Cade McNamara is a Great Start But The Clock is Still Ticking on Kirk Ferentz

By Tom Clos on December 2, 2022 at 3:21 pm @classyhawkeye
Kirk Ferentz
© Reese Strickland-USA TODAY Sports
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To say Thanksgiving weekend was bad for Iowa football is an understatement.

First, the Hawkeyes defecated all over Kinnick Stadium embarrassed themselves in a 24-17 loss to lowly Nebraska, a defeat which cost the program a second straight Big Ten West title.

Then the Cornhuskers proceeded to seemingly get their act together by hiring Matt Rhule as the program’s next head coach.

Then finally and most notably, Wisconsin went out and pulled off the shocking hire of Luke Fickell to take over its program.

The Rhule hire in Lincoln seemed destined for weeks and is what it is—he did a great job at Baylor and was a monstrosity in the NFL with the Carolina Panthers. It's a wait and see hire but a solid one nonetheless.

The Fickell one however didn’t sit well with me nor did it with most in Hawkeye-land. The former Cincinnati head man has proven himself to be a high-level power-five coach and recruiter and in six seasons led the Bearcats to a 57-18 record featuring five bowl games, two top-ten finishes, two New Year’s Six bowls, and one College Football Playoff appearance. It was an unprecedented run for a Group of Five school and there is nothing to suggest Fickell won’t be able to grind out similar success in Madison.

The hiring sent some shockwaves throughout the country and admittedly had me like Kramer from Seinfeld, waking up in the middle of the night sweating and screaming FICKELL before clutching and hugging an old Polaroid of Paul Chryst in a giant crewneck sweatshirt running his broke-ass Wisconsin offense.

 

A few days have passed however and I’ve changed my tune a bit. While there’s no denying that the Wisconsin and Nebraska football programs each improved with their respective hires this past weekend, there’s also no denying that these moves now put the ball squarely in Kirk Ferentz’s court.

The onus is now on Ferentz to make some moves of his own to keep pace with Iowa's main rivals. The timer has officially started in Iowa City.

An Encouraging Start

The first few personnel moves Ferentz needs to address this offseason are obvious and so far so good.

After two straight years of bad to terrible quarterback play, the Hawkeyes found their quarterback of the future Thursday securing the commitment of former Michigan signal-caller Cade McNamara days before the NCAA transfer portal officially opens. McNamara, who has two years of eligibility remaining, led the Wolverines to a 2021 Big Ten title and CFP appearance and is a massive upgrade under center.

Also, The Des Moines Register's Chad Leistikow reported multiple times yesterday on his Youtube Live podcast that five-star offensive tackle recruit Kadyn Proctor is going to sign with Iowa after a late flirtation with Oregon over the past few weeks. Proctor would be the highest-rated recruit Kirk Ferentz has ever brought to Iowa City.

With a few vital pieces seemingly on the way, Ferentz now has to go to Iowa State basketball levels of transfer portal use to somehow piece together a semi-functional wide receiver corp in the next few weeks. In case you haven't noticed the positional unit is kinda empty right now as both Arland Bruce IV and Keagan Johnson have left the Hawkeye program over the last 24 hours.

Though who knows, perhaps bringing in McNamara will suddenly make the Hawkeyes a wide-receiver destination. . .

Finally, and maybe most importantly, Ferentz has to somehow fix the offensive line whether via the transfer portal or from within. I'm not sure how Ferentz plans to address this issue and it feels like we've been using the "young" excuse far too often throughout two of the worst years of offensive line play in the Ferentz era. An entire coaching change in this area sounds unlikely as of right now but massive changes are needed because it won't matter who is taking snaps under center if nobody is blocking for him.

And this stuff can't continue:

There's No Time Like the Present

As for what needs to be done off the field, the next few moves are actually easier done than said for Kirk and it begins and ends with his son. We all can scream FIRE BRIAN FERENTZ into a black hole only so many times before it gets exhausting and so I’d like to leave it at this: the entire offensive coaching staff should be worried about their respective jobs. At the very least, Brian should be demoted down to offensive line coach (where he was actually pretty good). 

There truly is not time like the present to make sweeping changes because, as it currently stands, it’s actually far from doom and gloom for Iowa football.

It’s a testament to Kirk that the Hawkeyes fielded one of the worst offenses of all time and still went 7-5 this past season. It’s also a testament to Ferentz that recruiting is seemingly better than ever and that in his 24th season at Iowa he produced likely the best defensive unit this program has ever seen. High-level players (mostly defensively) still want to come play for him and this program is well advanced talent-wise from where it was when he took over.

That Ferentz was able to sell McNamara—who reportedly was shown a lot of interest from schools across the country—on coming to Iowa City is yet another feather in the head coach's cap.

In reality, the Hawkeyes are not that far away from competing with the Michigan and Ohio State's of the conference. The program's current issues hardly call for a complete rebuild. They simply call for getting the right coaches and personnel in place on one side of the ball, something that shouldn't be that big of a task for a major, Big Ten college football program like Iowa.

Overhauling the offensive staff in some way is such a painfully obvious move that if Ferentz doesn’t have the nerve to do what it takes in the name of stubbornness, nepotism, or all of the above then we probably shouldn’t bother discussing this program until he steps down with his legacy hanging by tattered threads—something that actually doesn’t feel that far away if no moves are made.

Because if nothing is done and Kirk continues to empower his son who will then continue to produce the offensive drivel we saw the past two seasons, the Hawkeyes will go back to routinely losing to Wisconsin and probably even to Nebraska. Fickell and Rhule will out-recruit and out-coach Kirk as the Iowa program is humiliated weekly on national television [insert USMNT/Iowa football World Cup joke here], the chasm between the Wolverines/Buckeyes and Iowa will widen further, and eventually Ferentz will have to retire prematurely as he stares down being forced out of a program he once built to great heights and subsequently tore down in his advanced years.

If you think it can't happen, SEE MARK DANTONIO—THE LATE YEARS 

And if in this scenario Fickell and Rhule don’t scare you (or at least make you a bit nervous), then I advise you to take a peek at the Pac-12 Championship game Friday night. In one season Lincoln Reilly has basically taken every best part of his Oklahoma program out west and is on the cusp of leading USC to the College Football Playoff in his first year.

The Trojans are 11-1 with their only loss a 43-42 defeat at Utah—a loss they can avenge this weekend in Las Vegas—while Quarterback Caleb Williams plays like Patrick Mahomes and is a virtual lock to win the Heisman Trophy next weekend.

Reilly has his program on track to look like the scary Pete Carroll-led Trojan teams of the 2000s... just in time for Southern California to arrive in the Big Ten in 2024. 

So as it stands Michigan is elite again, #5 Ohio State is suddenly the second-best team in the conference, Wisconsin and Nebraska appear to to be getting better and USC is on its way to a CFP appearance and, soon, the Big Ten.

Bringing McNamara aboard is a great first start but nothing will truly be different unless major moves happen in the offensive coaching room. It's on the Kirk to preserve his legacy and make the necessary changes now because the program's current trajectory is not viable.

And the clock is ticking.

2 Comments

Alex Padilla Enters Transfer Portal

go hawks go

Arland Bruce IV Enters The Transfer Portal

Bye, Arland
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