2022 Football post mortem/looking forward

[WastedTalent]

My only thought after today is that people really need to temper themselves on insisting on huge contract extensions and raises for coaches after big wins. Two years ago any one of us would have happily made Matt Campbell coach for life. Two years later, we look as bad as when he took the job, and the problems that have plagued his teams have not improved after seven full seasons on the job.

Now, don't overinterpret that. Campbell's job isn't in danger right now, nor should it be. But this is two severely underperforming seasons in a row. One more and his seat should be warm. Two more and it should be hot.

The stakes are simply too high to anchor ourselves to coaches with huge contracts and expensive buyouts. Hope some major changes are coming this offseason.

The problem with that is a school like Iowa St can not afford to not try to lock up a successful coach. If JP doesn't give MC an extension, and raise the buyout, then there's a good chance he's gone. It's a tough position to be in.
Unless you want to be willing to hire new coaches more frequently.

 

[Die4Cy]

Athletic directors are forever negotiating against themselves. Who was ever angling to take Jimbo Fisher from A&M? Or Ferentz from Iowa, to justify all his raises and extensions?

I understand the impulse - the guy gets a good season or a couple big wins under his belt, and you feel like you have to lock him up. But this is an insanely fickle business, and yesterday's great decision is tomorrow's albatross.

Coaches always get the extension and big raise based on projection they will continue to perform at least as good as they are in that moment in time. They always argue that the deal is necessary to keep the team on its trajectory.

It's why I can't ever get mad at fans for griping when they don't get it done.

 

[joefrog]

Unprecedented turnaround? Collapse?
That's pretty dramatic. He started with worse here, and was worse his first year. One bad season after 5 decent ones is hardly a collapse.

His first year offense had more talent and was more fun to watch than this one in year 7 with all CMC's players.

 

[Trice]

The problem with that is a school like Iowa St can not afford to not try to lock up a successful coach. If JP doesn't give MC an extension, and raise the buyout, then there's a good chance he's gone. It's a tough position to be in.
Unless you want to be willing to hire new coaches more frequently.

I get what you're saying, but you're never truly "locking up" a coach anyway. These contracts are 100% one-sided - if a coach wants to leave, he's going and nobody's going to force him to stay.

Is a coach really going to leave if his contract is six more years instead of eight? We'll never know, because no AD has ever taken that chance.

 

[Trice]

Unprecedented turnaround? Collapse?
That's pretty dramatic. He started with worse here, and was worse his first year. One bad season after 5 decent ones is hardly a collapse.

Two bad seasons. Yes, last year was bad relative to expectations. Sorry, but if you're going to give Campbell credit for recruiting all this talent then you have to hold him accountable for its underachievement.

 

[joefrog]

Definitely a disappointment, but still 7 regular season wins, and 5th straight bowl in the coach's 6th year.

Oddly, the 2 games that should have absolutely been wins last year, Tech and WVU, were because the defense was not ready. Win those and it's 9 or 10 wins. Heacock came out and was undoubtedly better this year. Let's see what next year brings.

That was CampbellBall in action.

Blitz, pressure, and confuse in the first half?

Nah, let the QBs get comfy and find a rhythm.

 

[Big_Sill]

Bruns is a program guy. Surprised to see him so outspoken.

Every week I guess. I can 100% confirm for you that Ben is NOT a program guy.

 

[simply1]

Bruns is a program guy. Surprised to see him so outspoken.

You haven’t listened to his podcasts I guess.

 

[LtRaczack]

Not going to happen CMC will NEVER EVER FIRE HIS BUDDIES!!

CMC meeting with AD Monday to discuss pay increases and full autonomy with hiring/retention of all coaches to be at his discretion. His bargaining posture is based on the following points:
1. No one else will coach at Iowa State.
2. No one else could possibly win four games in a season.
3. The contract will include a provisional attempt to increase the offensive playbook from 5 plays to 7 plays. However, abiding by this is optional due to points 1 and 2 above.

 

[LtRaczack]

Campbell is stubborn and doesn’t learn well from his mistakes. Kinda concerned he’s taken the Paul Rhoads path.

Hires Scott Frost as run from shotgun coordinator, doubles as assistant special teams analyst. Frost becomes fall guy in event of offense and ST miscues next year. That buys Campbell another year before the seat gets warm.

 

[demoncore1031]

does Hanika have a year of eligibility left? I was impressed with him this year.

 

[BCClone]

I'm not gonna be an ******* and start guessing names, but I will say that I expect those people to be pretty obvious when December 5th hits

I would say not all will be.

 

[BCClone]

Campbell is stubborn and doesn’t learn well from his mistakes. Kinda concerned he’s taken the Paul Rhoads path.

Paul’s problem was he was changing staff on the Offense non stop. Changing the scheme every year. Sam had 3 or 4 different OCs the time he started here.

 

[WastedTalent]

His first year offense had more talent and was more fun to watch than this one in year 7 with all CMC's players.

Debatable. Defense was not good.
And even if that is the case, I think it's expected a program like Iowa St is going to have a down year once in awhile. If Iowa St progressively got better every season, then we'd be expecting national championships every year. Imo, we were 2 wins short of acceptable last season, and 2 wins short this year, not 4 or 5 like some think.

Don't get me wrong, this season sucked, but it's far from so bad that you pull the plug on the program and start over.

 

[bgprest]

The win over Iowa looms even larger now…

After all, it was 25% of our season’s victories.

 

[cyclone1209]

Need a new offensive line coach. I know many on here will say the whole offensive staff needs to go, but I think it’s hard to judge with how bad the OL unit has been. In previous seasons, other position groups haven’t been bad, so I don’t think those coaches are a problem.

I wouldn’t be sad if Manning left, but part of me wonders if the playbook was limited due to how bad the OL was.

Another thing we need to do, if Campbell is going to continue to talk about winning in the margins, I think more practice time needs to be spent on the fundamentals. That’s how Iowa pulls out good seasons even when they suck. Players, in any sport, that are great at fundamentals will be average at worst.

Well you bring up some interesting points. I think an important consideration is if Campbell does in fact let Manning+Meyers / or some combination of offensive staff guys hit the road, and then hires new ones - does he actually give them the autonomy to run their own offense? I am worried Campbell could be a little kirk like and try to have too much say in it. The best people in the sport delegate - I don't think Saban or Brian Kelly or Dabo for instance demand that their OC run a specific group of sets.

Also - I think Manning should be canned because he continued to run predicatble, ineffective stuff.

One thing that made me drop my coffee almost was listening to Bruns talk about how we would always motion pre snap Jared Rus the fullback from one side to the other, (then the opposing team's safety sneaks up into the box), and we run to Rus' side and boom we have another run play for no gain when the safety knows what we are doing pre snap.

We don't need to reinvent the wheel on offense, we don't need the best innovator since Bill Bellicheck - but my God we need to be more creative than what we have seen in 2022. This O was worse than Robert McFarland/Chizik offenses, and that's saying something.

 

[TheJackWePack5]

We will have a great defense again in 2023, it just depends on how bad we suck on offense and special teams again that will determine if we win 3 or 7 games.

Oh and cutting back on turnovers and penalties would probably help. The “margins”.

 

[cyclone1209]

I'm not sure who's obviously not bought in. But I haven't been at the games to see how players interact, etc.

Imo just an observation but it seemed like last year there was a bit of a disconnect.

Good for Hanika to speak up though.

Who hasn't bought in? I'll start with several offensive lineman starters and Jaylin Noel. The OL looked disinterested in most big 12 games this year and had zero attitude/effort. Noel just moping around after plenty of mistakes this year.

This winter spring could see some guys get asked to leave and I feel it could be an addition by subtraction moment. The gap between Iowa State's offense and the middle of the pack big 12 offense isn't a mile talent wise, but it is a mile wide from an effort and execution standpoint.

 

[WartburgClone]

Am I still an idiot for thinking the Kansas game was a bad omen?

 

[Dannynoonan]

My thoughts/concerns-
I had someone tell me how much weight Dekkers lost and the football office was concerned about not eating well. I dismissed it as made up drama, stupid, whatever, but he certainly didn’t get better as the season went on. Maybe it’s poor qb coaching, passing game too complicated, or he is/was feeling too much pressure.

Sometimes programs hire an outside person to dive into find what’s wrong and give them a report- it’s easier to hear an unbiased critique. I think Campbell needs this.

Remember that ISU lost a highly rated kicker very very late in recruiting last year.

New QB coach, OL coach, hire a ST coach for sure. OC would be great too; but Campbell won’t do this. Hit the portal HARD for OL, receiver, and kicker.

Which is more important now? Donating to the We Will, donating to football club, or buying season tickets?!?!