Pollard backs Rhoads

[Section110]

That giant raise that Pollard gave Rhoads took him from last in compensation in the Big 12 to...last in the Big 12 in compensation. Let's not pretend JP parked the bank truck at Rhoads' door.

Even with his long contract, we owe Rhoads $5 mil as a buyout. KU owes Weis $5.6 mil. Pelini gets $7.7 mil. Just look to the east, Ferentz is owed $15 mil if he is fired!! I'd venture to guess Rhoads' buyout is towards the bottom of most Power 5 coaches.

Good post. Really puts things into perspective. Goes to show you someone can be bought out if the people in charge deem it appropriate.

It also goes to show you the landscape of college football. It's easy to say "I hope with his next hire Pollard learned his lesson". The problem is contracts are negotiated, and in almost all cases when an extension is being offered the coach has the upper hand due to recent levels of success. It's up to the A.D. to decide how bad they want them. I don't know what Rhoads has or had been offered in terms of jobs outside of Ames, but it's well known Ferentz had good opportunities elsewhere prior to the signing of his monster contract that now looks ridiculous. It's easy for us to look at the situation and say they signed an idiotic contract, but hindsight is always 20/20. Had they not signed the contract they may have lost the coach, and they would have been butchered for that at the time if the news came out the University didn't make a good enough offer.

 

[spelhome]

thought this was rather appropriate. What is our "Main thing"?

http://www.sbnation.com/college-foo...005/college-football-coach-hot-seat-avoidance

Love love love. Thanks for helping to lighten things up. Fred is our "Main Thing", so Paul (or any not basketball coach) hasn't a chance.

 

[ISUFan22]

This should be a fun thread to reference in a year or so.

 

[weR138]

Good post. Really puts things into perspective. Goes to show you someone can be bought out if the people in charge deem it appropriate.

It also goes to show you the landscape of college football. It's easy to say "I hope with his next hire Pollard learned his lesson". The problem is contracts are negotiated, and in almost all cases when an extension is being offered the coach has the upper hand due to recent levels of success. It's up to the A.D. to decide how bad they want them. I don't know what Rhoads has or had been offered in terms of jobs outside of Ames, but it's well known Ferentz had good opportunities elsewhere prior to the signing of his monster contract that now looks ridiculous. It's easy for us to look at the situation and say they signed an idiotic contract, but hindsight is always 20/20. Had they not signed the contract they may have lost the coach, and they would have been butchered for that at the time if the news came out the University didn't make a good enough offer.

Ferentz is worth the money to the UI AD. Rhoads might be worth the money to ISU AD through next season (only because presumably we get a bump due to the expansion). If the FB team tanks next season tickets/donations will tank in 2016.

 

[joefrog]

So ISU is going to magically become competitive in football based on only hope, no change? Really? And you people buy that?

I am sorry, after what I have seen, and what I know is coming, people should be fired. Now. I would have loved to see what Mangino could do with our team on his own. I sit behind the team, from what I can tell, he is the only coach with any of that true fire in the belly that gets players to overachieve.

After being a more than loyal fan, I cannot logically justify continuing to support ISU athletics at my current level. If JP won't man up, own his mistake, and do what must be done, then he should go too.

Yes I said it.

Fire PR, or fire JP and then fire PR. Between the contract, losing Cael, and sticking with McD, enough is enough. This is unacceptable. In business, you never hire someone you cannot fire. Ever.

I am sick of the eternal sunshine pumpers, the same ones preaching more time just like with McD, totally ignoring the clear and present facts.

I cannot for the life of me name what the identity is of a PR team, nor what area it excels in. I routinely see us try the same exact things as our conference foes, with lesser talent. Please explain how that will ever work.

I love ISU fans. Great people. Very welcoming and friendly. But come on folks, loyalty is a two way street, and we are not getting much in return for our continued support. Which is why I am withdrawing mine.

Stop and look at this: 3–5, 3–5, 3–6, 3–6, 2–7, 0–8, 14–37. 27.5%

I guess he just needs more time. We'll get this turned around under PR. No, seriously, we will.

 

[Wesley]

That giant raise that Pollard gave Rhoads took him from last in compensation in the Big 12 to...last in the Big 12 in compensation. Let's not pretend JP parked the bank truck at Rhoads' door.

Even with his long contract, we owe Rhoads $5 mil as a buyout. KU owes Weis $5.6 mil. Pelini gets $7.7 mil. Just look to the east, Ferentz is owed $15 mil if he is fired!! I'd venture to guess Rhoads' buyout is towards the bottom of most Power 5 coaches.

And that is one thing wrong with sports. Buyouts should be less.

The Nebby staff will also be owed $4M for next year.

 

[CYEATHAWK]

I don't care if he truly loves Iowa state. If he can't win games and keep recruits he has no business being here.

Exactly. I will go 0-12 for free and a free slushy at QT will do for a buyout.

 

[Section110]

Ferentz is worth the money to the UI AD. Rhoads might be worth the money to ISU AD through next season (only because presumably we get a bump due to the expansion). If the FB team tanks next season tickets/donations will tank in 2016.

Personally, I think the ISU football program will begin to take a significant financial hit starting next year. The SEZ expansion will get some people to come, but that will wear off after the first few games. The first few games is when you can count on people being there anyways because they haven't seen football for a year and they are still excited. If the team doesn't start out well then that's when the big hit will come. There won't be any patience for it next year.

I think the same can be said for the U of I. I'm not renewing my season tickets. I know a number of people around me aren't either. The home slate of games for Iowa next year is flat out terrible anyways. That's going to hurt them enough. When you add the disappointing season they had this year I think Kinnick will be more empty than it has been in quite some time.

 

[joefrog]

This should be a fun thread to reference in a year or so.

Indeed. Year 7 baby, lights out! Where we could enter the season as an underdog. To an FCS school. At home. Go State!

 

[Skyh13]

Same boat here. JP has been awesome.
This is potentially one of those career moves that really backfire. You've got to be careful who you're that loyal to professionally.

Although we'd like to see change.. this year even more than others really begs the question "Who do you replace him with?"

We don't like it, but I'm not sure ISU could do any better at the moment.. it doesn't seem like that coach is out there. So might as well let Rhoads finish out at least another year so his buyout is less. I don't think the ticket dropoff is going to be so severe that it destroys the Athletic Department.

In my opinion, JP is plenty safe and it would be foolish for ISU to run him off. I think his efforts towards improving facilities, raising funds, etc., have been very successful and, at the very least, have earned him at least one more shot at a football hire. My only concern is the common thread that seems to run through his hires -- the "midwest" or ISU connection. He seems to stick to that, and I don't know that it's out of necessity. I just hope he's willing to hire someone who has no connection here. With BBall, McD was a disaster, and then he got EXTREMELY lucky with Hoiberg. I don't know much about Christy Johnson.. any connection there? Did she grow up in Iowa or something? The exception is Chizik who was more a name than anything else. But after that, right back to the state of Iowa/ISU connection with Rhoads.

I'm sure some people will disagree with me, and say that having a connection helps to either attract people, or keep them here if they're successful. The problem is it limits the pool of available people quite a bit, and I just want him to hire somebody who is good at their job, even if they end up leaving. Much easier said than done, of course.

 

[Stewo]

Indeed. Year 7 baby, lights out! Where we could enter the season as an underdog. To an FCS school. At home. Go State!

That would be 2 years in a row. How cool would that be?

 

[Cycsk]

As bad as you think things are now, firing a coach won't make them better overnight. Rather, it is likely to make things much worse for a few years. Are all of you that think we should fire the coach willing to accept 2-3 years that are even worse?

I would much prefer 2-3 more years taking a chance with Coach Rhoads than throw away the next few years.

 

[isu81]

It may not be compelling, but in all of our despair, we should at least acknowledge that we had leads well into several games this year. We didn't get those leads by being terrible or having a head coach who wasn't capable.

If only we could blow a whistle and end games whenever we wanted to. This is a ridiculous argument. I would guess most, if not all teams would be close to undefeated if they could count games as wins where they were ahead at some point in the game. There is one score that matters-the final one.

 

[cycloneworld]

This should be a fun thread to reference in a year or so.

It's almost like some people want Iowa State to fail next year just to get rid of Rhoads. I don't understand that logic at all.

I think there are reasons that we could turn it around next year and I'll be rooting like hell for that to happen. Do I think its a given? Heck no. Could we be in a similar situation next year? Sure. But until that happens, I'm going to root for the football team and the coaches instead of predict us to be 0-12 and spout off other stupid crap.

 

[Cycsk]

If only we could blow a whistle and end games whenever we wanted to. This is a ridiculous argument. I would guess most, if not all teams would be close to undefeated if they could count games as wins where they were ahead at some point in the game. There is one score that matters-the final one.

My point is that we may not be as bad as many of you think. If we were that bad, how could we get these leads and be competitive in so many of our games?

 

[cycloneworld]

Fire PR, or fire JP and then fire PR. Between the contract, losing Cael, and sticking with McD, enough is enough. This is unacceptable. In business, you never hire someone you cannot fire. Ever.

I am sick of the eternal sunshine pumpers, the same ones preaching more time just like with McD, totally ignoring the clear and present facts.

And most everyone is tired of the "fire everyone" crowd every time something doesn't go our way. Or people who advocate firing Jamie Pollard because of the lack of success with the football program for the past 2 years. Talk about shortsightedness.

I'm not a sunshine pumper but I'm not going to lose my mind and call for everyone within the athletic department to be fired because they don't want to pony up $5 mil to fire a football coach.

 

[alarson]

It's almost like some people want Iowa State to fail next year just to get rid of Rhoads. I don't understand that logic at all.

I think there are reasons that we could turn it around next year and I'll be rooting like hell for that to happen. Do I think its a given? Heck no. Could we be in a similar situation next year? Sure. But until that happens, I'm going to root for the football team and the coaches instead of predict us to be 0-12 and spout off other stupid crap.

I dont want ISU to fail next year.

But with how much easier our early season schedule is, i would hate to see a slightly better record being falsely set up as 'improvement' and then be right back where we are this year the yer after that.

I also just dont see any way it gets better. Programs in a slide like ours dont get better. They just dont. We've been in a slide for 3 years. I think we'd be better off handing an easier start to a new guy who can use that start as momentum to build his program.

 

[peachy]

It took about 10 pages or so, but there are some excellent posts in this thread.

First and foremost, it was just plain stupid for JP to offer the 10 year extension. You would think he would research the other state university to the east to see how that turned out. Unless CPR won the Big 12 conference title championship in year 2, that idiotic extension should have never been added. College football landscape changes quickly, and far to many AD's have been burned by contracts, only to have to buy them out later for millions of dollars. If I was an AD, I would never consider more than a 5 year contract. The coach threatened to leave because he did not get the long term deal he wanted? There's the door. Never let the employee (coach) strong arm the employer (ISU). Rule number #1 of business. No employee is worth more than the actual business.

Which leads me to the next point. College football is a business, a multi-billion dollar business to be exact. No matter how nice the coach is, how close he grew up to here, etc., it is still a business. Loyal fans of coaches forget that part. If you fail at every aspect of your job, there is a chance you will be fired. In college and pro sports, coaches are fired even when they succeed. Pelini just got fired of 7 straight years of 9+ wins every year. We would KILL to have one of those 9 win years. Yet fans still back up the coach after a winless conference season. More years to prove himself! He had injuries! Schedule was tough! New assistant coaches you say! That is garbage. With the money we pour out to support the team, (with rising ticket prices sure to follow), we deserve better than being down 35-7 at halftime to both BU and OU. We deserve more than a whipping at home to yet another FCS school. We should be able to have an expectation that our football program can beat an FCS school after 6 years of the same regime. We should have the right to critique the coaching staff when they fall short of expectations, as low as those expectations may be.

As previously stated, Pollard made his bed when he offered the football contract. Unfortunately for him, that decision may cost him his job as well. In major college athletics, football is king, all the other sports are just pawns on the board. One look at conference realignment supports that argument.

 

[Rabbuk]

Hey guys at least we participated in big12 games this year... Didn't win any but hey we were there. That should count for something.

 

[jbindm]

What was JP supposed to say?

"Yeah, if I can get some high roller alum to write some big *** checks then Rhoads is history. But if not, then sure, Paul's our guy and we'll climb this mountain together."

This is a non story. What will matter is what JP does at season's end, not what he says publicly with a week to go.