I see you spent about 4,000 words parsing the Kirk Ferentz presser, Mr. State. That's fine. If you want to do so, however, please remember that you are doing so as an agent of BHGP, which means there are certain standards of journalistic integrity to which we hold ourselves [since when?--ed.].

In the future, please refrain from being so transparently biased in your choice of words to call attention to. The quote, with your emphasis:

Q:  What is your approach at quarterback? What do you want to see from Jake? Is it almost a healing process for him?

FERENTZ: I don't think so. He was a young guy who played a little young....I think given all of the circumstances last season, not that he couldn't have performed better, but we didn't have a lot of support out there. It probably would have been a better situation to have him out there with the 2002 offense that we had. It just didn't work out. I don't want to over-react, but with that being said, like every player on our team when you go back and look at the films, there are a lot of things that are correctable and things that we can do better. I think Jake would be right there with a lot of players and it will be important that he improves his performance and a lot of things that he can do better, footwork, reads, and what have you. The one thing that I was impressed with were the intangibles that he demonstrated consistently throughout the year. He is a guy who really works hard and is very serious about what he does. The questions is will this be the Matt Rogers story? I keep going back to that one because I was here in 1989 when Matt really struggled and again, a lot of similar circumstances I think. That story turned out pretty well and I am hoping that is the case, but we will have him compete with the other guys just like we do at every position.

Q: Could he be seriously pushed by anyone here now, like Stanzi or McNutt?

FERENTZ: We will give those guys that opportunity. It is like every position, outside of running back and cornerback where I think some newcomers are going to have to help us. Not necessarily start, but be in our two deep or three deep. It is really going to be difficult for a freshman quarterback to come in and play, but if they can then we will given them that opportunity. For the three guys on campus, it is their job to keep improving. It would have been nice to see them in December, but we didn't get that chance. It will be interesting to see how that goes and we will let them all compete this spring.

You, for some reason, interpreted the entire statement as a giant middle finger to the fans, because if there's anybody who's petty, vindictive, and stubborn, it's Kirk Ferentz. Right. Now, just for the sake of let's say intellectual curiosity, let's take a second look at his statements. Allow me to provide emphasis.

Q:  What is your approach at quarterback? What do you want to see from Jake? Is it almost a healing process for him?

FERENTZ: I don't think so. He was a young guy who played a little young....I think given all of the circumstances last season, not that he couldn't have performed better, but we didn't have a lot of support out there. It probably would have been a better situation to have him out there with the 2002 offense that we had. It just didn't work out. I don't want to over-react, but with that being said, like every player on our team when you go back and look at the films, there are a lot of things that are correctable and things that we can do better. I think Jake would be right there with a lot of players and it will be important that he improves his performance and a lot of things that he can do better, footwork, reads, and what have you. The one thing that I was impressed with were the intangibles that he demonstrated consistently throughout the year. He is a guy who really works hard and is very serious about what he does. The questions is will this be the Matt Rogers story? I keep going back to that one because I was here in 1989 when Matt really struggled and again, a lot of similar circumstances I think. That story turned out pretty well and I am hoping that is the case, but we will have him compete with the other guys just like we do at every position.

Q: Could he be seriously pushed by anyone here now, like Stanzi or McNutt?

FERENTZ: We will give those guys that opportunity. It is like every position, outside of running back and cornerback where I think some newcomers are going to have to help us. Not necessarily start, but be in our two deep or three deep. It is really going to be difficult for a freshman quarterback to come in and play, but if they can then we will given them that opportunity. For the three guys on campus, it is their job to keep improving. It would have been nice to see them in December, but we didn't get that chance. It will be interesting to see how that goes and we will let them all compete this spring.

The single most consistent message of those two answers is not "Jake Christensen is not going anywhere and I'm a big doodie-head," but "he must improve, and other guys are competing with him for the job." Period.

I'm not saying JC should be written in at #1 in pen, but neither is Ferentz. KF is merely acknowledging that the problems on offense included but went far beyond what Christensen did at QB.

(After the jump, I call HS on his crap, and rational debate ensues...)

Welcome to 2008, readers. From an athletic standpoint, 2007 sucked so hard that it took the last three months of '06 with it. There was scant good news, a metric shitload of bad news, and a horror show of a basketball season that's only getting worse.

Non-binding resolutions: they're not just for the Senate!

So in the spirit of the holiday, we'll be considering what we're looking forward to in 2008, and hearing from some old familiar faces as well.

Hawkeye State

1. Start eating better

2. Buy a new car

3. Take more road trips to Hawkeye away games

4. Renovate the main bathroom

5. Join Rockapella, search for Carmen Sandiego

Oops Pow Surprise

1. Stay in close touch with my family

2. Get a promotion at work

3. Visit Europe again, spend more than one day in Brussels

4. Find Jesus Christ*

JHC

1. Shower every day

2. Write every day

3. Do a triathlon

4. Get a book published

5. Learn to juggle bowling balls

Kirk Ferentz

1. Recruit kids who will not create their own gang

2. Cut down on the gum

3. Talk like a person and not a computerized help line

Jake Christensen

1. Knock a tenth of a second off my 40 time

2. Throw with my eyes open

3. Make Coach O'Keefe cut it out with the Good Games while I am in the shower

4. Learn receivers' names

Todd Lickliter

1. Stop referring to Seth Gorney as "The Mongoloid" to assistant coaches and my family

2. Review pros and cons of spending rest of season in drunken stupor

3. Get Barta to take Drake off next five schedules

4. Emotionally separate self from Butler job, no matter how far up the Top 25 the Dawgs get

5. Goddammit I miss them

Dominique Douglas

1. steal a million dollars

2. steal a hunnerd cars

3. steal tha empire state building

Dan Bohall

1. Win seven games in the Big Ten

2. Get starting position back

3. Shoot 50% from field

4. Finish "Bacardi Silver vs. Smirnoff Ice" thesis

5. Save up $$$ to get lower back tattoo

Ron Zook

1. BUY STIOCK IN RED BULL

2. LEARN HOW TO SPELL ARELIEAS

3. WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

4. KEEP ROLLLIN

Rey Maualuga

1. Maim

2. Kill

3. Kill again

*...on a household object, sell said object on eBay

Falcon 20, round-tripping Willow Run to CID.

(Again, our undying yet bittersweet thanks to Bellanca for posting this. --OPS)

[UPDATE: Bellanca's calling BS on the explanation, but Ferentz was apparently not on board.]

There's a few aspects of Iowa football that we fans would prefer not to talk about right now; chief among them is, oh, everything. So let's talk about Iowa's bowl chances for this season!

Amazingly, stunningly, unbelievably, Iowa's postseason hopes are not dead.

The Humanitarian Tire Bowl is fine!

Thanks to some incredible work from The Hawks Nest's own Cattlefeeder (may be a pseudonym), we can figure out exactly what Iowa needs to be invited to a terrible bowl at 6-6. There's lots to read (invaluable link is here), but here's the key portion:

Iowa goes bowling if all four of these things happen:

1. Washington beats Hawaii

2. Central Michigan beats Miami (OH)

3. Troy beats Florida Atlantic

4. The last available bowl bid is NOT the Las Vegas Bowl, which Iowa cannot attend due to finals conflicts.

We do not blame you one iota if you stopped reading that block quote after "Washington beats" and dismissed it as pure ridiculous fantasy. We did not say there was a good chance, we just said there's a chance.

Meanwhile, the UM and Iowa camps are issuing plausible claims of deniability on the Ferentz issue; MLive says Iowa hasn't granted permission to Michigan or anyone else to talk to Ferentz yet, as if it were a matter of the schools doing the grunt work. The search firm that delivered Todd Lickliter without certain blogging superstars catching a single whiff would like to  remind you what a luxury being discrete can be, after all.

The whole thing stinks, stinks, stinks like Ferentz is letting Michigan court him. To a point, it's understandable. To a point. But as Bellanca has so ably stated below, it's time for him to make the decision once and for all. He has, now, 24 hours.

Look. The rumors are all there. We're happy to note that MGoBlog was cited, albeit clumsily, by WHO last night; the link is dead, but the crux of the link was as such:

"I've sat on this a couple days waiting for some third-party corroboration and now I have it: Kirk Ferentz has been offered the Michigan job," wrote Brian Cook of the Wolverine blog, M-Go, which is considered both credible and reliable.

ESPN, are you taking notes?

Add to that this thread on HawkeyeLounge.com, which certainly smells believable. Nobody's calling BS, and there's none of that supreme confidence that usually accompanies a ruse. Obviously this rumor is far from verified, but the onus is now on Michigan and Iowa to start issuing confirmations and/or denials.

And Mark Farley may want to put his agent on high alert.

Got an inside tip? Feel like lying to the website? Think Pierre Pierce is taking over for Ferentz? Drop us a line at BlackHeartGoldPants at gmail dot com..

Um, maybe.

This move makes no sense and would make nobody happy. While Iowa fans would be ambivalent upon his departure, we'd start getting awfully nostalgic when Ferentz is winning his old familiar 9 games in Ann Arbor and Mark Farley's* putting the finishing touches on a 4-8 campaign. Meanwhile, Big Blue's been assuming for the past, oh, 12 months that the job will be going to a Michigan alumnus whose team just so happens to have been #1 for the longest amount of time this season.

Either way, there are way, way too many rumors circulating (nothing's been independently verified, so specifics are a no-go) for there to be nothing to the story. I still expect Captain Kirk to be on Iowa's sideline next year. Michigan must be very, very tempting to Ferentz, but nothing about his track record indicates that he would leave Iowa for another school in the conference--not even Michigan.

*You know Farley's getting hired if Ferentz leaves.

So I leave for a few days for a three-day turkey-induced coma, and I come back to a schizophrenic Bellanca watching the store and rumor confirmation from reliable sources:  Kirk Ferentz has apparently been offered the Michigan job.  And, for those of you who believe this is little more than innuendo, need I remind you mGoBlog doesn't have a history of making empty threats?*

Lloyd Carr made $1.2 million last year; Ferentz made more than twice as much.  In other words, any compensation package that would lure Captain Kirk away would cost Michigan $1.6 - 2.0 million more per year.  That means booster support is necessary to make the finances work, and all sources indicate those boosters would rather give that money to Les Miles (by the way, Miles made $1.8 million this season).  Throw in rumblings about coming improvements to the Big House, and it seems any decision by Bill Martin has to be made with the money men in mind.  And that decision does not appear to be Kirk Ferentz.

If mGoBlog is right, though, and the job has been offered to El Capitan, he's probably not going anywhere.  Let's take a look:

OPTION A

• Guaranteed employment without any real risk of termination
• $2.8M per year
• No pressure from the local media
• Coaching your son for the next 4-5 years
• Great facilities
• Your boss is spineless
• No in-state recruiting base
• Enough name recognition for good, but not great, out-of-state recruiting
• Restless fan base, but you created your own monster with that one

OPTION B

• Pressure-cooker employment, especially given the circumstances of your hiring and the fact that you are not Les Miles
• $2.8M per year or possibly less
• Increased pressure from local and national media
• Moving your family to a town commonly referred to as "a whore" by those in East Lansing
• Great facilities
• Your boss just jumped off a bridge for you and would probably cut you loose to save his own ass if things go south
• Solid in-state recruiting base (though you know how those Detroit kids can be, right Dominique?)
• Top-notch program; out-of-state recruiting is wide open
• Restless fan base who wants another guy (but you've been through that before)

Can you imagine Ferentz leaving Option A for Option B?  Neither can I.  So let's all take this in stride:  Michigan may or may not have offered the job to KF, but only under the most ridiculous of circumstances (certainly more ridiculous than the alleged booing of Adam Shada - and for the record I was there and didn't hear that) would he accept.  Deep breaths, people.  He'll be back.

* - To be fair, Brian has classified this as rumormongering, but he also has third-party confirmation, and mGoBlog wouldn't run this if it was one whisper from a dark corner.

Um, no.

[promoted from diaries.--JHC.]

I am Fake Bill Martin, and my first choice to replace Lloyd is obvious.  It's an Iowa guy, but not that Iowa guy.

Let's see now.  What do I want in a coach?

1.  Someone who beats the shit out of the teams he supposed to crush, every time, and plays tOSU tougher than any team in the country.  A guy who will take our talent and make us scary-tough.  

2.  A teacher.  Not some bloviating coattails-hanger like Weis, but the real deal.  A guy who has made something out of nothing.

3.  A guy who can say to an 18 year-old:  "You want to play in the NFL?  Let me tell you what it was like for me, coaching a Hall of Famer ..."

4.  A guy who has been down, very far down, and innovated, and worked, and created a dominant force that ... beat the shit out of Lloyd a few times.  A guy whose name gives people a little frisson of unpleasant, shameful memory, when his people drove over us like they were the truck, and we were the little orange cones.

5.  A guy Mary Sue can get behind.

6.  A guy I don't have to pay $3mm out of the gate.

7.  A guy who has been in the NFL so he will manage his staff like they are employees, not friends.

Who's this guy?

No, not Ferentz.  He just lost to Western Michigan, for chrissakes.  Who do they lose to next?  Oberlin?  The bloom is off that rose, though I suppose he'll still stand up in front of the lapdog Iowa press and issue those same old non-denial denials about our job and coyly say "that's not going to happen" or some shit, in order to get himself a new bubble over the indoor practice field.

But you're close.  The man I want worked for Ferentz, and candidly, Iowa has been on a downward slope since he left.  I am going to go after Joe Philbin.

Think about it.

Philbin has transformed Green Bay and Favre (who's playing like he's 28, not 38), in his first year as OC.  He'll be interviewed for an NFL head-coaching job, this year.  Maybe he'll get one.  He would be also a great hire for me at Michigan, because he is a proven developmental coach, with major Big Ten and NFL bona fides, a lineage working for a coach I respect (a little bit) (Ferentz) and at universities Coleman respects (Iowa, Harvard).  

Philbin couldn't get promoted at Iowa City.  Suckers.  Thanks, Kirk.  You got yourself a major O-wizard there, racking up 19 points a game this year when it takes 28 per to be competitive.

Did Joe Philbin think he could coach offense as well as his boss, KOK?  Who knows.  He worked for KOK previously at Allegheny, but then he was the OC at Harvard before moving to Iowa City.  In any event, he's answered the question this year, resoundingly.  He can coach an offense.  Ask Brett.  Brett either has found a new pharmacist, or Brett has a new O and coach who has his shit totally together.

Back in Iowa City, they have that nice man, Morgan, who was hired as the Iowa high school recruiting coordinator (there's an optimistic joining of terms), covering Philbin's former position.  They haven't had a dominant O-line since Philbin left.  They haven't developed a dominant lineman (i.e., the caliber of Gallery or Steinbach or Nelson) since Philbin left.  Basically, for five years they've lived off Philbin's memory.  Now they don't even have to convert walk-ons to O-linemen but their line was worse than ours this year, and ours sucked.  

They traded Philbin, in essence, for the head coach at IC West High; Philbin's career needs could not be satisfied in Iowa City.  But I can sure fix that in Ann Arbor.

I'm not sure this trade worked out for Iowa.  Sucks to be them.  Their line and their offense have never been the same.   2002 was the year Pete Carroll pointed to when he said Iowa once had an extraordinary O.  That was Philbin's last year.

All of my donor dudes in business are familiar with the middle managers who quietly carry entire organizations, and get the credit and comp due them only after they leave.  They're telling me to find that kind of guy.  

Who needs to crawl on his hands and knees to hire some megalomaniac like Miles?  Joe Philbin has done amazing things and everyone who bothers to examine the record will say I'm a fucking genius for hiring him.  And woe to any offensive lineman who doesn't buy in and start pounding his way downfield.  

Iowa was really stupid to let this guy go.  Always promote your best, never protect your friends.  How they think they're going to win in Iowa City without a Philbin-quality O-line is mysterious.

I am Fake Bill Martin, I can see the future, and it looks like Gallery, Nelson and Steinbach zone blocking right -- in the maize and blue.

One nice aspect of the Hawkeyes' "resurgence" (see: run of shitty opponents) is the media's newfound license to print fluff stories again. We don't take kindly to mindless articles when the Hawkeyes are two games below .500 and Alcoholic Daddy's feeling "surly," but now that Iowa's one listless MAC opponent away from Christmas in Phoenix, we've got room to breathe.

So it was fun, not grating, to read this article from supermegaexpert Eric Page about Ryan Donahue. Apparently the cannon-legged punter is a bit of a wacko:

Not that I’m shocked to hear that, kickers and punters in football are a bit like goalies in hockey or closers in baseball. They’re all a few fries short of a happy meal, a tree short of a forest. You get the idea. I guess Ferentz has had some run-ins with his punter off the field. He called him "a bit of a free spirit."  

"He’s got his ideas about things at times," Ferentz said. "Not that he tells me he does. I just judge what I observe. We’ve had some conferences and conversations. That can be a real good thing. He’s a strong-minded guy."

Ferentz didn’t get specific about what Donahue does that gets under his skin, saying only, "It’s nothing major, just little stuff that would annoy me."

Obviously, we're unsatisfied with that answer. How the heck does a punter annoy his coach off the field? Shanks are one thing, but we didn't even know coaches talked to their special teamers unless it was game day. We've got a couple ideas as to what Ferentz might be referring to, but we're just spitballin' here. Any guesses?

Are you hoping the Hawkeyes go to their seventh bowl in a row? Then the answer is simple: the Hawkeyes cannot lose again for the rest of the year. Yes, they're technically eligible for a bowl by going 2-1 against the rest of the schedule--a group that's 1/3 mediocre and 2/3 lousy. Unlike 2006, however, 6-6 doesn't get Iowa an Alamo Bowl; as a matter of fact, it probably leaves Iowa out of bowl contention entirely.

As far as wins go, Iowa is still 10th in the Big Ten at just four; only 1-8 Minnesota is worse. The other nine teams in the conference are just one win away from eligibility, and all (aside from MSU) have easy roads to the big six.

The biggest hurdle to a bowl bid, however, is the NCAA rule that all I-A teams with a winning record must be given a bid before any 6-6 teams can be admitted. It's a well-deserved rule, to be sure; though bowls are largely more a construct to generate money for the host cities than an indispensible facet of college football, there should be some measure of structure to a system that affords its teams 4-6 weeks of additional mandatory practice time for the season.

Why is that rule important? As of now, 72 of the 119 teams in Division I-A are over .500, and the Hawkeyes are not. If Iowa finishes 6-6, the only possible way they can even be considered for a bowl bid is if at least nine of the 28 five-win teams win only one game over the rest of the year. The odds of that are firmly stuck on "suck"*.

We'll have a bit more certainty over the next week or two, of course, but as it stands right now, 6-6 leaves Iowa at home this year. There's no simpler way to put it.

I'm certain that certain colleagues (see: both) would much rather see 5-7 and a coaching change than 7-5 and the same regime, but I'm of the firm belief that there's nothing worse for a program than sitting at home in December. Losing is caustic, awful, and horrible. If there's one program that missed a bowl, fired its coordinators, then returned to prominence, I'd love to see it. Iowa is fielding far, far too many young men under the age of 20 to be a great team, and there's literally nothing Ferentz and company can do about it at this point. The best thing that could happen to this nearly exclusive group of freshmen and sophomores is to practice for a bowl and keep working for another schedule without UM and OSU in 2008. They certainly do need to retain players at a far better rate than the 56% retention rate in place right now.

The "good" thing is that in these situations, the bad teams sort themselves out of the discussion with a few key losses. While it would be wonderful to see Iowa rip off a 4-game winning streak to end the regular season, right now they look more like last year's basketball team. Back in February, fans were riding the waves of fallacies and technicalities to lead themselves to believe that the Hawkeyes deserved a bid in the NCAA's if they finished third in the Big Ten. Luckily, Iowa lost at a truly putrid Penn State and sleptwalked through a first-round shellacking in the BTT, and the tournament discussion ended quite abruptly. Obviously, we hope the pattern of sub-mediocrity isn't repeated here, but our optimism remains, uh, guarded.

*again a guess, but a damned good one.

Ominously vague news from Ferentz's presser today:

Q: Is Cedric Everson in good standing?

FERENTZ: Well, that's pretty much about where he was Saturday, I guess. That's probably the best answer I could give you. He wasn't with us Saturday. Things haven't changed an awful lot.

Q: Is he practicing?

FERENTZ: No, huh uh. Didn't last week. I guess Thursday would have been his last day. He's not in good standing.

Q: Is he off the team?

FERENTZ: He's not in good standing.

This is, of course, terrible news. We have a long-standing appreciation for The Entertainer, and to hear things like "Thursday would have been his last day" on top of lurid rumors that--as much as I'm sure you've all heard them--we're not going to repeat, is troublesome. We hope nothing but the best for the young man, but he'll be awfully lucky if his head's not on a pike by the side of Hawkins Drive by Saturday.