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ISU Fball Head Coaches

CoachHines3 said:
its v. sad that McCarney is considered one of the greatest of all time coaches at iowa state with a 39% winning %.

that just how sad the history of iowa state football is
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I really think its more fair to throw away the first season(s) that it takes for a coach to get established. For Mac, he brought this program out of the damn bottom of the cellar. Just an awful program before he got here. I'd throw out his 2-10, 1-10, and 3-8 seasons he started with. That's a 6-28 record he really shouldn't get judged for.

edit: that gives Dan a 50-57 record and 47% win pct. Not lighting the world on fire, but a lot closer to the job he did

Same with Campbell. Do we really think his 3-9 season (or really, his 1-8 start to the year) is indicative of his coaching ability?

Some places you can walk in and win 7+ games the first year based on talent alone. We have never been that way
 
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I remember some of the crazy special teams trick plays Criner did on the 80’s.

One that sticks out to me (and I’m sure it was Criner not Walden…or both?!) they would line up for a regular kick off and kick a sort of soft line drive to the sideline past 10 yards and a leaping Cyclone would be there to catch it. Brilliant.

Criner had two high caliber QBs in David Archer and Alex Espinoza.

QB Alex Espinoza. I remember writing him a letter for an elementary school project asking if he could visit my school….at the time 4 hours away from Ames.
He wrote me back with a signed picture respectfully declining. LOL.
Where the hell is that picture???

Tracy Henderson was my favorite player. Great WR. But as it turns out he was dismissed from the team. He gave me his wrist bands after a 14-14 tie at Mizzou.

Walden continues the trend of trick plays. He certainly ran the Fumblerooski.

Remember also going to Mizzou in 1988 for a 21-3 win and then watching the Kirk Gibson World Series game on a 19 inch black and white TV with rabbit ears on the way home.

Of course 1992 he beat No. 7 Nebraska with a 3rd string QB.

I believe the goal post went down Lincoln Way after that game.

I’ll leave out all of the beat downs that Fry, Switzer, and Osborne gave us. But the win in 92 makes it a little better.

Walden also recruited the great Troy Davis, Todd Doxzon, Craig Branch among others.

Remembering some good times with those two as coaches. Shaped me as a Cyclone fan in my formative years!

Go Cyclones!
 
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CMC is the man! He has taken this program to places no one thought possible. I feel this is shown best in the fact we now can compete and beat any program on our schedule. Forever that was not the case. Before CMC, there were always programs we had 0% chance of beating. Often those games resulted in an embarrassing blow out.
 
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Billups06 said:
Didn't ISU have penalties/sanctions stemming from recruiting violations under the Criner staff (ultimately led to his firing)?

Edit: Simple search says they lost scholarships and put on probation for 2 years. Thought it was harsher than that and what ultimately lead to Walden's demise. Looks to have played a factor though.
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In Walden's first four years, according to the interwebs, ISU had 57, 61, 63, and 67 scholarship players as a result of the NCAA sanctions/probation combined with overall NCAA scholarship reductions going into effect in 1988. That seems pretty harsh.

Walden still managed a winning season in his third year (1989) with reduced scholarships, terrible facilities and an anti-sports administration that in particular didn't like him. I'm not really sure why he turned down the Arizona job after the 1989 season...maybe there were some rumblings that Gordon Eaton was about to leave ISU, but Walden really didn't fare much better under Jischke. Max Urick was really Walden's only ally, and Max bailed for KSU after the Steve Lester situation.
 
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danvillecyclone said:
I remember some of the crazy special teams trick plays Criner did on the 80’s.

One that sticks out to me (and I’m sure it was Criner not Walden…or both?!) they would line up for a regular kick off and kick a sort of soft line drive to the sideline past 10 yards and a leaping Cyclone would be there to catch it. Brilliant.

Criner had two high caliber QBs in David Archer and Alex Espinoza.

QB Alex Espinoza. I remember writing him a letter for an elementary school project asking if he could visit my school….at the time 4 hours away from Ames.
He wrote me back with a signed picture respectfully declining. LOL.
Where the hell is that picture???

Tracy Henderson was my favorite player. Great WR. But as it turns out he was dismissed from the team. He gave me his wrist bands after a 14-14 tie at Mizzou.

Walden continues the trend of trick plays. He certainly ran the Fumblerooski.

Remember also going to Mizzou in 1988 for a 21-3 win and then watching the Kirk Gibson World Series game on a 19 inch black and white TV with rabbit ears on the way home.

Of course 1992 he beat No. 7 Nebraska with a 3rd string QB.

I believe the goal post went down Lincoln Way after that game.

I’ll leave out all of the beat downs that Fry, Switzer, and Osborne gave us. But the win in 92 makes it a little better.

Walden also recruited the great Troy Davis, Todd Doxzon, Craig Branch among others.

Remembering some good times with those two as coaches. Shaped me as a Cyclone fan in my formative years!

Go Cyclones!
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Walden was the only Coach effective in not allowing Troy Davis rushing yards. Kept him on the bench. Best player on the team.
 
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Hammerschlagen said:
I really think its more fair to throw away the first season(s) that it takes for a coach to get established. For Mac, he brought this program out of the damn bottom of the cellar. Just an awful program before he got here. I'd throw out his 2-10, 1-10, and 3-8 seasons he started with. That's a 6-28 record he really shouldn't get judged for.

edit: that gives Dan a 50-57 record and 47% win pct. Not lighting the world on fire, but a lot closer to the job he did

Same with Campbell. Do we really think his 3-9 season (or really, his 1-8 start to the year) is indicative of his coaching ability?

Some places you can walk in and win 7+ games the first year based on talent alone. We have never been that way
Click to expand...
Throw out the first three seasons? I think that's being overly generous. Walden had a winning record in year 3 under bad conditions. Walden had reduced scholarships, a program on probation, terrible facilities, and an anti-athletic administration. McCarney at least had a full compliment of scholarships to give out, administration support for athletics was starting to come around, and Gene Smith basically bankrupted the AD to build football facilities for McCarney. 6 years to get a winning season is pretty darn long.

McCarney was a personable guy, a great motivational public speaker, an Iowa boy, and people liked him. His public persona was the complete opposite of Walden. That, and being and Iowa boy, probably helped him survive the first five years. As far as the football coaching...his record is what it is.
 
McCarney was also a new head coach learning his way. You can’t discount the beginning. He made mistakes too.
 
pulse said:
McCarney was also a new head coach learning his way. You can’t discount the beginning. He made mistakes too.
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Walden left McCarney the best running back in the country which helped buy him some additional time during those really bad first 3 years. McCarney built the foundation. Without his longevity and decent success you would have been what Kansas was for the last 15 years---2-3 years of crappy coaches until you finally lucked out with a good one. Chizik came in and was mostly worthless, but did get some good players. Rhoads came in and showed for the first time that Iowa State could pull off the big upset and for the first time in my life, Iowa State could actually beat legit good teams (with the exception of McCarney against Iowa). And Campbell has come in and put together a run of good seasons and big wins that have been pretty amazing. I think part of the reason why fans were so worked up about last year and this year with Campbell is that from mid 2017 to 2021, we all legit thought Iowa State COULD win every game. And when they didn't, we thought that they'd bounce back. And I don't know if we'd ever had that feeling before.
 
I was a student during the Duncan and Criner years. I don’t know how much other schools were cheating, but ISU football was over the top. Alex Espinosa cruised campus in a red Corvette. People don’t believe this, but may I be struck down where I stand if untrue, I saw Dwayne Crutchfield driving a Winnebago RV on Welch Ave going towards the Towers, with a significant amount of “company”. Good times, but not for poor Jim Walden, who paid the price for prior transgressions.
 
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alarson said:
Nah, he was done either way IMO. That just sped up the announcement by a week, firing him after KSU instead of after the last game.

Maybe if he'd gotten the W at KSU and at WVU they mightve been able to sell improvement off 5 wins, but 4 wouldve been a stretch. The fanbase was checked out.
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When ISU missed the FG to beat/tie Toledo (likely) because they didn't center the ball on the hashes, I was officially checked out on Rhoads. Perhaps the kicker had a preferred hash mark though?

Through 2012 he was basically .500 and .500ish against the Big12 Texas schools. Really never recovered from the graduating class after 2012 season. I think that led to the frustration for many fans with Rhoads, since we got a taste of some success but never took that next step up the ladder, and we'd have to sit through some severe ass kickings every year.

Campbell has had his ups and downs. What I really appreciate is that in most games we know ISU is likely going to have a shot to win. Rhoads got thumped in some of his bowl seasons by middle of the pack teams.
 
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acoustimac said:
The biggest I remember was mismanaging overtime against Wyoming. It was as if he had no clue about OT strategy.
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I remember driving home from that game still in disbelief, and hearing that Princess Diana was in a terrible car accident only to learn the next morning she died.
 
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pulse said:
That was what immediately popped in my mind too. I remember everyone saying what are you doing?
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To be fair that was the first college football regular season overtime game ever… still most fans knew enough to take the ball 2nd. That was a painful loss.
 
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iccyfan said:
I was a student during the Duncan and Criner years. I don’t know how much other schools were cheating, but ISU football was over the top. Alex Espinosa cruised campus in a red Corvette. People don’t believe this, but may I be struck down where I stand if untrue, I saw Dwayne Crutchfield driving a Winnebago RV on Welch Ave going towards the Towers, with a significant amount of “company”. Good times, but not for poor Jim Walden, who paid the price for prior transgressions.
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I thought Dwayne was driving a Lincoln Continental? Now I wonder who was offering me a ride to Towers in one that I graciously declined. One of the water fountains in Storms was out of commission for quite a while, rumored to have been removed from the wall and pipes by a football player.
 
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