Wednesday January 06, 2010

More Than One Way To Skin A Cat

More Than One Way To Skin A Cat
On the way to last year’s Gator Bowl I had stopped to get gas somewhere on I-95. At one of the pumps I struck up a conversation with an Iowa fan who was on his way to see his Hawkeyes play South Carolina in the Outback Bowl.

The Iowa fan was interested in asking me about the Gamecocks but I snuck in a few Iowa questions. I was fascinated to hear more about their program and their resurgence and learned something very interesting.

Kirk Ferentz was named the head coach in 1999 and went 1-10 overall and 0-8 in the Big Ten in his first year. He followed that up with a 3-9 campaign but all three wins came in the conference. The Hawkeyes went bowling the third year with a 7-5 record then won 31 games over the next three years. Iowa went 11-2, 10-3 and 10-2 in that first great run under Ferentz including a 20-4 mark in the Big 10. Iowa had it rolling and the Hawkeyes won a share of the Big Ten title in 2002 and 2004 during that great three year stretch.

Just when they had it rolling the Hawkeyes took a major step backwards. In 2005 they started a three year stretch that included 7-5, 6-7 and 6-6 records.

Amazingly, Ferentz turned it around again and the last two seasons they went 9-4 and 11-2.

I have seen a coach take over a program and turn it around but few times have I seen a coach turn it around, then lose it only to turn it around a second time.

So I asked the Iowa fan how did they lose all of the momentum and then build the program back again. I found his answer very interesting. The fan said that Ferentz could not out recruit Nebraska, Ohio State and Michigan on the blue chip prospects in the region so they went out and scouted and evaluated in an attempt to find football players instead of athletes. He said once they went on that great run they started recruiting higher profile players and got away from their original plan. He said it was natural progression to fall in love with the four and five star players that they all of the sudden were attracting but the players were not working like the previous players.

The Iowa fan said the staff got away from their identity. The players were not as coachable. They did not watch as much film. They did not work as hard. Some players got more concerned about their NFL careers than their Hawkeye career. The team first concept was lost.

So Ferentz and his staff decided to go back to what got them to the top of the league according to this fan. He decided that they were going to pay less attention to reputations and more attention to finding football players.

I watched Iowa last night and saw a physical football team that played smart and executed their assignments. I did not see a bunch of missed tackles. I did not see a lot of penalties. I did not see a bunch of bone-headed plays. I did not see selfish players. I just saw a team that blocked and tackled. The only junior that had a chance to turn pro decided before the Orange Bowl that he was coming back. I saw fundamentals.

I am going to watch Texas and Alabama Thursday night and that game will be different because that will be a bunch of five star studs flying around the football. It will be an NFL combine before the actual NFL combine. Texas and Alabama are better than Iowa because they have better players because they have recruited better players.

I am a recruiting guy. I love paying attention to stars and recruiting rankings. And if given a choice, I would rather be Texas and Alabama instead of Iowa. But let’s be honest, how many schools can recruit like the Horns and Crimson Tide?

It is refreshing to see a team do it another way. It is fun watching text book blocking techniques. It is a breath of fresh air to see players make plays because they are in position to make the play instead of running themselves out of a play because they were trying to do too much.

My point is that there is more than one way to skin a cat. Georgia Tech and Navy do it with a scheme that is rarely seen and thus difficult to prepare for. Southern Cal, Alabama, Texas and Ohio State do it with recruiting and five star NFL-type players. TCU and Boise State have done it with player development. Virginia Tech and Nebraska try to be more physical than the opponent while others chose to do it with more finesse.

There is not one right way to do it but each school has different advantages and different challenges. Iowa will never be able to consistently recruit the kind of five star players that Southern Cal can. It was refreshing to see the way the Hawkeyes do it.

The perfect situation would be to have a staff that can recruit five star players, develop them to their fullest potential, teach perfect technique, devise genius gameplans every week and motivate the team to play hard every week. When you find that staff let me know so you can start looking for that 5-10 blonde hair, blue-eyed bikini model who is rich and loves to cook for me. The fact is that the perfect staff has never existed so what staffs do well they have to do very well.

I think Dabo and his staff are good recruiters. I think it is too early to tell about the player development aspect of this staff at this point but I think most of the gameplans appeared to be sound and the team appeared to be motivated in most of the games this season.

The key is to continue to get a little better in every aspect. Recruit better players, develop them a little better, make the gameplans a little more sound, motivate a little more. Just a little improvement across the board should be the plan every year.

Dabo and his staff have laid a good foundation and they can showcase their strength (which I think is player-coach relationships). Hopefully, Dabo and his staff can develop an identity and accentuate their strengths the way Ferentz and his crew has been able to do at Iowa.

The Brad Hughes All-State Insurance Agency

Prayer List
We have started a prayer list on the blog. Here are the guidelines:
*If you are offended by prayer or prayer lists then I apologize in advance. The blog is free and the prayer list will be on the bottom of the page so you don’t have to read it.
*If you would like to add someone to the list please e-mail me at mickeyplyler@hotmail.com
*If you want the reason for the prayer to be added to the name please specify in your e-mails.
*Please let me know when it is appropriate to take the person off of the prayer list

Those who need our prayers include:
Finn Brookover, Larry in Naples, FL, RTG-Pawsitive Tiger, Mary-Louise Pawlowski (John's daughter), Jo Ann Bachman, Frank Taylor, Kenneth Bryant, Pruitt Martin, Got igers and his family, David Rowland, Leonard, Gillespie and his family, Jim S, Christine Hepfer, Daniel Rosborough, Amy Murphey, Jack Huffman, Nancy Winkler, Dr. Nancy Strom Morgan, John Reeve, Eileen Woodrum, Ethel Southard, Vinnie Brock, Kaitlyn L, Eric Boessneck, John Bowers, Jimmy Ness, Susan Miller, Joyce Harley, Steve Proveaux, John Petrey, Chalmers Carr, Drayton Melton, Jeffrey Greene, the Hutto family, Sherl Drawdy, Caleb Kennedy, Bob Pollock, Teresa O'Connor, Matt Jacobs, Mike Kingsmore,Perrin Seigler, Carole White Begley, Candee Massee, Lindsey Jordan, Sam Catoe, Tyler Felch, Steve Cato, the Nicolopulos family, Cason Palmer, Candace Fallaw.