Ya no kidding. It's just another tactic to try to discredit an article written about the success Iowa has had with recruiting underrated players. Just makes them look bitter.
Moneyball
- Thread starter dexterhawk
- Start date
Ya no kidding. It's just another tactic to try to discredit an article written about the success Iowa has had with recruiting underrated players. Just makes them look bitter.
Nick saben models his recruiting off of the approach that Juergen klinsman, Phil Jackson, and that gymnastic coach in west Des Moines follows. Equally accurate.
I think Kirk has done a great job evaluating not only the talent to bring in, but also the talent he has to compete against. He has done a remarkable job staying in the top half of a conference that most would consider the bottom half of the top conferences in the county.
This is not a slam, it's a compliment to what he's done. He's done just enough to stay the head coach of a major program as long as he has. That says a lot. ISU has had 3 coaches in that time and none of them have done enough to prove they really belong there. I would kill for Iowa's success in his tenure, no matter what conference we were in. Even though we lead the series in his tenure, I'd take what he's done at Iowa for anything we have so far.
This is not a slam, it's a compliment to what he's done. He's done just enough to stay the head coach of a major program as long as he has. That says a lot. ISU has had 3 coaches in that time and none of them have done enough to prove they really belong there. I would kill for Iowa's success in his tenure, no matter what conference we were in. Even though we lead the series in his tenure, I'd take what he's done at Iowa for anything we have so far.
I'm not going to say their approach hasn't worked...it's worked just fine. But the comparison to saber metrics or moneyball is just flat out wrong. Others in this thread have said that and they're right. I'd bet that FH uses way more advanced statistics than kf. Of course, evaluating transfers makes thing a little easier and more comparable in that area.
Haha come on man it was a comment made by a coach that was posted in the article. Who really cares how accurate it is? The point of the article was that Iowa takes a different approach in recruiting and it has worked well for them. You said so yourself. That's what the article was about so why waste time debating about the Oakland A's philosophy? It's a distraction from the real point of the article.
The title included Moneyball. Oh, Kirk tries to find the best talent available to him in close proximity? Novel concept. I wonder if Saban has thought of that.
Because the coach who was referenced in the article used Moneyball as an analogy. It gave the writer a clever title. Big deal. The article wasn't about the analogy. It was about Iowa's recruiting and development efforts. You haters just don't like to acknowledge that so instead you prefer to dissect the comparison.
Sure, Saban does that. But he's not usually looking at the guys who are going to be projects who need a couple years to excel in new positions, which Iowa has done a pretty significant amount of during Ferentz's tenure. Moving a high school QB to WR isn't uncommon at all, but Iowa has had success moving those guys to defense, too (Greenway and Micah Hyde are great examples of that). They've also had a pretty good amount of success with similar kids at TE/OL/LB (Dallas Clark was initially a linebacker after playing QB in high school; Robert Gallery and Bruce Nelson both came to Iowa as tight ends before moving to the offensive line).
I'd be curious to know how many above average programs commonly make those kinds of personnel moves to remain at least moderately successful. The Ohio States, Alabamas, etc. don't have to do that because they get blue-chip talent across the board.
The point of the Moneyball comparison isn't that Iowa uses sabermetrics to find hidden gems. It's just that Iowa has a pretty strong track record in seeing value in players that other programs don't see.
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Yeah, I GUESS we could say that FH uses a Moneyball method since he has built the program in large part on transfers that other programs either didn't want or undervalued. That would be just as stupid of a comparison. I am not taking anything away from what KF has done. And, I know that it was some assistant that said it. I just thought it was a dumb way to describe what they do in recruiting.
"Moneyball" is pretty widely accepted as a colloquial term for finding success with undervalued players. Most would simply take it at face value without spending 6 pages talking about how stupid the comparison is.