I am very biased but I think this is complete BS. A LOT of people on here and in the stands right now are because of Coach Mac and the Iowa kids he recruited. I can obviously give a lot of specifics but our record books prove my point. The failures in the end weren’t due to recruiting in Iowa. There were lots of misses on out of state kids. The Iowa kids and even Iowa walk ons helped fill the gaps made by out of state misses. I will never see a need or reason to criticize Mac.
Truth be told, your whole response is BS. Not because of any points you made, Because it had nothing to do with what I actually said.
It would probably help if you actually paid attention to what I said, instead of attempting to fit my words to your own preconceived notions.
I did
not say that “recruiting Iowa kids is bad”. What I said was that Mac recruited
too many of them. Not that hard to grasp.
Sure, the guys like Blythe, Bruns, Beaudet and Butler were good. And lots more like them. I’m damn happy to to have had them!
The problem was that he got too wrapped up in signing
more Iowans than Iowa did. Quantity over quality. Sure, lots off Cyclone fans were happy to have “bragging rights” on Signing Day.
Many of the failings of Mac’s latter offensive lines—which were putrid, from Seneca’s senior year on—were because he signed too many Iowa kids who not only never panned out, they never really had the tools, the athleticism, to do so in the first place.
That’s just one example. Mac’s best teams never had depth
anywhere. In part because he insisted on filling out his classes with borderline Iowa kids who didn’t really have a chance.
Matter of fact, late in his tenure, I was talking with a then-current player. An upperclassman from out of state. After we had happily talked football for a while, I thought to ask him why Mac had been signing so many Iowa kids.
After being forthcoming on a number of subjects, this one left the young man quiet. After a moment, he finally responded.
“We’re not supposed to talk about that.”
Huh. Not what I had expected to hear. And, I think, telling.
By the way—at the same time, Hayden Fry got caught up in the same “sign lots of Iowans than the other school” pissing contest. One reason why his last few teams weren’t all that good, either.
