What does it take?

[Wesley]

The only ones similar to Ames level of atmosphere that I can think of that achieved the extraordinary from the ordinary was Bull Snyder and KSU, Louisville, Virgina Tech, Boston College and Flutie, and Utah one year. Othwerwise the top teams are the usual suspects. Winning ten games is easier now that we play twelve games. Colin Cowherd taslks about fans expectations all the time. Only some schools like USC truly have legitimate hopes for national chanpionship and that has only been the last three years.

BryceC - What has been the all time highest ranking for the Clones?

[jdoggivjc]

The only ones similar to Ames level of atmosphere that I can think of that achieved the extraordinary from the ordinary was Bull Snyder and KSU, Louisville, Virgina Tech, Boston College and Flutie, and Utah one year. Othwerwise the top teams are the usual suspects. Winning ten games is easier now that we play twelve games. Colin Cowherd taslks about fans expectations all the time. Only some schools like USC truly have legitimate hopes for national chanpionship and that has only been the last three years.

BryceC - What has been the all time highest ranking for the Clones?

I think I can answer that one - it was #9 in the 2002 season. We were sitting at 6-1 and just smoked Texas Tech (that was the game with the 100-yard circle the field 20-yard touchdown run by Seneca Wallace). We then proceeded to get blasted by Oklahoma and then lost 6 of our last 7 games, including the smurf bowl.

[cycloneworld]

We'd all love for a National Championship, and it should be an ultimate goal, but that is so far out of reach. WE need to achieve lesser goals first, like winning the North outright and making the Big XII champ game, win the Big XII champ game, have a 10 win season, finish in the final BCS poll, make a BCS bowl game, and then have a 1 loss season. That's a lot to do before we can realistically consider going for a national championship.

Thank you for being rational! I'm sure every coach WANTS to win a National Championship but we are far, far, far from that point right now. Hell, Iowa has what they call (and pay) a Top 3 coach and they are still a long ways from a National Title. They are a helluva lot closer than us but they are further than many of their own fans think...

[brutodd]

Like others have said, I believe that we should shoot for the "mid range" goals like Big 12 Championship games, and then go up from there. After talking about this last night, I started to wonder, what do people think when they hear ISU? Do they think Seneca, do they think Fred Hoiberg, or do they think Bret Meyer and Todd Blythe? Our national "name recognition" as also somebody mentioned is not in the top 25 schools in the nation when it comes to football. And that is what matters to a high-school 4-star recruit: who has the name recognition, who can get me in a bowl game almost every year, who can get me to The Show in the NFL? What we need is a definable program: something people think of when they hear "ISU vs ____" today on ABC. We think USC and hot cheerleaders...err great quarterbacks and running backs. Nebraska is associated with the Power "I" and a great defense. Va Tech is special teams...on and on. We need, in my opinion, a program, something that we associate our team with.

After all, what do we as ISU fans think of when we ponder our football team? Is it a running team, a passing team, both, none...what?

[iccyfan]

I think the fire McCarney crowd is a very vocal minority. KXNO talked about the Jamie Pollard/ McCarney issue this morning.

I've been part of the small but vocal anti-McCarney contingent for three plus years! Here is my rationale: Most ISU supporters thought our program had "turned the corner" with the magical 9-3 season of 2000, capped off by a nice win over Pitt in a desirable bowl destination. In many people's opinions, we "underachieved" the next two seasons while having the best QB in ISU history (Seneca) at the helm. Then we hit rock bottom with the 2-10 season of QB Austin Flynn. Finally, the last two years the Big XII North Championship was ours for the taking, yet we faltered. In the five plus years since the 2000 season ended, ISU's record is 33-34.

As for the quoted text, I heard McCarney interviewed on KXNO the week following the UNLV game. The interviewer dared to bring up the "overly conservative approach" critics and Mac launched into some blathering tirade that he'd "never heard the word conservative said in any coache's meeting", etc. In short, he entirely refuses to even consider that he's coaching in a "conservative manner", much less acknowledging that his conservatism has likely cost us the last two B12N titles!

I'll tell you exactly what I want in a coach. I want a guy who'll open up the offense and go for the gusto. As an example, when ISU had Steve Loney as the OC we had Sage running naked bootlegs and J.J. Moses ran two or three reverses most every game. This continued with Seneca and Lane Danielson, but it's been gone the past three years. The boring offense Dan & Barney run has nothing to do with facilities, school tradition or money in the program. It allows lesser teams to stick with us when they shouldn't (Toledo, UNLV, UNI), take momentum away when they shouldn't (Iowa this season, Missou & KU last) and beat us when they shouldn't (Missou X 2, Baylor, Kansas, etc.). When a guy can't learn from his past mistakes, hell Mac can't even acknowledge he's made past mistakes, he's probably outlived his usefulness to the program. JOMHO...

[cycloneworld]

In the five plus years since the 2000 season ended, ISU's record is 33-34.

Wow, is that true??? I haven't read that stat 6 million times before...

I'll tell you exactly what I want in a coach. I want a guy who'll open up the offense and go for the gusto. As an example, when ISU had Steve Loney as the OC we had Sage running naked bootlegs and J.J. Moses ran two or three reverses most every game. This continued with Seneca and Lane Danielson, but it's been gone the past three years.

If you consistantly want to watch gimmick plays, break out NCAA 2007 and run them. These plays don't win games. The fact is that Stevie had 7 rushes all game against UNI and Scales had 5. Brett threw the ball 29 times. I didn't see conservative play calling at all with the exception of 2-3 plays.

Personally, I think the play-calling has been MUCH improved from the Iowa game.

[jdoggivjc]

Wow, is that true??? I haven't read that stat 6 million times before...



If you consistantly want to watch gimmick plays, break out NCAA 2007 and run them. These plays don't win games. The fact is that Stevie had 7 rushes all game against UNI and Scales had 5. Brett threw the ball 29 times. I didn't see conservative play calling at all with the exception of 2-3 plays.

Personally, I think the play-calling has been MUCH improved from the Iowa game.

it's the same argument by anti-macs whether we've had an aggressive gameplan or not here's an idea - why don't we run a empty backfield set the entire game against nebraska and do nothing but pass the entire game. an extremely agressive gameplan. will it impress the anti-macs, probably not, because as far as they're concerned, he hasn't even been the coach for the last few years, even when mac took a dead last predicted, inexperienced frosh-soph dominated team in 2004 that went 2-10 in 2003 and had them within a field goal of winning the north outright. but wait, i forgot, mac we don't talk about that season because it shows that mac is capable of doing something. i mean, after all, this board is only for pointing out mac's faults, right?

[Wesley]

Wow, is that true??? I haven't read that stat 6 million times before...
If you consistantly want to watch gimmick plays, break out NCAA 2007 and run them. These plays don't win games. The fact is that Stevie had 7 rushes all game against UNI and Scales had 5. Brett threw the ball 29 times. I didn't see conservative play calling at all with the exception of 2-3 plays.
Personally, I think the play-calling has been MUCH improved from the Iowa game.

You are certainly right that we finally broke out Pandora's box for Iowa game. Our point is we should have been doing that for Toledo and UNLV which we almost lost. Same coaches, same players from last year. Why start basic. Take advantage of early season and run up the score. Obviously we played it safe and now find the offense in a rut. 28 points in regulation is our max five games into the season. Not good.

We know what we see. If Stevie runs the ball up the middle at start of Nebraska game, it will be a one yard gain. In NCAA football it might be five yards. In NCAA football Stevie runs a gadget play, expect the mandatory stuff. In real football, it might be a ten yard gain. But more than that in real football, they cannot arbitrarily load up the box if we show a willingness to do something Anti Clone. Against defensive first teams, you need to bring your brains into play and not be on autopilot. And Nebraska defense is better than their 500 yard Nebraska offense - do not be fooled.

[cycloneworld]

You are certainly right that we finally broke out Pandora's box for Iowa game. Our point is we should have been doing that for Toledo and UNLV which we almost lost. Same coaches, same players from last year. Why start basic. Take advantage of early season and run up the score. Obviously we played it safe and now find the offense in a rut. 28 points in regulation is our max five games into the season. Not good.

We know what we see. If Stevie runs the ball up the middle at start of Nebraska game, it will be a one yard gain. In NCAA football it might be five yards. In NCAA football Stevie runs a gadget play, expect the mandatory stuff. In real football, it might be a ten yard gain. But more than that in real football, they cannot arbitrarily load up the box if we show a willingness to do something Anti Clone. Against defensive first teams, you need to bring your brains into play and not be on autopilot. And Nebraska defense is better than their 500 yard Nebraska offense - do not be fooled.

All very good points...well done Bryce.

[ISUFan22]

You are certainly right that we finally broke out Pandora's box for Iowa game. Our point is we should have been doing that for Toledo and UNLV which we almost lost. Same coaches, same players from last year. Why start basic. Take advantage of early season and run up the score. Obviously we played it safe and now find the offense in a rut. 28 points in regulation is our max five games into the season. Not good.

We know what we see. If Stevie runs the ball up the middle at start of Nebraska game, it will be a one yard gain. In NCAA football it might be five yards. In NCAA football Stevie runs a gadget play, expect the mandatory stuff. In real football, it might be a ten yard gain. But more than that in real football, they cannot arbitrarily load up the box if we show a willingness to do something Anti Clone. Against defensive first teams, you need to bring your brains into play and not be on autopilot. And Nebraska defense is better than their 500 yard Nebraska offense - do not be fooled.

I agree with about everything you said execpt the part about Hicks and the one yard gain. Did you see that we started the game Saturday with a run and it went for about 7 yards?

Most of the year...we've been effective on the ground. I attribute that to a healthy backfield (Hicks and Scales) and our passing attack opening up the run.

If our offense wants to be successful and at the same time help the defense out, we need to do a better job of controling the clock. That comes with running the ball and our short passing game.

[heshwar]

I agree with about everything you said execpt the part about Hicks and the one yard gain. Did you see that we started the game Saturday with a run and it went for about 7 yards?

Most of the year...we've been effective on the ground. I attribute that to a healthy backfield (Hicks and Scales) and our passing attack opening up the run.

If our offense wants to be successful and at the same time help the defense out, we need to do a better job of controling the clock. That comes with running the ball and our short passing game.

Sounds pretty conservative. :)

[ISUFan22]

Sounds pretty conservative. :)

Did I say we needed to do that all the time? No. I stated we needed to continue to improve our running and short passing game.

We'll still have plenty of drives where we go all out I hope. But it's unwise to do that most or all of the time.

That approach isn't conservative. It's playing smart, team football.

[iccyfan]

If you consistantly want to watch gimmick plays, break out NCAA 2007 and run them. These plays don't win games.

To set the context for the above-noted quote, I wrote that I long for the days when Loney was OC, Sage ran naked bootlegs once in awhile (for 40 yard gains) and J.J. Moses was seemingly running or faking a reverse 50% of the time.

The sage Cycloneworld tells me to run such plays on NCAA 2007 as proof that they don't work?

I'm too old to play kid's games and besides, the only proof I need on my side is the fact that ISU went 9-3 in 2000. I guess those plays do have the potential to win games after all!

As for the repeated notation of 33-34, I'm tired of all the Mac-lovers who continue to write that they see "steady progress" or "steady improvement" in the program. It really isn't there, just more of the same old, same old....

[darts180]

Thank you for being rational! I'm sure every coach WANTS to win a National Championship but we are far, far, far from that point right now. Hell, Iowa has what they call (and pay) a Top 3 coach and they are still a long ways from a National Title. They are a helluva lot closer than us but they are further than many of their own fans think...

Why on earth would you compare us to Iowa. i know that slamming the Hawks for getting pounded is a nice little vacation from what we have seen this season
However, you have to remember we paid Larry E. 1.1 million dollars a year, when there were very few coaches making that salary at the time. Why do you do this??? To keep the coach.
And to say that Ferentz is a bad coach speaks volumes about why you post the way you do. I mean no offense, but if you don't see that he is one of the top coaches in the country then.....

[darts180]

This is an interesting question, really it is.
Since I was on the fire Mac bandwagon (I am officially off until the end of the year, as I give him ONE MORE CHANCE to prove me wrong), I will say the one thing that has disturbed me for a lot of years is the lack of direction in deciding what they want to do as a program.
To build something up you have to have a vision, and I truly believe one of the biggest indictments of Mac's tenure has been that he has changed multiple times.
Let's be honest here, Mac wants to run the football down peoples throats, and be dominant on defense. That is who he is, and I have no problems with it. So then why have we recruited so poorly on the lines in Mac's tenure???
Bad luck I'm sure has something to do with it (grades, never made it to campus, busts, etc.) but it has been a continuous problem for Dan.
So he reaps a bounty in the state of Iowa 4 years ago, and recruits a lot of skill players who are talented, but he can't get away from who he is, and the line play has been AWFUL, and we see what we have seen this year. A very disjointed offense, that goes from unstoppable to stand still in the blink of an eye. And a defense that can't stop teams. So it is ugly.
But as bad as our lines are, we keep recruiting skill players. I understand maintaining positions, but it is about time that he just loads up on linemen. Instead we hear that with Arnaud here and the recruit from Omaha coming in (sorry blanked on his name) we are looking at yet another QB. I mean he signs 30 recruits and 23 of them make it to campus.
Does this mean that Dan is overrated as a recruiter, or does he recruit out of desparation, or is he trying to get the best player available regardless of how deep we are at this time.
I guess the one thing that I would truly like to see is for Mac to spell out what his vision of the program is (other than him becoming QUITE wealthy). I haven't heard it, maybe it got lost in the spin.