Mailbag

I wasn't sure what to do this week so I took the easy way out and asked for questions. I got a few responses, so let's get into the mailbag.

Why do Hawkeye fans still support Kirk Ferentz? Minus a couple years ago they have been middle of the road that wins 1 big home game and usually has a terrible loss before or after. Greg-Epworth, IA

Well that's a great way to start this, and I think there is a couple ways to go. First of all I need to put my disclaimer on here, I've only been an Iowa fan for half of Ferentz's tenure at the school. I made the switch in 2009, maybe the height of Kirk's reign. That said let's look at what Feretnz and Iowa are.

Is Iowa "middle of the road?" I guess that depends on what road you're on, the Big Ten West Road, Iowa is right there at the top or near the top, right below Wisconsin. The Big Ten Road, Iowa is in the upper half, maybe the 3rd tier but above at least 7 programs. Nationally, well this might come as a shock but since 2015, Iowa has the 12th most wins in college football, and have won a game vs an opponent from every P5 conference in the last 3 years. Is that middle of the road? I don't think it is. I think the Iowa football program and Kirk Ferentz are right where they need to be, could things be better? Sure, but aside from a few more wins Wisconsin and Penn State, the last 5 years have been pretty good.

Let's look at some of the negatives the anti-Ferentz crowd uses. There is a vocal portion of the fan base that dislikes Ferentz. His offensive scheme, mainly the run game is stuck in the past. If Iowa switched from the zone scheme to more of a gap look, like Wisconsin, perhaps they could be more efficient running the ball. Iowa though prefers more athletic lineman instead of the abnormally large humans Wisconsin puts out. Ferentz also plays things safer than most, his philosophy of protect the defense leads to close games, and sometimes that bites him. Iowa rarely gets blown out which makes the 3-4 losses every year a gut punch because you play what if a lot. He plays with a razor thin margin often against good teams. Greg also brought up the "bad losses," well everyone has bad losses, just this year Wisconsin lost to a bad Illinois team, Ohio State lost to Purdue in 2018, Iowa 2017. Purdue who has a young coach who everyone loves, lost to BYU this year, BYU also beat USC. Oregon lost to Arizona State, should I keep going? Not everyone is Clemson and Alabama, bad losses happen.

So to answer the question, why do we support Ferentz? We don't want to become Nebraska or USC, teams that think they are above Iowa but because of constant chasing of National Titles that are hard to get you end up losing a lot more. I don't want Iowa becoming Arkansas or Mississippi State, I like having 2 coaches over 40 years, I don't mind winning 8-10 games every year, I'm thankful for what we have and I don't want to chase wins while being below .500. Could Ferentz win a few more division titles? Sure, but beating Wisconsin is tough and they have a plan for Iowa every year, hopefully Kirk and Brian Ferentz have a new wrinkle for them next year.

Can you break down the 1974 NHL draft for me? Andy-Lake Mills, WI

Why the hell not Andy, let's open up Wikipedia here. First thing that jumps off the page, the draft was a conference call. All the teams got on speaker phone and talked it out, that's pretty good. Also the Buffalo Sabres used their 183rd pick on a fake player named Taro Tsujmoto of the Tokyo Katanas, guess they didn't need that pick. The 1st pick went to the expansion Washington Capitols and they took defenseman Greg Joly of the Regina Pats, his teammate from the Pats, Clark Gillies went #4 to the Islanders, he became one of the 3 hall of famers in this draft. The 2nd and 3rd picks were held by the Kansas City Scouts and California Golden Seals, they took teammates from the St. Catharines Black Hawks, Wilf Paiement and Rick Hampton. Who the hell are the Scouts and Seals? The expansion Scouts made it a whopping 2 seasons before moving to Colorado for 6 seasons and moving again to New Jersey to become the Devils. The Seals weren't so lucky, they joined the NHL in 1967, changed names a few times, eventually moved to Cleveland and merged, yeah I said merged, with the Minnesota North Stars in 1978. What the hell is that about, could you imagine the Marlins and Rangers merging today, dude the 70's were a trip. Anyway, to keep with the theme, the 5th and 6th picks also played major juniors together with the Canadiens and North Stars selecting teammates from the Flin Flon Bombers, Cam Connor and Doug Hicks. Guys this is the best draft ever, the Flin Flon Bombers, you kidding me. We'll fast forward to the 2nd round where the other 2 hall of famers Brian Trottier (#22 to the Islanders) and Mark Howe (#25 to the Bruins) were taken. There were only 18 picks per round and the draft went 25 rounds with Capitols, I'm assuming filling their roster took 4  of the last 7 picks, in fact rounds 24 and 25 were 1 pick each and rounds 22 and 23 were 2 picks each, guessing the Buffalo GM was not still on the conference call then. This was far more interesting than I imagined.

Do you feel Oklahoma will join the Big Ten this decade? Chris-Monroe, WI

There was time I was certain Oklahoma was coming to the Big Ten, gives Ohio State an equal, throws Nebraska a bone for their history (and their stupid fan bases a real "rival" since Iowa doesn't count even though they talk shit constantly on twitter), plus makes the divisional balance a little better. Then the future happened and all the reasons for conference expansion are kind of blowing up, mainly television revenue. What is the future of sports and television, are the conferences going to be able to count on Fox, ESPN, and CBS giving each school 40 million a year? What about Hulu, Amazon, Netflix, HBO Go, Youtube, what are those streaming services going to bring to the table. We have to remember why the Big Ten added Rutgers and Maryland, not for competition, but for television sets, they wanted that revenue from your local cable provider to put Big Ten Network on your standard package and get $6 a month from each household in New York and Washington DC metros, that's a lot of coin and if you don't believe me check out your favorite teams new practice facility. Since then though cord cutting has begun and I'm not sure how much longer you can count on that $6 dollar a month. Anyway, back to the question, I don't think Oklahoma is coming to the Big Ten anymore. I got a sneaky feeling the Power 5 stays the power 5 and they keep adding teams. Just this week Boise State signed a deal with CBS to air their home games. The need for adding teams could still be about TV sets and if that's the case I think North Carolina is the next target for the Big Ten and maybe Georgia Tech, Charlotte and Atlanta are both growing cities and that's a better chance at $6 a month, and that's all that matters. If it isn't about TV sets I think the Big Ten gets local and again tries to add for Penn State which could mean Syracuse, West Virginia, Pittsburgh, or Boston College.

What do you consider the three biggest upsets of the last decade? Jacob-Des Moines, IA

Seems Jacob enjoyed the 2010's Reflection series, well let's get some upsets.
#1 is UMBC beating Virginia in 2018, that was an incredible upset and something you'll probably never witness again. Especially the dismantling, again not only did a 16 seed beat a 1 seed but they embarrassed them by 20 points. Now none of the guys from UMBC are memorable, but still the upset was one for the ages.
#2 was a November Friday night in 2011, a 5-4 Iowa State team beat undefeated #2 Oklahoma State as 28 points underdogs. I liked that Okie State team, they had Brandon Weeden who like 26 years old at QB, Justin Blackmon at WR, dude was awesome. Iowa State was down early scored 17 straight to tie it, Okie State missed a go ahead FG inside a minute of regulation, Iowa State gets the win in Double OT after getting an INT on the first play and scoring a TD to end it. Hopefully everyone at Iowa State remembers the Jared Barnett QB experience fondly.
#3 is the Warriors who won 73 games blowing the 3-1 series lead vs Cleveland. I didn't watch it, but if the greatest regular season team ever has 3 shots to close out a series they damned well better do it. I think it's one of those things that someday should define LeBron James legacy, he made the biggest comeback vs the best team.

Please explain how the Big Ten basketball teams will be evaluated for the tourney with them all seemingly going to beat each other every other night. Eric-Windsor, WI

I'm not the college hoops expert I used to be, but I'm trying to be better this year. Coming into the year I heard the league was down a little, but I also heard how many teams would be decent, seemed the 3-10 range was very close. So far it's 1-14 that are close, one of the best teams in the league Ohio State has 4 losses already. So is the league full of parody and good teams, or is the league bad and full of crappy teams. I really don't have an answer for that, I think the league is down, but also really close. Seems like you don't want to play a road game vs anyone. I think what happens in February will tell the story for the league. If we end up with a bunch of teams around 9-11 conference wins and nobody over 14 then the league will be labeled as bad and maybe they only get 5 teams in, but if the upper teams start winning, then the league can get more in. Things aren't looking good though right now, Penn State gets ranked, quickly loses 2 games, Maryland gets in the top 15, lose 2 games in a row. I can't explain Ohio State and what they are doing, top 15 ranked 4 conference losses. Basically it's up to the top teams to start winning their games, and for the love of god, someone win on the damn road. Parody is cool and all, but not when it costs you positions in the tournament.

That's it for questions this week. Hopefully, I can do this again in the future. Thanks to everyone who submitted questions, it was fun. Till next week follow me on twitter @derekbredeson, and I'll see what we come up with next week, perhaps the Super Bowl Tale of the Tape will make it's return.