ISU Fball Head Coaches

CoachHines3

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its v. sad that McCarney is considered one of the greatest of all time coaches at iowa state with a 39% winning %.

that just how sad the history of iowa state football is
 

Cycsk

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Win at Baylor and Campbell's winning percentage surpasses Earle Bruce.

And best winning percentage in this century!

EDITED TO NOTE THAT THE LAST STATEMENT IS INCORRECT. SEE POST #47 BY QUERTY ON PAGE 3.
 
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Clonefan94

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Schaumburg, IL
Plus, Dan had NOTHING to work with. No facilities, no funding, etc... he did good with what he had.
I know everyone talks about the turnaround CMC has done here and well deserving, but Coach Mac really did something close to a miracle. Granted, I have even said he benefitted from a weak North Division and getting to skip OUT to two years at a time. That being said though, there was nothing here for Mac to build on, it literally was a **** show.

I'm not trying to take away from CMC, but JP really did start to put some nice pieces in place before CMC got here. I started at ISU in 1990, watching the program go from bad to a laughing stock while I was at ISU, was pretty disheartening. I graduated in 1994, after watching 0-10-1 that previous season. The fact that Mac had us in a bowl game 6 years later is pretty miraculous, no matter who we were playing.

OK, all that being said, that list is really depressing.
 

madguy30

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You either weren't around for 80's and 90's ISU football or you've blocked it from your memory! :jimlad:

I always say this in these threads but put the 80s in modern era bowl eligibility and it doesn't look that bad.

Were they good? No. They got throttled plenty. But 3 bowl games (maybe 4 with 5-5-1 year) is looked upon much more fondly if there's 30-40 bowl games.

1980
Big Eight​
—​
T–4th​
6​
5​
0​
—​
—​
—​
1981
Big Eight​
—​
6th​
5​
5​
1​
—​
—​
—​
1982
Big Eight​
—​
T–6th​
4​
6​
1​
—​
—​
—​
1983
Big Eight​
—​
T–4th​
4​
7​
0​
—​
—​
—​
1984
Big Eight​
—​
8th​
2​
7​
2​
—​
—​
—​
1985
Big Eight​
—​
5th​
5​
6​
0​
—​
—​
—​
1986
Jim Criner, Chuck Banker​
Big Eight​
—​
5th​
6​
5​
0​
—​
—​
—​
1987
Big Eight​
—​
6th​
3​
8​
0​
—​
—​
—​
1988
Big Eight​
—​
5th​
5​
6​
0​
—​
—​
—​
1989
Big Eight​
—​
4th​
6​
5​
0​

Now the 90s....that's easily the worst decade in ISU football history record-wise. Oddly they beat a few ranked teams in that time frame.

By my count they had at least 2 winning seasons in every decade leading up to the 1990s.

 

Billups06

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Didn't ISU have penalties/sanctions stemming from recruiting violations under the Criner staff (ultimately led to his firing)?

Edit: Simple search says they lost scholarships and put on probation for 2 years. Thought it was harsher than that and what ultimately lead to Walden's demise. Looks to have played a factor though.
 
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jsb

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Didn't ISU have penalties/sanctions stemming from recruiting violations under the Criner staff (ultimately led to his firing)?

Yep, listen to the recent Walden podcast. He was left with pretty significant scholarship issues.

As an aside, that podcast is really good. Jim had very good things to say about both Pollard and Campbell.

And he also had really, really nice things to say about the AD staff who put together his visit for the OSU game.
 

alarson

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Our last coach had a .368 winning PCT and I think we can all agree he gets at least another year if he kneels the freakin' ball.

Nah, he was done either way IMO. That just sped up the announcement by a week, firing him after KSU instead of after the last game.

Maybe if he'd gotten the W at KSU and at WVU they mightve been able to sell improvement off 5 wins, but 4 wouldve been a stretch. The fanbase was checked out.
 
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madguy30

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Nah, he was done either way IMO. That just sped up the announcement by a week, firing him after KSU instead of after the last game.

Maybe if he'd gotten the W at KSU and at WVU they mightve been able to sell improvement off 5 wins, but 4 wouldve been a stretch. The fanbase was checked out.

I went to the TCU game that season and there were lots of people selling tickets but then it was still a good crowd considering how bad they were.