I watched some Arkansas games only because of him. That secondary was garbage and played terribly.
ISU Coaches
- Thread starter Aclone
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In all fairness, there's only so much you can teach people in Arkansas...... jimilad
I thought CPR was a good choice for ISU because he was an Iowan and if he succeeded here, he would stay here. And he did seem to move the program forward initially.
However what I remember is all the recruits that were relatively unknown with no better offers than ISU and in your heart you would be thinking, "This is OK, this kid will be better than what was expected." But in your head you were thinking, "This does not look promising, it's not logical to think we are finding all these overlooked diamonds in the rough and they will actually develop into great players."
CMC and staff have shown they can get the more highly-touted recruits but still also find a few of those under-the-radar guys who then actually appear to be really good players, e.g., Mike Rose, Tarique Milton, Josh Mueller, Jamahl Johnson, Datrone Young, Johnnie Lang. So I find myself now not having the doubts that I always had with CPR, despite how much I like him and want him to do well.
However what I remember is all the recruits that were relatively unknown with no better offers than ISU and in your heart you would be thinking, "This is OK, this kid will be better than what was expected." But in your head you were thinking, "This does not look promising, it's not logical to think we are finding all these overlooked diamonds in the rough and they will actually develop into great players."
CMC and staff have shown they can get the more highly-touted recruits but still also find a few of those under-the-radar guys who then actually appear to be really good players, e.g., Mike Rose, Tarique Milton, Josh Mueller, Jamahl Johnson, Datrone Young, Johnnie Lang. So I find myself now not having the doubts that I always had with CPR, despite how much I like him and want him to do well.
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I think this good coach-bad coach argument has been beaten to death, but I will add that all of these guys were fighting an uphill recruiting battle due to a lack of facilities. Look at the Jayhawks now. It has to be nearly impossible to convince a recruit that they should go there after that recruit visits other power 5 schools. We were in the same boat in the late 80s, 90s and early 2000's and we are just now catching up. Coach Campbell has it SO much better than his predecessors and he is taking full advantage of it.
Coach Campbell has MUCH better facilities to sell. Like Randy mentioned in his Rag article, our facilities were worse than some high school facilities when Mac took over.
I don't really think it's possible to judge fairly with only two seasons under his belt, but what I do like is the familiarity he has with his assistants. They've worked together for years, so everyone is on the same page. He's not importing random strangers from across the continent with differing philosophies: like an abusive fat man who somehow won at Kansas, or a hyperactive nut job with some pistol experience from Nevada, or a burned out DC from Florida, etc.
Mac made people care again, and CPR rallied a program that had been utterly betrayed and left for dead. For those reasons I will always be grateful.
I don't really think it's possible to judge fairly with only two seasons under his belt, but what I do like is the familiarity he has with his assistants. They've worked together for years, so everyone is on the same page. He's not importing random strangers from across the continent with differing philosophies: like an abusive fat man who somehow won at Kansas, or a hyperactive nut job with some pistol experience from Nevada, or a burned out DC from Florida, etc.
Mac made people care again, and CPR rallied a program that had been utterly betrayed and left for dead. For those reasons I will always be grateful.
Rhoads' major downfall was not being able to replace Tom Herman then having pretty bad recruiting classes 2010-2012. He never capitalized on upsetting Oklahoma State. The Big 12's rocky future at the time didn't help him either.
In regards to Rhoads, the uphill battle is a diversionary excuse now as it was when he was employed at Iowa State. He had the program resources needed to not get physically whipped by FCS teams, MAC teams, and to stay within 5 tds of Big 12 teams. What the program didn’t have were traits that ultimately are the result of mistakes at the top. Programs have down years and upsets will happen, but it was clear Rhoads would never have teams with the consistency needed to build success.
I mostly agree with this. Recruiting was worse than just those 3 classes though.
Game management hurt at times.
Two things killed Rhoads: The Big 12 realignment scare that lead to a lot of negative recruiting when it was rumored ISU was one of the teams being left out. The guy just could keep guys health and on campus. His attrition rate was horrible, so even if he got a few guys that could play, most of them would not be available by their junior year, when you are really counting on them.
I have to give Campbell a lot of credit for coming in and ending the woe is me mindset that Rhoads had, and the fan base has had forever. (still have it after the KSU game last year, someone should have been fired for that BS) CMC's get it done approach is very refreshing.
Paul Rhoads’ downfall was recruiting. He and his staff never tried to recruit kids with other high major offers. Once a kid had other offers from high major schools they just flat gave up recruiting the kid. Just go back and watch his reaction on signing day when Allen Lazard signed. He acted like he had just one the lottery because he couldn’t believe a kid with his talent would go to ISU. I was pretty embarrassed by his reaction and they way he acted. He tried saying for years that very talented kids just wouldn’t go to ISU and Matt Campbell proved in his first 6 weeks on the job that Rhoads was wrong and just plain didn’t try.
This.... He lost a lot of fans that night after a great win.
I think it's odd that Rhoads and Walden's winning percentage was almost the same, when Walden came into an absolute disaster in all aspects, had Class 2A Iowa HS facilities and a downright obstructionist President. Rhoads didn't come into a great situation, but the facilities were being improved, and he had a supportive President and AD committed to building winning football. Not to mention, there was decent talent brought in by the Chiz, which might be a big reason Rhoads peaked in his first year. Yet somehow Walden is almost universally panned as a terrible coach while we have people arguing that Rhoads is a good coach.
I loved Rhoads enthusiasm and passion, but ultimately that works in short bursts only, and it has a shelf-life. As others mentioned, the realignment was a huge challenge he had to face, but ultimately he didn't succeed. As far as recruiting, some of Rhoads problem was conceding that he wasn't going to anything but diamonds in the rough. However, I think the hard truth in recruiting is that, especially, in the latter years, his staff flat got outworked by damn near everybody. I'm not saying they were lazy by any means, but the top three guys - Rhoads, Wally and Mangino were not exactly road dogs, and left a bulk of the recruiting to the lower level staff. I think when you combine that with their inability to connect with kids as well as say, the current staff, they were going to struggle. Also, for whatever reason QB development was very poor. Jantz, Barnett, Richardson all looked like they had tons of promise when they first came on the scene and you can argue they all regressed over their careers.
Mac clearly did some great things here and deserves a lot of credit. Took over in a tough situation. I think he did have the advantage of the divisional format to allow for some good years (e.g. the 2000 team didn't have to beat a single ranked team to get to 9 wins), but he found some great under the radar recruits and helped them develop. More than anything, Mac made ISU a legitimate choice for decent and good recruits. Prior to that, guys were walking on at TOE rather than take a scholly at ISU.
I loved Rhoads enthusiasm and passion, but ultimately that works in short bursts only, and it has a shelf-life. As others mentioned, the realignment was a huge challenge he had to face, but ultimately he didn't succeed. As far as recruiting, some of Rhoads problem was conceding that he wasn't going to anything but diamonds in the rough. However, I think the hard truth in recruiting is that, especially, in the latter years, his staff flat got outworked by damn near everybody. I'm not saying they were lazy by any means, but the top three guys - Rhoads, Wally and Mangino were not exactly road dogs, and left a bulk of the recruiting to the lower level staff. I think when you combine that with their inability to connect with kids as well as say, the current staff, they were going to struggle. Also, for whatever reason QB development was very poor. Jantz, Barnett, Richardson all looked like they had tons of promise when they first came on the scene and you can argue they all regressed over their careers.
Mac clearly did some great things here and deserves a lot of credit. Took over in a tough situation. I think he did have the advantage of the divisional format to allow for some good years (e.g. the 2000 team didn't have to beat a single ranked team to get to 9 wins), but he found some great under the radar recruits and helped them develop. More than anything, Mac made ISU a legitimate choice for decent and good recruits. Prior to that, guys were walking on at TOE rather than take a scholly at ISU.
