Pollard backs Rhoads

Cy$

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Want has got nothing to do with it. People are examining past performance, looking at talent lost and incoming talent, and coming to the rational decision that there isn't much chance for better results.

Can you name one thing a PR coached team excels at? Can you name what our philosophy is? Why, if defense is his specialty, has it been so poor during PR's tenure?

"He's an Iowa boy, loves it here, and we can't lure anyone better so why take a chance?" That is the same damn thing I heard with McD. We replaced him with Fred, how has that turned out?

Evidence points to PR having a ceiling of about 6, and a floor of 2. Granted, that is about ISU average. But then ISU has never been as close to our peers in facilities and resources as now.

I expect results, and I am damn tired of subsidizing failure.

Our defensive identity back in the early PR years was getting takeaways and bend but don't break defense.

The last couple of years ISU has not gotten as many takeaways and the defense bends and breaks now. I think a majority of this is the players are not big 12 material atm, I doubt Wally forgot how to coach. I do think ISU needs a new DC but to get a new DC with the amount of noise about PR getting canned sooner than later will make it very hard for ISU to get a DC that it wants. A good MAC or lower level DC will have options where he has better job security than ISU.
 

CykoAGR

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It's sad for him if he is serious. And it's obvious that he's young and without a family. I mean, because collegiate sports should certainly come before family.

I wont get into family piece. Each person has their reasons for being part of this fanbase or not.

Its saddens me because two or three years ago I couldn't wait to write that check. I knew we weren't going to win a national title or even a big 12 title but there was hope that every game could be the OSU game or even the double overtime Iowa game. Every game we had a chance to get a big upset or win one no one thought we could.
 

Wesley

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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.
About two cents.

Seriously, we had 12 out of 44 quarters of good football so far when we scored more points than the opponent.
 

cycloneworld

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Looks like Chiziks 08 team was competitive. Did you think that at the time? Just asking btw.

44-17
48-28
5-17
31-34
33-35
35-49
24-28
30-38

And what happened in 2009? We went to a bowl game.

Turnarounds do and have happened.
 

gwoodclone

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Indeed. Despite all of the concerns people have about this team, they were competitive.

Is being within two possessions in only half our games "competitive"? I guess I don't know. Would you consider the KU teams of the past 5 years or so competitive? That's about where they have been as far as number of wins+close losses.

I thought it might be interesting, so I did a quick look back at Rhoads 6 years to see how many close games we won each year and how often we lost big. The last column in the chart is the record in "close" games (games decided by 14 or less).

W(>14)W(≤14)L(≤14)L(>14)
20093433(4-3)
20102334(3-3)
20111525(5-2)
20123343(3-4)
20132154(1-5)
20140245(2-4)

Rhoads first three years we won more of the close ones than we lost. We were 12-8 in games decided by 14 or less. Since 2012 we are 6-13. 2011 could easily have been an awful year but we got a few breaks to go our way. Last year could have been a lot better but we couldn't win close games.

But this year things went totally off the rails.
 

cycloneworld

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Next years schedule will be too tough though.

I wonder if West Virginia thought that too. They were 4-8 last year which included wins over William & Mary and Georgia State. They had a lot of big losses too along with a couple other close wins. They turned things around nicely this year.
 

VeloClone

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The problem is that somehow a FB coach with one winning season in six (that coming in his first year), and winning 5 games over his last two years (including two losses to FCS teams) is somehow owed $5,000,000 if he were to be fired. That doesn't seem like a good deal to me, so I'm going to have to disagree with you and say that the contract is bad. As other posters mentioned above, the performance on the field through the end of 2011 did not warrant the magnitude of the contract extension in either the length of time or monetary aspects.

Sure it is a problem, but tell me again, how much is Weiss owed by KU again? And they didn't even get a single bowl game out of him.

1) KU owed Weis over $5,000,000, but I'm not sure why that's relevant here, especially since there was no extension given to Weis during is tenure at KU. Perhaps there was an extension given, and I missed it. It seems the two situations are quite different.

2) You can probably see why Weis might have been given a high-paying initial contract (and associated buyout) by KU, since he had a winning record as a head coach at his previous Power 5 HC job, including trips to two BCS bowls and two top 20 finishes. I don't see where Rhoads had similar past success, yet his buyout is about the same as Weis'.

1) It's relevant because they owe a coach the same $5 million and they got zero success out of it. ISU at least got 3 bowl games out of it and just narrowly missed a bowl in a fourth season. KU didn't even have to sign an extension in order to have this bad of a deal. So the point is that being on the hook for $5 million isn't the product of such a ridiculously bad deal, but rather more the state of college football contracts these days.

2) Rhoads had much better success at ISU than Weiss had at KU and ISU can get out of Rhoads deal just as cheaply as KU can get out of Weiss' deal. ISU got the bargain.


You were probably right that the money paid to Rhoads isn't warranted. But that pretty much can be said for all of college coaches contracts. The money is way out of whack but if ISU wants to participate in Big 12 athletics they have to be paying what the Big 12 market says they should be paying. And frankly giving the Big 12 coach that is getting paid the least in a 10 team league a raise that brings him up to the least in a 10 team league is probably not even paying what the Big 12 market says they should be paying.
 

CYKOFAN

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It's almost like we shouldn't have signed him to a ridiculous 10 year contract after he had minimal success. Someone email Pollard about that.

There are very few coaches that are worth a 10 year contract, but the biggest mistake was giving that kind of contract when CPR was yet to prove he could win with his own players. JP painted himself into a corner and of course he has to support CPR as he can't afford to make a move. The problem will be recruiting to a 2-3 win program and even if we have a little bounceback next year, the program could still be in serious trouble because of the recruiting drop off. And I know some will point out recruiting has already dropped off.
 
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Cycsk

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Is being within two possessions in only half our games "competitive"? I guess I don't know. Would you consider the KU teams of the past 5 years or so competitive? That's about where they have been as far as number of wins+close losses.

I thought it might be interesting, so I did a quick look back at Rhoads 6 years to see how many close games we won each year and how often we lost big. The last column in the chart is the record in "close" games (games decided by 14 or less).

W(>14)W(≤14)L(≤14)L(>14)
20093433(4-3)
20102334(3-3)
20111525(5-2)
20123343(3-4)
20132154(1-5)
20140245(2-4)

Rhoads first three years we won more of the close ones than we lost. We were 12-8 in games decided by 14 or less. Since 2012 we are 6-13. 2011 could easily have been an awful year but we got a few breaks to go our way. Last year could have been a lot better but we couldn't win close games.

But this year things went totally off the rails.


Didn't 3 games come down to the last possession? K-State, Texas, and Tech?

This season feels to many like it was "totally off the rails," but there is some evidence to the contrary. I'm not saying that we were great, but we were really competitive in at least 3 of our losses.

And to be competitive with Tech and WV at the end of the season with all of our injuries is actually rather remarkable. I don't call that "totally off the rails."
 

ISUFan22

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1. Nobody can complain about the buyout and call out JP for giving CPR the contract. Everyone was ecstatic when it was signed. I can't remember anyone saying it was a bad idea.

2. I like how everyone keeps saying we have had 5 straight losing seasons. Sure it is technically true, but I'm guessing that after we lost to Tulsa in the Liberty Bowl, very few of you were telling your Hawkeye buddies that we had 3 straight losing seasons. At that time everyone was in love with Paul and the job he was doing at ISU. Now, everyone is saying he's had 5 straight losing seasons because they want Paul fired. It's amazing how fans can twist information one way and then another, from season to season, to help their point (positive or negative).

Rhoads is the lowest paid coach in the Big 12. I don't know this for a fact but I'm guessing his buyout is near the bottom as well. How does that make a bad contract?

Yet again, this duo checks in with 2 great, common sense posts.
 

jbhtexas

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The money is way out of whack but if ISU wants to participate in Big 12 athletics they have to be paying what the Big 12 market says they should be paying. And frankly giving the Big 12 coach that is getting paid the least in a 10 team league a raise that brings him up to the least in a 10 team league is probably not even paying what the Big 12 market says they should be paying.

Rhoads' winning % in his 6 years at ISU is 0.392. What does the Big 12 market value dictate should be paid to a coach with that kind of record in his sixth year? There aren't any other currently active Big 12 coaches doing that badly for comparison. Next worst is Kingsbury, who is 0.480 after two years, Strong is 0.500 in his first year, so it's tough to judge from them due to the short tenure. KU apparently decided they were paying to much for the performance they were getting and canned Weis. Gundy, Stoops, Holgersen, Briles, Snyder and Patterson are all above (well above in some cases) 0.500 at their current schools, which could be one reason why they are paid more money.

Would Rhoads do better if ISU paid him more? If not, what's the point of raising his pay to not be the lowest in the Big 12?
 
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VeloClone

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Rhoads' winning % in his 6 years at ISU is 0.392. What does the Big 12 market value dictate should be paid to a coach with that kind of record in his sixth year? There aren't any other currently active coaches doing that badly for comparison. Next worst is Kingsbury, who is 0.480 after two years, Strong is 0.500 in his first year, so it's tough to judge from them due to the short tenure. KU apparently decided they were paying to much for the performance they were getting and canned Weis. Gundy, Stoops, Holgersen, Briles, Snyder and Patterson are all well above 0.500 at their current schools, which is probably why they are paid more money.

Would Rhoads do better if ISU paid him more? If not, what's the point of raising his pay?

This conversation was about the merits of giving an extension. When he got the extension he wasn't .392, he was right around .500 which was a huge improvement from where the program was prior to Rhoads arriving at ISU. Unless you are suggesting that Jamie knew what the future held, he had to act on the information he had when he gave the extension.

As far as your last statement, why would anyone ever get a raise with that reasoning? Simply giving someone more money really does not correlate to better performance. Better pay in this case - or a longer contract - is to keep a coach around who was having better success with the program than the program was having under the previous regime. Keeping that coach woefully underpaid in the conference is not the way to keep that coach around. Rhoads went from woefully underpaid to simply underpaid.

As long as you are going to second guess that extension, feel free to link your posts where you were trashing the raise at the time. It was almost universally hailed as the right move at the time. I'm curious to see your posts saying it was the wrong move at the time. Otherwise it smacks of hindsight being 20/20.
 

Stormin

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Rhoads' winning % in his 6 years at ISU is 0.392. What does the Big 12 market value dictate should be paid to a coach with that kind of record in his sixth year? There aren't any other currently active coaches doing that badly for comparison. Next worst is Kingsbury, who is 0.480 after two years, Strong is 0.500 in his first year, so it's tough to judge from them due to the short tenure. KU apparently decided they were paying to much for the performance they were getting and canned Weis. Gundy, Stoops, Holgersen, Briles, Snyder and Patterson are all above (well above in some cases) 0.500 at their current schools, which is probably why they are paid more money.

Would Rhoads do better if ISU paid him more? If not, what's the point of raising his pay?

.392 winning percentage by Rhoads is actually pretty decent for ISU.......considering our history.
 

Al_4_State

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Didn't 3 games come down to the last possession? K-State, Texas, and Tech?

This season feels to many like it was "totally off the rails," but there is some evidence to the contrary. I'm not saying that we were great, but we were really competitive in at least 3 of our losses.

And to be competitive with Tech and WV at the end of the season with all of our injuries is actually rather remarkable. I don't call that "totally off the rails."

You could say the same thing about last year.

Watching the establishment here defend Rhoads is like a time machine back to the McDermott era.