Minnesota 22, Iowa 21: Welcome To The Queso Bowl

Especially the last paragraph. I think he’s a nice guy too, but… he’s not getting the job done. Yesterday was a regression back to 1999…

I thought I’d feel better today but I don’t. This was a soul sucking defeat. The definition of insanity is doing the same things over and over and expecting different results. Iowa football…WOOT!

we are not that talented of a Big Ten program right now, but we are light years more talented than Minnesota. So yeah, no one loses this game unless the coaching staff turns to stone in the middle of the game. There’s no other explanation. That onsides kick was classic Iowa coaching staff obliviousness. Kirk’s explanation after the game of the umpteenth trick play in the last two years to catch him off guard, revealed a man who is reeling. Consider this, I am almost 100% certain Iowa has not a single trick play in the book at this time (no, an end around does not qualify) and if it does, has not practiced it (them) once in two years. If you lack the interest to gamble you are blind to the gamblers.

It’s been awhile since I’ve commented, so I wanted to stop in. There’s not a lot, if anything, to add to what is an extremely comprehensive and through piece of writing, written so soon after what was one of the dumbest sporting events I’ve ever witnessed in person.

I know what the scoreboard says, but Minnesota is not better than us. Kirk Ferentz and his staff got out-coached by a first-year B1G coach. Along the way, they’ve somehow made it possible to instill fear and nervousness in our players and it shows when the pressure’s applied to them, so hat tip to them for that.

We let a bad team, one who’s had trouble sniffing their own fucking farts this season let alone executing simple football plays, gain confidence and swagger in the fourth quarter when we revealed we’re not too different from them. As I walked out of that stadium yesterday and caught the abuse from practically every Gopher fan (the best being “enjoy your drive back down I-35 and spending money in this state!” – I live here in your stupid fucking state, thank you very much), I couldn’t talk back since this football team and the folks paid to manage it somehow made a mockery of what we’re used to seeing. I really hope that KF and the gang are internally confident and headstrong about where this program’s going, because he’s going to get questioned harder and more visciously in the next coming weeks than he’s ever had to face before.

Go Hawks.

Hell in a handbasket.

I mean, I know our success is going to be cyclical, and Ferentz’s strength is coaching Monday-Friday, but I hate being out-coached on gamedays while we wait for our unhearalded recruits develop into dominating players.

Who grew up in Minnesota and went to Iowa State. Ugh.

I’m truly shocked by how poorly everyone not named McNutt or Coker played. How did Coker not get more red zone carries?

Anytime we have one I’m going to go mow the yard, take the kids to a movie or, hell with it – even go to the mall with the wife. Even that misery would be better than witnessing a heart break that the omen foretells.

I love the coaching staff as a developmental team. But, expecting a tight game against inferior opponents does not make a good game day coach.

I wasted a perfectly good Elvis costume at that game.

I’m as pissed off as anyone about this game, but I just don’t have it in me to vent online.

I’ll just leave it at fuck the Gophers, Go Hawks! and let’s beat those assholes from Michigan next week.

And if those dumpster fire shirts are real, I want one.

I felt from the start we were 8-4 or 7-5. I hope my optimism is not exceeded. I had to listen to the second half on the radio, but for all that’s said about the repetitive mindset of the coaches and the brain dead play calling, I also sensed a lack of emotion on the kids part. To me that is the saddest thing, They have seemed to have lost the will to win, that desire to do what it takes regardless of the brain dead fearless leaders. If any of them read this I want them to know I have not given up on them. I only hope they can look inside themself and find the desire to be a Hawk and play with some passion.

Go Hawks !

Right now I feel like my Hawks are a stupid football team.

You are a very talented writer, RossWB. I don’t think it could have been summed up any better. I am starting to think all of our coaches are over-paid. I still love my Hawkeyes though!

That article covers it all. Ferentz has done some great things and when the talent is there, his conservative, grinding, game management style just drives opponents into the ground. Unfortunately, we remain unable to consistently stock the shelves. Particularly inexcusable to any Iowa fan must be the sad state of the O-Line. That should be our one constant and its wobbly at best. So w/o a tremendous amount of talent have we decided to innovate schemes around the players we’ve got? Nope. Still running 62 dive, jailbreak and the flat dink, over and over and over and over. Its totally understandable to play “not to lose” when you’re A) Ahead or B) Way More Talented or C) Have A Killer O-Line that Assures you of advancing the ball on every possession. If A-C are not true we might have to actually take some risks.

CJ Fed was dinged up and came out of the game earlier, so that explains why Herman was in on that last drive. Otherwise, CJ Fed probably is in there.

What doesn’t make sense is why, with the game on the line and Marvin McNutt on the field, you know the Gophers are going to blitz which means JVB gets 2-read play and then has to throw, why were his primary reads Herman, Herman and J. White?

2-minute O and special teams have kicked Iowa’s ass in almost every single one of its last 10 losses. This is not an aberration. This is a statistical fact at this point.

Well written and I have nothing to add. I’m going to play the role of the optimistic fan from here on out but will accept whatever happens. I hope that this experience sinks in with the coaches and other key players on this team. Well, we’ll see.

As it turns out the offense could have used another playmaker on the field.

After the hour-long Gopher poormouthing in the podcast last week, I feared that Iowa was in for a tougher game than anyone expected. Unfortunately, I was right.

Where was the defense in the late 1st and 4th quarter yesterday? Where?!? Can’t believe how unprepared/incapable they were to stop the Gophers late in the game. Folded like a deck chair in crunch time. Just don’t see how they’re going to stop Michigan, but hope I’m wrong.

No swagger. No confidence. No desire not to only stick the knife in, but twist it until your opponent screams. We play tentative “Don’t fuck up!” football starting with the opening kick-off, typified in our utter inability to even consider scoring before half unless we’re already at midfield. But it’s on defense that we really struggle emotionally.

It made me SICK to watch the Gophers jumping up and down as their momentum grew, because I knew that on the opposite sideline we were just Business As Usual, which can be translated as “Don’t fuck up.” We are back on our heels all game on defense, literally and figuratively, against a QB who was UNDER 50% passing completions for the year. Think about that! Even a crappy QB will hit 52% of his throws in modern college FB. Gray had all day to throw, and he completed some killer passes against our DB’s.

I’m not a “burn down the house!” kind of guy by any means, but it’s obvious to me that certain people have to go. I don’t want to name them, but look where we faltered most yesterday, and that would be a nice start. And KF needs to fucking STOP micromanaging everyone and everything. I truly think that he is a control freak, and it;s showing. It shows in his time management, it shows in his lack of risk taking, it shows in his lack of change, it shows in his bizarro decision-making (like the fake FG in the Orange Bowl, absolutely mindless). I really think he cannot delegate and let his asst’s do what they’re paid to do.

I think back to Carl Jackson being the only coach to make the T.O. signal in the Cap One bowl against LSU. KF was clueless. But I got the feeling he’s the ONLY one that can make a decision, or is allowed to make a decision. It’s always been the $64,000 question—is it KOK or KF?—but I think this applies to ALL aspects of our team: I think, in some ways, it’s ALL Kirk Ferentz. Maybe Norm is allowed a little lee-way, but I don’t know—Norm’s defenses at MSU and Vandy were pretty aggressive, I recall.

We can change assistants. but until Ferentz is willing to let them off their leashes, we may be stuck with some of the things that are murdering us out there: a stale offense, a back-on-your-heels defense, surprised special teams, a lack of getting the ball to young playmakers, and so on.

Kind of ranty, but man what a game to lose!

If you can find a win there, you’re relying on irrelevant historical trends (Michigan State doesn’t win in Kinnick! Iowa’s won two in a row over Michigan! Iowa always plays one inexplicably good game!), the “Iowa plays better as an underdog” meme or blind faith.

Well, the guy who put $500 worth of blind faith on the Cardinals a month ago is laughing at that. While shopping for a corvette.

Yesterday was a bad loss. Inexcusable. But it isn’t our first, and it won’t be our last (even if we do hire Nick-Peterson-Saban-Halas. )

Iowa still has the talent (and a home date) and could go out and beat Michigan or MSU. We’ve done so in other years where we didn’t expect it. It can happen.

Fire all the coaches you want, but it is a very rare (and probably more expensive one than Ferentz) coach that avoids all the ankle-biter games AND sometimes upsets the favorites on his way to multiple conference titles. And that guy is probably covering his players’ asses while they get tattoos from drug dealers.

It just took him twelve years, not 3.

I love our players, I love our kids. Coker looked like an axe-murderer yesterday. McNutt is a once in a lifetime player. But Ferentz, while he has not made me stop caring about the kids, has made me stop caring about the TEAM. I’ll still watch every game this year, but I will be a shell, I’m not in love anymore.

I’m not saying I want Ferentz fired, we all remember the Tom Davis fiasco. But Ferentz brand football over the last 5 years has become predictable, infuriating, and borderline incompetent in terms of underestimating our opposition’s resolve. And for me, it becomes less fun to watch every year.

Bring on the Rise of the Franimal!