Yes, we are recruiting vs the likes of NU, Minny and Wisconsin but what's been more troubling is the loss of top in-state recruits to the likes of KSU, KU and Creighton.
Is it time to start talking about a HC change?
- Thread starter loyalsons4evertrue
- Start date
It sucks, but it’s true. Most of the fan base doesn’t care about sports outside of FB and MBB.
The thing with volleyball is that "in state" kids aren't treated any differently than "out of state". The coaching staff isn't coming to a high school game to watch a recruit, all of the recruiting is done at the high level club events. I know a D1 volleyball player and she didn't have a single coach come to a high school game. She was recruited by Iowa State but all of their recruiting efforts/scouting was at Club Events.
well this is not just an Iowa State thing and most fan bases (SEC in particular) only care about football....which obviously pays the bills, but Iowa State is unique where our fans do care about multiple sports programs...even despite our volleyball season this year, they're drawing nearly 2,000 people to every match, which is really good for volleyball.
There are few schools who support their athletics programs like Iowa State....Nebraska being probably the only other school I can genuinely think of
I'm not going to even pretend to know anything about volleyball recruiting, but isn't this pretty typical amongst many sports?
I think the reason Audi Crooks is so highly regarded is because not only did she dominate HS play, she was dominant in the AAU circuit as well...same thing with CC at Iowa.
There are volleyball players who play year round...AAU all the way from December to August and then from August to November/December is their HS sanctioned volleyball.
I think the high end talent for any sport can be found in the club versions of those sports.
JP stated his goal is to be top half of the conference. If we don't make it in VB this year, that is an aberration. He'll have a year end review and stay the course. But, the conversation is good - it raises expectations.
Competitive volleyball is very hard on the body. Constant jumping means landing on someone else and turning an ankle is a continuous threat. Add in how fast they are swinging and the shoulder could be tweaked at any time too.
Of course, VB recruits are primarily evaluated at club tourneys, but recruiting gets more difficult when you have to go outside of the Upper MW too frequently to recruit and sign top prospects or resort to 2nd tier recruits that you do sign out of IA and other Upper MW states.
One good thing about the current roster is that there is only one SR (Stonestreet) and they have a libero replacement in VanGorp who actually won the job over Stonestreet before she got concussed and then had to be moved to OH after the Gonzalez/Duckworth injuries. If everyone returns and is healthy, the team should be NCAA contenders next season but the OH and MB talent pools have got to get better either through in-house improvement and/or the portal.
I think you'd have to about pull a knife on somebody to be fired as an Olympic coach at a place like Iowa State at this point. There just aren't the resources for a revolving door there.
Everything is going to go towards keeping football and men's basketball competitive and maybe something like women's basketball and wrestling if there's much left at that point. Hopefully we can preserve a realistic shot at the football playoff and a deep run in the NCAA tournament going forward (or at least not a substantially worse shot than what we had 15 years ago). Resources for the Olympic sports to be competitive will not be available and thus oh well. While sad, unless something is catastrophically wrong with a sport like volleyball (like: we are getting sued wrong or criminal investigations/indictments wrong) then not much can change.
Everything is going to go towards keeping football and men's basketball competitive and maybe something like women's basketball and wrestling if there's much left at that point. Hopefully we can preserve a realistic shot at the football playoff and a deep run in the NCAA tournament going forward (or at least not a substantially worse shot than what we had 15 years ago). Resources for the Olympic sports to be competitive will not be available and thus oh well. While sad, unless something is catastrophically wrong with a sport like volleyball (like: we are getting sued wrong or criminal investigations/indictments wrong) then not much can change.
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Tell me you know nothing about elite-level athleticism without telling me...
Since when does "contact" dictate whether athletes are subject to injury??
Whatever our volleyball issues are, having Hilton Coliseum as a home venue is definitely not one of them.
Plenty of winning programs play at their campus basketball arena. Off the top of my head, some of the top 25 programs:
Stanford
SMU
TCU
Baylor
Florida
Arizona State
Oregon
Washington
USC
Hilton is a great volleyball venue, and now with the new volleyball-only practice facility, the program wants for nothing.
Plenty of winning programs play at their campus basketball arena. Off the top of my head, some of the top 25 programs:
Stanford
SMU
TCU
Baylor
Florida
Arizona State
Oregon
Washington
USC
Hilton is a great volleyball venue, and now with the new volleyball-only practice facility, the program wants for nothing.
I wonder how many people clicked this and didn't see it was tagged as VB
None of those venues are in the Upper MW and with the exception of Oregon, none are as cavernous as Hilton which requires a curtain to be dropped to improve the atmosphere.
It has become a recruiting obstacle when competing vs other Upper MW programs for top talent.
It just doesn't matter, with the pay the players and NIL, there is no reason to spend extra money on Olympic programs unless a donor steps up to fund it.
Already posted that that it will take a donor or business entity to fund a new VB competition venue. preferably one that can be used year-round for club & HS VB that would help fill the upcoming AIA void for local businesses.
And claiming it just doesn't matter is nonsense given the instate interest for HS and ISU VB.
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Does it make or lose money for the Athletic Dept? That is what matters anymore, given the new world of collegiate athletics.
I enjoy VB I try to make a few games a season, but in the big scheme at ISU the case can be made it's the 5th sport on the list FB, MBB,WBB, Wrestling then VB.
The reason I put Wrestling ahead of VB is the support of the Wrestling collective. In a perfect world all these sports should be well funded and supported along with the other Olympic sports but that's not the world it is anymore.
FB and maybe MBB are the only two sports that make money. WBB and Wrestling certainly don't. i anticipate that VB will continue to have up to 12 FCOA schollies and possibly an All-Conference type player or two may receive some additional NIL money under the AD cap if the need arises. Could a VB staffer get cut? Possibly but it does help that CJL's husband is a volunteer coach. What the program does need IMO is an outsourced S&C upgrade dedicated for VB.
And you could see some conference realignment for VB only but much more likely that occurs for softball.
