On Iowa Daily Briefing 4.25.12

HEADLONG HAWKEYE

If I could do one of those "Daily Show" jump-cut segments that singles out a buzzword, I'd do that today.

The word for Hawkeye-dom yesterday was "change."

I particularly liked Black Heart Gold Pants' take. The site's daily link dump "It's Not Plagiarism If You Link To It" (thank you for the linkage, BTW, PSD and @iowahawkeyes) this morning had the headline "The Brian Ferentz-ification of Iowa Football?'

Let's swish that idea around the snifter. But first this excerpt from that post: "If Kirk [Ferentz] starts to wear his pants too high, I gotta think there's only one person on the staff that's going to tell him he looks ridiculous. That's his son. Hierarchy be damned."

I think that one was @PlannedSickDays. Do the chainsaw motion, man, admire it and then walk around the bases backward. Excellent.

It's a thought that keeps creeping in, the Brian Ferentz-ification. He's the O-line coach. He came from the Patriots, where he was the tight ends coach. He worked with the tight ends this spring (might've been a pep talk, but also might've been something more extensive). I believe there will be a pass-to-run element in the way Iowa's offense works next fall (but probably not a long-term thing, rather playing to the strength that is QB James Vandenberg and waiting for a running back to emerge, total guess on my part).

Maybe it's not so much Brian Ferentz. Remember, chain of command is observed rather closely in college football. Maybe Kirk Ferentz has turned his assistants loose.

It was a little thing in the spring game and Kirk Ferentz did play it down, but when the spring scrimmage kicked into more of a "game," he sort of distanced himself from the rest of the coaches. KF was in sort of left field, while the rest of the crew was on the sidelines.

KF has been there and done that as far as the spring game and the sidelines go. He also has always allowed his coaches to coach on game day. Prime example was last fall during the Michigan goal-line stand. The D coaches were engaged and did all the talking. KF stayed close, but stayed quiet and calm.

Maybe KF has carried that stance a step farther. You see Iowa coaches all over the place on social media (@HawkeyecoachEJ, @coach_doyle, @coachBferentz, @LeVarWoods). Iowa football had numerous press conferences this spring, many more than in Ferentz's previous 13 seasons (I think KF reads the blog, if so, thanks for that! It was helpful and fun).

Part of it was all the newness in the coaching staff, KF acknowledged, but it also was outreach, throwing the starving media a bone (I have become a journalistic camel).

"My ears do work. Believe it or not, they do work," KF said, making light requests for access (it was a battle I had given up on, frankly). "You think I'm hard-headed, but every now and then, ideas do penetrate. I'm not saying I'll ever meet in the middle, but we'll try to hear things a little bit. I've actually gotten some correspondence back that people appreciated it."

Consider this another "thank you."

Now, let's not get crazy. In-season, it's going to be a fort and no one is getting into practice (covered Chicago Bears training camp for four years in Dubuque, it's not a great loss). I would suggest a coordinator availability on Wednesday (Greg Davis is a good talker and Iowa should take advantage).

More coaches talking might help build profile for the program. One voice eventually runs out of new things to say and gets tuned out. That program also gets the mute button. Ferentz's Big Ten teleconference sessions toward the end of last season didn't go the full 10 minutes, something he noted a few times.

With the players, I know KF doesn't want a circus atmosphere and I get that. Still, there's no better ambassadors for Iowa football and the University of Iowa. You want James Vandenberg on TV as much as possible. Micah Hyde (seriously), too. Along with Nike Pro Combat, let's face it, recruits dig media. The arena ethos of sports -- at least the way American sports and media has built it -- needs that release. This is what happened, this is how I felt.

KF, 56, has a contract that runs through 2020. That's nine more seasons, theoretically.

In the last two decades of his long career, Picasso produced more work than at any other time of his life. This late period tends to be overlooked, but contains some of the finest of Picasso's paintings. Some critics maintain Picasso was creatively lazy at this point. Others believe he had achieved a level of effortless artistic expression that still hasn't been fully appreciated.

Maybe a bit of a hubristic reference, but apropos nonetheless.

WIDE WORLD OF LINKAGE

-- You thought the Jarrod Uthoff-Wisconsin transfer story was messy? What about this:

Florida International refused to allow Dominique Ferguson and his career 8-point scoring average to transfer after Isiah Thomas was fired as FIU's coach, so Ferguson is entering the NBA draft.

New FIU coach Richard Pitino -- yes, Rick Pitino's son -- said staying at the school may not be “a good fit” for everyone on the roster he inherited. Apparently, Ferguson was one of those the program wants to keep.

Sounds sleazy.

-- If you really want sleazy, let's talk bowl games.

Dan Wetzel of Yahoo Sports, who has written so much to expose the BCS and the bowls for the shams they are, has a damning column about how Sugar Bowl Inc. stuck it to LSU in the BCS title game held in New Orleans.

Complimentary tickets for parents of the players? Nope. LSU paid $254,800 for tickets that players requested, at $350 a throw.

The Tiger Marching Band? Every seat they needed cost LSU $350, including some for tubas. That was another $182,830.

Athletic directors have been among the biggest flunkies and stooges for bowls, but the financial stress the bowls are putting on their budgets may finally be tipping things the other way.

"Everything has changed in the last couple of years," said an athletic director at a BCS school in Wetzel's essay "The business practices of the bowl games are of great discussion. … When is enough, enough?

"There's a feeling that it's time to do it ourselves."

-- But LSU's athletic program isn't going broke, folks.

The Tigers are giving defensive coordinator John Chavis a raise. He's going from $700,000 last year to an average of $1.1 million over the next three years.

"Market value," LSU Coach Les Miles called it.

It would buy a lot of tickets to the BCS title game, that's for sure.

-- The following video is from a Division II team's football scrimmage. But it's big-time all the way.