It’s not possible for a coach to “win” a media day press conference. After all, what is there to actually win? However, I’d say that Iowa State’s new leader Steve Prohm came as close to doing that as humanly possibly on Tuesday of this week.
Fair or not, I came away from Prohm’s introductory press conference at Iowa State less than blown away. He was nervous. He looked out of place. Prohm didn’t come off to me as big-time high-major head coach.
Tuesday’s event was the total opposite. This was my favorite quote.
“This situation going to help me improve as a head coach.” Prohm said. “It’s going to help me improve as a man. This is a great situation to walk into, no question. You have a lot of expectations out there but that’s great. You want that. I did come from a program that had expectations that was about championships. This program program now is about championships. It is about winning. It is about doing things the right way. I just want to add to that. Is there pressure? Yeah. But who wants a job where there is no pressure? I’ve been at programs where they love basketball and I’ve been at programs where we’ve won championships and nobody came to the games. I’d rather go with the pressure situation and stay faithful to what I know works and enjoy the process of getting them better.”
And now the real work begins.
I’m intrigued
Iowa State switched its base defense to a 3-4 in the offseason for two main reasons.
The first is because of the recruiting problems this and many programs across the country have had defensive linemen. At Iowa State, it’s easier to find Big 12 level linebackers than it is big guys up front on the defensive side of the football. This has and probably always will be the case in Ames.
Secondly and probably the most important reason, it’s because of the league that Iowa State plays in. Defending Air-Raid offenses like Texas Tech, TCU and Baylor (Iowa State’s next three opponents) has been quite the chore. How will Iowa State’s new scheme fare on Saturday in Lubbock?
“Yes, this is one of the reasons why we went to it,” Paul Rhoads told me on Monday. “There were pieces of it that needs to be played much faster from what we saw on Saturday for what we’re going to see this week and the next eight weeks of the season. But yeah, every coach, every player likes a challenge and this will be a great one Saturday afternoon.
Bold prediction
TCU is a nine-point favorite for Saturday night’s game at Kansas State.
I feel like the Horned Frogs are finally clicking on all cylinders and I still believe this Bill Snyder team to be a bit of a fraud.
Confidently, I’ll take the Horned Frogs and lay the points.
And I know I will regret this later too.
BONUS: Fennelly on KXnO tonight
Today is Iowa State women’s basketball media day. Check out CycloneFanatic.com later on today for complete coverage of the event from our Jared Stansbury.
Tonight at 6, head coach Bill Fennelly will join Rob Gray and me on the Cyclone Fanatic Radio Show that is presented by Nebraska Furniture Mart in Clive on 1460 KXnO.
