In memoriam of Brian Ferentz as Iowa's OC

With Goetz at the helm, all of these nepotistical old men are in trouble at the TOE. Fran better hope for 20 wins this season or he'll be next come March
 
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So thinking about this more. Any chance that Kirk went to Beth and asked her to do this since he didn’t want to fire Brian? He’s gotta know that Brian’s in over his head. But you can’t fire your own son. So is it possible that she not only did this with his blessing, but at his direction?
 
It's not like KF has 10+ years of coaching in front of him and if he walks we'll be missing out on him. A few down years are to be expected when transitioning a new HC in, especially at a place like Iowa where we've had exactly 2 head coaches since the Carter Administration.
It will be fascinating to see how the changeover works out. Ferentz has been the anomaly...very long term, iron-fisted control over all aspects of the program. No doubt this has been successful, especially on churning out NFL players. But, how much of that was due to the almost military-like training program (which has brought its own set of well known issues with the S&C coach, etc.) that targets a very narrow set of players? Do they become just another BIG team like Illinois, Purdue, Indiana, etc. once the old coaching staff departs. The Ferentz type of situation simply doesn't play in today's environment...maybe they get lucky and hire the right staff...or maybe not.
 
So thinking about this more. Any chance that Kirk went to Beth and asked her to do this since he didn’t want to fire Brian? He’s gotta know that Brian’s in over his head. But you can’t fire your own son. So is it possible that she not only did this with his blessing, but at his direction?

My guess is he's been advised to step down as well and is trying to figure out when the best time is to make that announcement.
 
Hawk fans are an interesting bunch. I suppose we are too, but my friends went from “hey, our offense sucks but at least we are winning and having sell outs” to “Kirk is going to step down and we are getting Urban Meyer or Bob Stoops with all of our B10 money” literally in like a few hours. I just listen, don’t engage, then bring up what they said later. Kind of fun.
 
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It will be fascinating to see how the changeover works out. Ferentz has been the anomaly...very long term, iron-fisted control over all aspects of the program. No doubt this has been successful, especially on churning out NFL players. But, how much of that was due to the almost military-like training program (which has brought its own set of well known issues with the S&C coach, etc.) that targets a very narrow set of players? Do they become just another BIG team like Illinois, Purdue, Indiana, etc. once the old coaching staff departs. The Ferentz type of situation simply doesn't play in today's environment...maybe they get lucky and hire the right staff...or maybe not.
They’ve been “just another BIG team” for a long time, don’t kid yourself. It’s been OSU & Michigan at the top, PSU & Wisconsin next and then all the rest scrambled around for years.
 
So thinking about this more. Any chance that Kirk went to Beth and asked her to do this since he didn’t want to fire Brian? He’s gotta know that Brian’s in over his head. But you can’t fire your own son. So is it possible that she not only did this with his blessing, but at his direction?
No chance. Zero chance. Kirk likes handling all his business in house. This was an incredible power move from the iAD at Iowa. There was no chance Kirk was going to take any action, especially if Iowa continues to win. If anything, I think this could push KF to retire sooner rather than later so he doesn't have to deal with a new AD.
 
Whenever KF leaves, thats a sort of an inflection point. Hiring id always a crapshoot. Its hard to tell a Lance Liepold from a Ron Prince or Scott Frost.

Obviously ISU fans hope BG blows it and hires the next Frostie. But if she was good at hiring coaches at Ball St then probably her hiring process and instincts are good. (Unfortunately)

An aside. Read a study once abt how good programs fall into failure. So many advantages with being on top, its hard to fail. Yet it happens. The conclusion was, that it wasnt a bad hire after the great coach retired. It was the SECOND hire. So you can take a mulligan on one mistake, and deal with a couple bad years. But if you blow it again, now you have several years of struggle and youve lost all that strength and you are starting over.

So we have to hope that KF stays another year, and BG bolts to replace Gene Smith at OSU. And then Iowa brings in Gary Barta back as a consultant to make one last terrible hire.

And extend Frans contract until 2047.
 
No chance. Zero chance. Kirk likes handling all his business in house. This was an incredible power move from the iAD at Iowa. There was no chance Kirk was going to take any action, especially if Iowa continues to win. If anything, I think this could push KF to retire sooner rather than later so he doesn't have to deal with a new AD.


Agree with this. If the captain wanted Beth to take the arrows or have her as the "reason why".....this would have waited until the season finished. Not after a bad showing against Minnesota and with 4 games left.
 
No chance. Zero chance. Kirk likes handling all his business in house. This was an incredible power move from the iAD at Iowa. There was no chance Kirk was going to take any action, especially if Iowa continues to win. If anything, I think this could push KF to retire sooner rather than later so he doesn't have to deal with a new AD.
We'll see but I think the new AD (hopefully they lose the interim tag) combined with the new B1G which means more regular season west coast road trips and a much tougher schedule will be enough for KF to hang 'em up.
 
So thinking about this more. Any chance that Kirk went to Beth and asked her to do this since he didn’t want to fire Brian? He’s gotta know that Brian’s in over his head. But you can’t fire your own son. So is it possible that she not only did this with his blessing, but at his direction?
I'm hearing the opposite and that he isn't a happy camper with the way it went down.
 
I mean, you can “advise” Kirk to step down all you want, but with that $6 million buyout, he’s leaving when he wants to, not when anyone else wants him to.
College coaching contracts have got to stop with these ridiculous buyouts. KF has made probably close to $100 million coaching the Hawks now. If he was fired today, he would get another $42 million.

That is absurd but that is also how college coaching contracts work. All college coaches have to have at least five years left on their contract at all times in order to recruit, so every college coach will always have a super high buyout at these astronomical contracts.
 
We'll see but I think the new AD (hopefully they lose the interim tag) combined with the new B1G which means more regular season west coast road trips and a much tougher schedule will be enough for KF to hang 'em up.
But is that what most Hawk fans want, an interim AD pushing out the school's most successful and popular coach of all time? It might be the right thing to do, but I can see a bunch of fans being real upset about it.
 
So thinking about this more. Any chance that Kirk went to Beth and asked her to do this since he didn’t want to fire Brian? He’s gotta know that Brian’s in over his head. But you can’t fire your own son. So is it possible that she not only did this with his blessing, but at his direction?
When you're a boss, you need to fire people, even though it sucks. Otherwise you shouldn't be in that position.
 
I'm hearing the opposite and that he isn't a happy camper with the way it went down.
Freerents had to be hoping that EIU could win out, get to the championship game and a bowl game to bring his son back. He would use his good will with the fan base, the injuries and the invalid fair catch to give his son another shot.

"Ya, we did not reach the scoring goal but we won 9 games and went to the championship game"
 
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College coaching contracts have got to stop with these ridiculous buyouts. KF has made probably close to $100 million coaching the Hawks now. If he was fired today, he would get another $42 million.

That is absurd but that is also how college coaching contracts work. All college coaches have to have at least five years left on their contract at all times in order to recruit, so every college coach will always have a super high buyout at these astronomical contracts.
So Iowa is going to go with the Nebraska strategy? You don't have a real program if you aren't paying multiple coaches.
 
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