McD is fine. Lavin and Huggins would have been fine for another reason. Bottom line is the GM or J Pollard had to get along with the Coach. JP is proabbly a no nonsense fellow and McD happened to fit the ticket. Because UNI and ISU were same state schools, the buyout was not an issue. $1.3M was spent come hill or high water after Will/Curtis went pro. MCD wanted to give Jacobson a shot at head coach by going somewhere. McD had been to NCAA three years in a row and probably would have been challenged at UNI for next year. He even worked to keep UNI recruits where they had promised unlike some other coaches. If he truly worked to keep the ISU guys together and it was not to happen, GOOD for him. I just hope he did not drop the big one in their first meeting by saying My Way or the Highway. Sounds like he did more thsan a professional job.
Yet we still need to be able to capture some 4-start recruits sometime. I know - so was Tags. The thing about Tags was he had gifts, got very sick, acted like a true freshman, and appeared to lack aggressiveness on defense, did not shuffle his feet for about 2 seconds after an opponents move (what was that all about?), and complained a little too much on the court. Just immature and needed a Dad for a coach. Tasheed Carr was ready to roll on the court but he lost his stroke after 5 games and was silenced for his career (what was that all about?). Will was probably plastered by Curtis info in their room about going pro. Mike E wants to play and transferred. We lost Haruska a long time ago (warning?) when WM took over and this was an Indicator. Corey bought on ISU as a school beiong from Minnesoata. Fernald had a huge opportunity and frittered it away. His and our loss. Stinnet felt uncomfortable and hit the recruiting trail.
Now we are again at the start of "Revolving Coach Door ISU." However, supposedly things have just changed with the grand entrance of MCD. He is here for life per JP (that will save some future buyout money) and both our bball and football coaches are now "ISU fixtures." Personally, getting a new bball coach every two or three years seemed disruptive to planning our expectations. Larry E did us no favors with his ridiculous performance off court. He messed up the bball program more than anyone else thought possible with his shenagians off court. We thank WM for filling in and keeping the program going after LE and we paid you well. We thank TF for showing us ISU could be a winner again. We thank Johhny Orr for bringing us a name coach when we needed one. We thank McD for wanting the job and hitting the ground running.
Interesting last ten years at ISU with more to come.
