The
University of Iowa football team is currently 12-0. Below are a list of articles advocating for
the firing of Iowa’s head coach Kirk Ferentz:
- http://grantland.com/the-triangle/2015-college-football-preview-iowa-hawkeyes-kirk-ferentz/
- http://www.foxsports.com/college-football/story/iowa-hawkeyes-iowa-state-cyclones-kirk-ferentz-hot-seat-audible-clip-091015
- http://www.forbes.com/sites/chrissmith/2014/09/16/can-iowa-afford-to-fire-kirk-ferentz/
- http://www.sbnation.com/college-football/2013/5/30/4380056/kirk-ferentz-iowa-buyout-money-silly-why-why-why
- http://www.cbssports.com/collegefootball/writer/jon-solomon/25202663/is-kirk-ferentz-in-trouble-iowa-ticket-sales-decline-as-contract-looms
These
aren’t underground message boards or personal blogs, this is Grantland, Forbes,
CBS, SBNation, and FOX. They were
probably written by people with college degrees. Some of them were written in 2015 – like a
couple months ago.
Kirk
Ferentz is 127-85 over 17 seasons. A
normal season under Ferentz is better than 7-5; he has had a winning season 12
times in 17 seasons. They’ve been to 12
bowl games and gone 6-6 in those games. Why
were people clamoring for his job?
Because no one wants to average 7-5, because Kirk wasn’t winning Iowa
National Championships or even Big Ten Championships (he’s gotten two but it’s
been awhile).
I
have some serious beef with this. It’s
not just Iowa, its fans of every school that doesn’t win a championship. Somehow we convince ourselves that
consistently getting 7 wins is not good enough.
So we fire our coaches and head to the market.
There
are maybe 10-12 schools looking for a “Championship” coach, (IMO there are only
about 3 “Championship” coaches and none of them are ever in the market). The fan base is expecting some fantastic
hire, but there aren’t any fantastic hires available, so they hire the best
option and the fan base mocks the athletic director for hiring a lame
duck. The athletic director feels that
pressure and makes it known that the coach has 2-3 years in order to prove
himself. 2-3 years is absurdly short, so
under pressure the coach starts taking crazy risks, cuts corners with his
development plan, abuses his players, breaks NCAA rules, or gets lucky and
manages to put together a championship run: see Gene Chizik. In 2-3 years these coaches turn in a 4 win
season, a 6 win season, and a 5 win season then they get fired and the cycle
begins anew. 10 years later someone
brilliant journalism major writes an article about how the program has
floundered aimlessly for 10 years, of course it has you’ve gone through 4
coaches in that time!
I
love what Iowa did with Ferentz. I love
that the Iowa athletic director supported Ferentz through his 4 win
seasons. I love that in 2010 Iowa gave
him a ten year contract. Without the pressure
of a quick turnaround he had time to structure his program for the long
term. To be sure, in 2015 Iowa has
gotten lucky, they’ve racked up 12 wins, but it was patience that set them up
for luck.
http://www.sbnation.com/college-football/2015/11/30/9817910/mark-richt-fired-georgia-football-coaching-search
ReplyDelete