March 18, 2024

Nice guy Rhoads simply needed more victories

The firing of Paul Rhoads as Iowa State’s football coach was inevitable.

He was a great guy and someone who would have stayed in Ames for as long as the school would have him. I truly believe that.

Loyalty isn’t always enough. Sooner or later, results write your script. That was something Rhoads simply didn’t do enough of.

He is 32-54 heading into his final game of his seventh season at Iowa State. That’s just not good enough.

Losing to nationally ranked foes such as Baylor, Oklahoma, TCU and even blowing a lead against Oklahoma State was understandable and even acceptable to a certain degree.

However, in your seventh season, when your trying to keep your job and bring back momentum, winning the “winnable” games should be an expectation.

Losing to a mid-major program such as Toledo is unacceptable.

Losing a big halftime lead against what was a two-win Kansas State team also is something that has to be avoided.

Rhoads has won just eight games in the last three years. Not even a newly renovated and spiffy stadium can fix that.

He won just one bowl game and had one winning season in his seven years.

Both of those were in 2009, which was his first season in Ames. And arguably he did that because he had great players Gene Chizik recruited.

Part of the issue was games that were played away from Jack Trice Stadium. He didn’t win enough at home, but he was only 3-12 on the road since the beginning of 2013. That just won’t cut it.

He fared well against instate rival Iowa. He started 0-2 but finished by winning three of his final five games in the Cy-Hawk Series.

That’s not great, but it’s at least nearly a win every other season.

Cyclone fans can deal with that.

They can’t deal with drilling Tulsa to start the 2012 season and then getting drilled by the same Tulsa team in a bowl game later that year.

That doesn’t show that the program is getting better throughout the season.

They won’t deal with losing to an FCS program in back-to-back seasons like they had to do in losses to Northern Iowa (2013) and North Dakota State (2014). Quite frankly, they shouldn’t have to.

I have no idea who Iowa State Athletic Director Jamie Pollard should hire. I won’t pretend to be an expert on the subject.

The Cyclone program and its fans need someone who will be willing to stay long enough to build a foundation.

Dan McCarney was that guy. So was Rhoads.

But as McCarney found out, once hope can no longer be sold, it’s time to go another direction.