I do not remember anyone saying that about Chizik, we were excited about the quality of recruits he was bringing in, and he was 1-1 vs Iowa, and he was only their 2 years before he left. We really will never know if he would have turned ISU around or not. Rhoads I would agree with, the first few years, it looked like ISU had turned the corner, what few realized was that PR was playing with chizik's recruits and once those kids were gone, his recruiting sucked.
I remember walking out of the stadium after we went for two and faked the extra point against Nebraska, we all felt like it was a great idea, the kid was wide open, and we thought great things are ahead for ISU. Afterward we started wondering, why was the punter the guy that throw the pass instead of a backup QB as the holder. To me, that is when I started to wonder about Rhoads.