Paul Rhoads and Recruiting
- Thread starter Thomasrickj
- Start date
Umm...yeah. That was part of the sarcasm. You can't exactly pretend that they're a bust when they haven't played yet, can you?
The way I look at it is that McCarney...Chizik & Rhoads have all recruited the same caliber of football players.
I never said anywhere that I thought that our recruiting was busted. Just that people need to stop assuming that a statistical anomaly in getting a jake knott is going to happen with most 2 star players. They will probably be role players or solid players as a ceiling. Which is what we saw on Saturday.
Same here. I do think Rhoads has taken a small step up, but there aren't major differences between the level of players they've recruited. I think the 2014 class will be a step up with the new facility, but in the mean time recruiting is what it is in Ames.
The point is that recruiting here isn't good. It never has been and it probably never will be on a consistent basis. So we get who we can get, coach them up the best we can, and see what happens. But if anyone thinks we are going to consistently get 8-9 win seasons, they are fooling themselves.
Worse yet, they are going to run off Rhoads. I saw someone post in one of the stupid meltdown threads that he was supposed to take us to the next level and hasn't. You know what? He did take us to the next level. Because the level we were at before he came was Chizzle. And we were bad. Now, we are respectable. THAT is our next level. I would love for us to win some bowl games (because we have only won 3) and occasionally finish in the top-25. And I believe Rhoads can do that. But at least every team we play knows they are going to get a rock fight. It wasn't that way for Chizzle or Coach Mac.
Criticize coaching decisions. Criticize players leaving the program. But lay off the recruiting.
Worse yet, they are going to run off Rhoads. I saw someone post in one of the stupid meltdown threads that he was supposed to take us to the next level and hasn't. You know what? He did take us to the next level. Because the level we were at before he came was Chizzle. And we were bad. Now, we are respectable. THAT is our next level. I would love for us to win some bowl games (because we have only won 3) and occasionally finish in the top-25. And I believe Rhoads can do that. But at least every team we play knows they are going to get a rock fight. It wasn't that way for Chizzle or Coach Mac.
Criticize coaching decisions. Criticize players leaving the program. But lay off the recruiting.
Because it hasn't gotten any easier to recruit here. Iowa high school talent hasn't dramatically improved. Our tradition hasn't improved. Our weather hasn't improved. I don't know who ISU could realistically have as a coach who would improve recruiting in one huge leap. It is going to be small steps. And Rhoads is doing that. It has gotten better. We are getting the top talent in the state now. But the top talent in Iowa is less than second-tier talent in Florida. Just the way it is.
Why did players go do Lincoln, Nebraska? Manhattan, Kansas?
Do you think Bob Devaney and Tom Osborne just sat around and pouted that they had no tradition and were out in the middle of nowhere?
We can/could sell plenty of things about Iowa State:
1. Brand new state of the art weight facility
2. Iowa State IS the pro team. Best fan base in the nation. Crowds of over 56k even when we lose to UNI. Could honestly probably sell out a 65-70k stadium every week if we were good.
3. Innovative/crazy coaching schemes that are ahead of anyone else in college football.
1. We haven't had long to sell the new facility.
2. If we are trying to sell attendance we will almost always lose out to other BCS schools.
3. The only innovative/crazy stuff we've done are fake punts, fake kicks, onside kicks, and occasionally a wide receiver pass. That is stuff a lot of teams do. And it's stuff that's been around for a while. We aren't ahead of everyone else.
The 3rd one was a "could sell."
Our generic coaching schemes make us no different from every other mediocre team in the midwest.
The point was we do very little to separate our program from the others.
Like the analogy earlier... We are the fat kid who gets picked last but makes zero effort to get in shape--just blames genetics.
Last edited:
You guys are funny. It's wasn't the schemes or the play calling. Both of those are simplistic, superficial explanations.
It was the execution. Lack of tackling, blockers making the blocks they needed to. That, and nothing more. Good tackling and blocking, and we would have beaten UNI by three touchdowns Saturday night.
Our offensive coaching is awful and if you can't recognize that by now, you probably won't. Our guys are not put in positions to succeed.
Except that there was another team on the field much better at that! We were physically pounded by UNI - were you watching some other game?
Make fun of Johnson if you want, the fact is he has the last laugh and we're the ones crying after he ran all over us Saturday night. 4 years ago we had a chance to offer this big 6-3 stud that runs like a deer, and could have made a good Big 12 running back, receiver or safety. It's not like this kid was a late bloomer, he was a super stud at Clinton and it was a bad recruiting blunder on our part that we just about paid for 2 years ago and did on Saturday night.
Playing Luke Knott the whole game. Tackling better. Better play overall from the front 7.
Last edited:
12 of the 13 new guys he has commitments for next season (including our transfer) are 3 or 4 *. Ten 3*, two 4* and one guy that hasnt been graded (per ESPN). Last year most of the class was 3 or 4* . The average recruit rating has consistantly gone up each of Rhoads years here. His first year here he didnt redshirt guys so last year was a senior heavy team. We are young but have a lot of good true freshman, talented redshirt freshman and sophmores and a really talented group of recruits coming in. I have no doubt this will be a rough year but most level headed fans expected this. In 2009 and 2010 we over performed catching people off guard. In 2011 and 12 we got most everyones best and still performed, which is a huge step forward. 2013 is a rebuilding year not the year we should be taking the "next step". 2014, 2015 and 2016 all will be huge steps forward and the years we will take the next steps for the program that everyone is waiting for. Progress is seldom linear, you often have to take a step back before taking a step forward. So calm down, take a deep breath and walk away from the cliff and enjoy watching this team get better. Young teams both underperform and overperform at points throughout the season. Many had expectations wildly out of whack this year as the hype (and hope) overtook our logic. That said, we can do better at OC, our play calling and 2 minute drill were horrible. Rhoads made that clear as well.
Last edited:
Not having to face a running back with Johnson's size, strength and speed would have helped.
Holy **** did I just read common sense on CF? Huzzah! Someone understands football isnt NCAAF where you can get exponentially better every year until you suddenly are 14-0!
David Johnson would be our starting RB if he were on our team. No question in my mind. He's big, he's physical, he's fast, he has great moves. He's the entire package folks. Don't kid yourselves. I don't see him anywhere on our depth chart. Not the entire package like that. He's really good.
He ran through all of our arm tackles, and he also made most guys miss in space. He is a great combination of size, speed, and elusiveness. I wish we had him.
