Featured Image: (Brian Ray/hawkeyesports.com)
I know what you’re all thinking.
“Good god, not another commentary on the Iowa offense again”…that’s kind of why I’m here, but you’ll see where I’m coming from.
I’ll start with the obvious, like Steve Martin in Roxanne: The Iowa offense is horrendous.
Many think it’s for one unifying reason, and that unifying reason is Brian Ferentz, especially after Iowa’s 12-10 loss to Minnesota on Saturday (won’t mention the worst call seen since Shawn Michaels put Bret Hart in the sharpshooter). However, there’s a level of nuance to this.
Yes, Brian Ferentz shoulders a lot of the blame, no one has ever denied that and if they have, they’re living in Oz. But, when you consider the rash of injuries Iowa’s had the last 2 season (which is more than I can ever remember in a 2-year span in the Ferentz era), offensive line recruiting classes that just haven’t panned out (that’s football), staff turnover (losing Derrick Foster, Tim Polasek and Ken O’Keefe) and the fact that the latter of those names mentioned in the previous parentheses seemingly lost his fastball on recruiting quarterbacks and wasn’t realized until after his retirement, there’s a mountain of things outside of the control of the offensive coordinator.
That brings us to where we are now, and many Hawkeye fans are ready to go rouge like Brigaider General Jack D. Ripper and drop an H-Bomb and blow everything up, some believing the notion that Ferentz refuses to change just to stick it to the fans and media, like Brigaider General Ripper thought the Soviets were fluoridating American water (I’ll be honest, I love watching the pundits lose their mind over the sorcery that is Iowa football).
But with a defense and special team units that are consistently top 10 in the nation. let’s slow down and look at things here, as we aren’t at risk of being locked up like Captain Lionel Mandrake.
First and foremost: for those that want Iowa to rid themselves of Kirk Ferentz and want to keep Phil Parker…that’s a pipe dream. When Kirk Ferentz’s time is here, Phil will be right behind him, lump it and make your minds up to it. We’ll circle back to the topic of the elder Ferentz in a moment
But here’s the question I pose to those who want Brian Ferentz fired: what in your mind makes you believe that firing him is going to bring a dramatic overhaul at how Iowa plays offense?
He is running the same offense that Ken O’Keefe got up off the mat in 1999, which Greg Davis overtook in 2012, which the eldest Ferentz son inherited in 2017. That’s nearly 25 years of pro-style, offensive line-centric, complimentary-based football?
Greg Davis coordinated one of the best offenses in the first decade of the new millennium at Texas in 2005, led by Vince Young, a young Jamaal Charles, and a bevy of receivers that got their cups of coffee in the NFL. The best he ever did at Iowa was 72nd, in 2015.
Now to those that have, what I think, is the more logical argument if you want change. What if you fire, or encourage a resignation from Kirk Ferentz?
Well, number one, Iowa needs to have hired Beth Goetz on a full-time basis by that point, and she still has the interim tag to her name, which would make it highly unlikely anyone is getting fired in any capacity.
Number two, if she is the full-time AD by season’s end, Hawkeye fans need to hope that she is a pragmatist and has a plan and interested party or parties in place. Need an example of what I mean by that? Four words: Nebraska. And. Bill. Callahan.
There’s a lot of talk about LeVar Woods becoming Kirk’s successor, and what I’ve seen and heard from and about LeVar, he has the charisma and the approach to be a head coach, and a successful one at that. But hiring someone that’s never been a head coach as a first-time head coach at a Power 5 school is a very high-risk, high-reward endeavor. Even Ferentz’s 3 years at Maine were critical to his success at Iowa.
Now, to stay true to the theme we’re going with here, you’re probably asking “who would be Dr. Strangelove?”
Well, I don’t think there is one in this story…yet. There’s no transplant that is some mad genius that will crack the code of solving Iowa’s offensive problems, despite many who claim to be geniuses and believe they have the answers without the experience of playing the game (not all of you are Mike Leach’s, there’s a reason there was only one of him)
But there is no Dr. Strangelove in this story yet, that will have the solution to the problem. Do I think there will be? Yes, whether the public knows it or not.
My question to the Iowa fanbase is this: if you push Brian Ferentz out like Major TJ “King” Kong riding the Hydrogen Bomb out of his B-52, are you certain that the Soviets haven’t implemented the doomsday device?
Because if that device goes off, and Kirk Ferentz leaves and his successor can’t replicate what Ferentz had done and Fry before him did…well the merry-go-round music starts now doesn’t it?
Colleagues of mine have suggested, respectfully and thoughtfully, that maybe it is time for Kirk Ferentz to step aside.
I don’t believe that time has come yet.
I do believe this is Brian Ferentz’s last season at offensive coordinator, as I believe he will leave on his own terms rather than sit around and let this contract goal buffoonery play out.
At the same time, I understand it looks like the definition of insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
The cliché goes “you can’t teach and old dog new tricks”. Kirk Ferentz has morphed into the old dog, but maybe there’s a couple tricks the old dogs had and hasn’t show us before.
As the title suggests, I, a long time ago, learned to stop worrying the about the offense and learned to embrace the ugliness. For better for worse, at least for the final 4 games of the regular season, try and do the same, because it is what this season is.
Just hopefully, there’s no Doomsday Device they forgot to warn us about.