in new coaches and gadgetry to make the most of what they got.
Someone on Twitter mentioned Iowa as a mid-table Premier League team, where they're never breaking into the top six or European competition, but a respectable ninth is pleasant in and of itself. It's the same for a lot of baseball teams, even if we see a young, talented core of players break through into the now-expanded playoffs almost yearly.
Considering that analogy, it is interesting that I am a Fulham fan. Or maybe... it just makes perfect sense. :D
My enjoyment in football has seen a drastic decrease in recent years and I largely credit my Iowa fandom to that. Three and a half hours is too long to subject myself to a Kirk Ferentz-designed offense.
I know you and I have discussed some of these things before, with me on the side of more patience and tempered expectations... but you are absolutely right. In this new era, these are great questions.
I honestly don't have answers. IF, as you say, bowl games will likely be falling by the wayside, it is reasonable to expect that the playoffs will expand further... perhaps as large as 24 teams? If that happens, does 'making the playoffs' become the new standard of success? Or does that get us into first weekend Iowa basketball bounce out territory, where it's still not good enough? I don't know... but I'd be curious to hear your thoughts
Rumor was that last week's meetup between the B1G and SEC was about already moving to 16 teams and locking in 4 guaranteed bids for each of them, so yeah, it could be headed that direction. The basketball tournament standard of "Did you [make the tournament] [make the Sweet 16] [make the Final Four]?" expectation management could be on the way.
I don't think it will get much past 16, maybe 24. There are simply too many games if you get to five rounds, and teams aren't going to want to give up the revenue from the seventh home game for more playoffs.
24 makes sense to reward the top teams with byes... and to make the percentage of teams competing comparable to Basketball (when compared to total teams).
Regardless, none of it matters until we get to a direct payment from Universities system with a CBA and some form of salary cap/floor... Until then the differences between the top 10 and everyone else are just going to continue to expand.
What should the goals/expectations be for a program with Iowa's revenue? What about for a program with Iowa's recruiting rankings? What is Iowa's ranking in player/roster salary and what does that tell us we should expect? Iowa was #21 in revenue last year with $151M ($100M behind #1 OSU). We're a top 25 progrum when it comes to money, which isn't enough on its own. That's nothing new or surprising. Iowa was #32 in recruitment last year which seems surprisingly decent, but nowhere near good enough when you consider the talent and NIL disparity that was on display last Saturday. Couple all of that with Kirk Ferentz and understand that Iowa should never have expectations, only hope.
8 wins is not enough for me to get excited and get out my checkbook, but i don't really matter. i always reframe this to my dad and the fans like him, a late generation boomer who has done reasonably well, is a proud iowan and about to retire, has had season tickets for long enough to remember a lot of bad years and for whom 8-10 wins, some nice fall saturdays in iowa city and a warm bowl game is absolutely enough to be happy and keep making donations. the cautionary tale at the end can't be over stated enough, maybe we don't know exactly how Wisconsin will end up in another year or two but MSU, purdue, jNW, nebraksa and more have all paid dearly for the sin of chasing more success than was realistic. michigan may well drive themselves into the crust of the earth trying to recreate the taste of peak success they've had, ask florida about coaching hires and playing in a new, bigger conference - there are just so many cases of the tom davis thing playing out. i'm not ready to quit on KF because it's almost becoming two different sports. the upper echelon dozen or so teams playing pro rosters looking for playoff spots, dominating the daytime talk shows and podcasts and then everybody else who is just trying to play college football. the gap is only widening.
Whether you (or anyone else) are ready to "quit" on KF is basically irrelevant at this point.* The simple fact is that he is going to be gone much sooner rather than later and some sort of transition is coming. Chasing the new hotness can lead to poor results as you note in your examples, but so can stubbornly clinging to old habits and ways in a changing environment.
*REALLY wanted to make a "but KF has quit on the fans" joke here, but that was being way too unfair on the guy, even for me.
I really get frustrated by the “careful what you wish for” narrative about the replacement for KF. The Big 10 and SEC are the big dogs in college football and there are only so many head coaching spots available. Iowa will have a long list of coaches who would love to take over the reins of the program. My personal choice would be Kleimann an Iowa native at Kansas State who has won every where he’s coached. As for all those Debbie Downers who point to Nebraska, Florida etc there are plenty of successful hires, as well. Indiana is a great example.
AIM HIGHER
I think the bigger issue than even the non-competitiveness the last few years is that Iowa just doesn't play very smart football anymore or recruit offensive players that would make this team mildly exciting. More than 1/4 of the games since Stanley featured a quarterback that threw for less than 100 yards, on top of never getting a QB that could hold a backside defender from tackling the running back in that phase. Its beyond the pale how bad and how stale the offense is, and it all starts with QB. There's been a clear backslide in recruiting on the offensive line lately too at tackle.
Watching this program is like watching four separate plane crashes featuring the same pilot and the same errors, and its never an emergency they need to fix. Like the basketball program which seems like it has the same issues, it is going to be hard as a fan to invest in the program without change at the top. I know I'm checked out....
DEPRESSING! Think I'll switch to being a basketball fan.
If you're looking to avoid depression and disappointment, I hope that your basketball fandom is for a team other than Iowa.