History: Change ISU Football Trajectory

[stewart092284]

A whole lotta things -- beating FSU might have changed the trajectory of that season potentially.

Not falling behind by what was it, 17? Vs. Oklahoma in 2020 - getting the monkey off our back, you neve know...

But in recent years - IMO - going 7-6 last year and now 4-5 are potentially stagnating seasons. At least in terms of national perception and perhaps continuing to recruit at a higher level. Obviously the investment and money and everything is better than its been. But in terms of being able to take that next step, its going to be easy for people to negative recruit and say 2020 was a fluke.,

There are many things mentioned from longer ago in the past but in terms of recent history - we had a window of opportunity and it feels like it has slipped shut some. It might not be gone just yet, could still maybe sneak thru and climb to the next level - but I do feel like we've been in idle for the last 22 games.

 

[GoldCy]

Who drew up the designs for the press box in the Jack????? Find them and their plans and get a proper looking press box in those drawings before it's too late!

Once again Gene Smith's choice.

 

[cyco2000]

Oh, I got it. I have the answer.
Never hire Gordon P. Eaton, and instead hire a visionary leader who sees the value of athletics just as ESPN is becoming a thing and college sports are becoming a huge money and marketing machine.

It's this. None of the football coaches mattered if ISU admin wasn't all-in on sinking athletics. Gene Smith, Bruce Van DeVelde, Jim Walden (in particular) had to deal with no one with the vision and passion to see what athletics could do to highlight and bring money in for a University. Thanks goodness we found someone like Pollard to drive that vision as much as possible - he's done so good that people forget about how bad and little vision we had for athletics (see: football, the money maker) in the late 80s/early 90s.

 

[ScottyP]

No, financially it was Gene Smith.

I don't blame Gene for the financial part, we needed to massively invest in our facilities and he began that process.

 

[ScottyP]

To me, it was hiring Jon Cooper instead of Donnie Duncan. Bruce left a pretty good team with a great recruiting class and Duncan squandered it all. If Duncan would have came in and built off of Bruce's success, there would have been more support for athletics.

 

[Jayshellberg]

Iowa hiring Hayden Fry. The success Fry achieved at Iowa made it much more difficult for Iowa State football to be successful. This is because everyone in the state without a tie to ISU gravitated towards the Hawkeyes.

 

[cytor]

Wasn't Bruce Van De Velde the one who ran the athletic department into the ground?

Yes. And the president of ISU Gordon Eaton hated athletics too. Both are POS's

 

[cydsho]

While it would have been fun to have ISU in those championship games, I think ISU wouldve suffered a similar fate to the teams that ended up going to face OU\UT, and we would've gotten boat raced. I don't think that would've changed the trajectory all that much.

Possibly but don't think McCarney is fired for a while. Maybe those 2 north championships puts more excitement back in the program. 2005 was a huge disappointment. Just keeping Dmac past 2006 changes everything.

 

[aeroclone]

Iowa hiring Hayden Fry. The success Fry achieved at Iowa made it much more difficult for Iowa State football to be successful. This is because everyone in the state without a tie to ISU gravitated towards the Hawkeyes.

I didn't think of this, as my immediate reaction to this question was to look inward, but this is a great answer too.

 

[Nococy]

It all goes back to the punch by Woody Hayes. The Clones were coming off 3 straight 8-3 seasons with Bruce and the hawks had 20 straight losing seasons. We owned the state and Bruce would have kept the dominance going.

 

[ScottyP]

Iowa hiring Hayden Fry. The success Fry achieved at Iowa made it much more difficult for Iowa State football to be successful. This is because everyone in the state without a tie to ISU gravitated towards the Hawkeyes.

Fry always looked for opportunities to mock and put Iowa State down. A lot of tavern hawks are this way because of Fry.

He also manipulated the sports media in the state of Iowa.

 

[cytor]

Fry always looked for opportunities to mock and put Iowa State down. A lot of tavern hawks are this way because of Fry.

He also manipulated the sports media in the state of Iowa.

Fry was a horse's ass.

 

[BCClone]

I didn't think of this, as my immediate reaction to this question was to look inward, but this is a great answer too.

Better yet, fry hiring the vampire, what elevated Fry at north Texas

 

[BillBrasky4Cy]

While it would have been fun to have ISU in those championship games, I think ISU wouldve suffered a similar fate to the teams that ended up going to face OU\UT, and we would've gotten boat raced. I don't think that would've changed the trajectory all that much.

Yeah they would have gotten killed. Hindsight is always 20/20 but a lot of the Danny Mac era was fools gold, we never really beat anyone.

 

[BillBrasky4Cy]

Iowa hiring Hayden Fry. The success Fry achieved at Iowa made it much more difficult for Iowa State football to be successful. This is because everyone in the state without a tie to ISU gravitated towards the Hawkeyes.

So many Iowa State fans don't truly understand how much the Fry hire aided in burying the Iowa State football program. Dude absolutely OWNED the state.

 

[BillBrasky4Cy]

Fry always looked for opportunities to mock and put Iowa State down. A lot of tavern hawks are this way because of Fry.

He also manipulated the sports media in the state of Iowa.

I grew up in the Fry era and to this day the worst tavern hawks are the ones that are my age (early 40's).

 

[BCClone]

I grew up in the Fry era and to this day the worst tavern hawks are the ones that are my age (early 40's).

You haven’t had to deal with the blue hairs that have been passing. Fry was a god to those people.

 

[BillBrasky4Cy]

You haven’t had to deal with the blue hairs that have been passing. Fry was a god to those people.

Oh I'm not saying they weren't bad too but hawks my age have experienced 2 head coaches in their lifetime, which is insane! those old pricks were bad too but they at least knew of the bad years.

 

[BCClone]

Oh I'm not saying they weren't bad too but hawks my age have experienced 2 head coaches in their lifetime, which is insane! those old pricks were bad too but they at least knew of the bad years.

They did but they some how whitewashed it from their memory. All they could say was 15 years.