I woke up this morning feeling angry. Justifiably so, I believe. My boss hates me, and I’m none too fond of my boss, either. The coffee machine wasn’t working, so I had to commute to work sans caffeine. So I had to stop for coffee, but as soon as I get into work, my boss (the one for whom the dislike is mutual) demands a meeting. By the time I get back to my desk, my coffee is now slightly cooler than lukewarm. And I’m even angrier about Saturday. I’ve taken four days to process that hot steaming pile of garbage and did what any normal Hawkeye fan should do: I found the data to support my pessimism.
I started by trying to decide who was more to blame for the dumpster fire I was forced to witness against the Bison. I wanted to blame Wadley for his dropped pass, but the only bright spot on offense, Matt Vandeberg, dropped a pass, too. And if MVB gets one mulligan, so does Wadley. I mean, he didn’t even fumble the ball once in his four carries. I wanted to blame the offensive line. But only 60% of them were there, and it’s hard to call yourself a line with only three starters, almost all of whom were walk-ons. I tried to blame Desmond King and Greg Mabin, but then I remembered that the secondary was getting pretty tired after having to chase down Bison running backs the whole game. Then it hit me, blame the one person whose fault it always is: the quarterback!
C.J. Beathard may have been our savior last season, and he may have found a way to lead us to dominating wins against Miami (OH) and Iowa State. But against a herd of Bison, he was not great. I recalled the moment when he was forced out of the game by a hard hit to the shoulder and Nathan Stanley, true freshman, trotted out onto the field like a knight in shining football pads!
His throw to George Kittle was magnificent. Heisman-like, even. Remembering that moment is the only saving grace from this morning. It inspired me to look deeply at Iowa’s two quarterbacks and see, once and for all, with no room for argument or disagreement, which one deserves to be starting against Rutgers to give us the best chance of winning. And as the great John Madden taught us, the team that scores more points is probably going to win. So that’s how we’re going to determine the outcome of the Iowa QB Thunderdome.
This graph is pretty clear: Iowa scores more points per passing attempt with Nathan Stanley than with C.J. Beathard at the helm. In last weekend’s trash heap of a game, Stanley threw 2 passes, C.J.B. threw 22. If you divided Iowa’s 21 points by those pass attempt numbers, Nathan Stanley was worth 10.5 points for each time he even attempted a pass in the game while C.J. could only muster a little under 2 point per pass attempt. Case closed. Start Stanley. It’s not even close. I didn’t even need to mention the fact that Stanley is averaging 1.1 yards more per pass than Beathard.
But that’s not the most disturbing part of all of this. Nathan Stanley has spent only 3 games under Greg Davis and Kirk Ferentz and over those three games, his points per attempt have plummeted from 45 per attempt to 10.5. Ferentz and Davis are QB-killers! Honestly, every one of Iowa’s QB recruits should look at this disconcerting and alarming trend. Just imagine how good Vince Young or Colt McCoy would have been if they had never had to endure Greg Davis’ tutelage! We need to right this ship immediately, fire Ferentz and Davis, and immediately hire a newer, younger, hotter coach. P.J. Fleck is spoken for, right now, so I took the liberty of perusing some football coach resumes on Indeed. After only 5 minutes, I was able to find a fantastic candidate.
This guy is a true up-and-comer. He’s just landed his first coaching job, so people don’t even know about him yet, which is to our advantage. Just look at the first few lines. The guy can multi-task! No more Kirk Ferentz bumbling through the “difficult” job of fundraising for facilities and coaching an FBS football program simultaneously. This gentleman is not just a coach either. He even played professional football from 2015 to 2016. He is able to lift over 50 lbs., so he will be able to help out in the weight room with Coach Doyle. He can probably even teach Doyle a thing or two about strength and conditioning. What’s even more important is that he has experience in nutrition, which means Iowa players won’t miss a step when trying to maintain those weight goals. And remember how the Kinnick experience just doesn’t measure up when you compare it to “rowing the boat” at Western Michigan, or “jumping around” at Camp Randall? Not to worry, this fine candidate has experience as an event specialist, and can create a fun atmosphere. But the biggest advantage comes in recruiting. Having spent time in Australia playing football, he can open up some international recruiting pipelines. Punting is winning, and Australia has lots of rugby players specializing in the rugby punt. I see a very bright future with Iowa recruiting out of the nearly untouched Land Down Under.
There’s only one obstacle left in the way of Hawkeye greatness: Gary Barta. He holds the keys to the kingdom and the athletic department coffers. But is he really qualified? His most recent decision was the one to give Ferentz a $500,000 raise and extend his contract through the year 2026. He could easily have taken that opportunity to start looking through some of the resumes posted on Indeed or CareerBuilder to find a replacement. How hard can it really be to find somebody willing to coach football at Iowa for nearly 20 years, but who has head coaching experience and NFL coaching experience, ties to Iowa City, understands player development, can get players ready for the NFL, and knows how to win, graduate, and do it right? Barta could have found somebody that qualified for half of what he’s paying Ferentz right now and spent the rest hiring somebody to help him understand contracts and negotiation. The fact is, we can’t afford to have somebody who is as irresponsible with university funds as Barta clearly is. And if President Harry S. Truman were Iowa’s Athletics Director he would say “The buck stops here.” In the end, this whole landfill of a situation is all on Gary Barta. So while we fire Ferentz and Davis, let’s fire Barta. We can even charter a private cruise for the two of them as a retirement gift... and as a way to get them as far away from Iowa City and Kinnick Stadium as possible.
Let’s make Iowa great again! FIRE BARTA, FIRE FERENTZ, BENCH BEATHARD
[Editor’s note: No, this is not real. Yes, we’re poking fun at both our comment section and comment sections everywhere. This is satire, okay? I know most of you will get this, but for the 3%...]