By Todd Brommelkamp/KGYM Radio
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“Every gambler knows
That the secret to survivin’
Is knowin’ what to throw away
And knowin’ what to keep.” – The Gambler by Don Schlitz
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I do not claim to own this thought as my own. Others may have used it over the course of Kirk Ferentz’s 24 years at the helm of the Iowa Football program. However, it’s one I have used frequently through the years.
The ‘Iowa Football is like a roller coaster’ comparison.
It’s always fit the program like the comfortable sweater we’ve hung on to for far too long.
This has happened before. It’s a dip. The roller coaster climbs back to great heights. Always.
Except after all these years it dawned on me this morning that the roller coaster analogy misses the mark. That’s because the ride doesn’t end on an upswing, and it does end. You eventually take that last wild plummet and instead of creeping back up the tracks the cars slowly dock right back where you started.
There’s a better example and it comes from the world of gambling.
The Martingale system, for those unfamiliar, is a theory that has been used by gamblers for centuries. Essentially, you chase your losses by continually doubling down until you’re square. Start with $10 and, if that be loses, your next wager is $20. A second loss in a row calls for a $30 investment, a fourth suddenly $60 and so on. You have to win a bet at some point, right? You can’t flip a coin 10 times in a row, call tails, and have the result be heads each instance.
Except that very well can happen.
The fallacy behind the theory is that next toss – No. 11 – will finally be a winner and you’ll recoup most of what you’re down (not accounting for the juice paid to the house, of course).
Unless you have infinite funds, your luck will eventually run out. Many a man and woman have found that out the hard way. Their hubris in thinking they’ve out-smarted the house leads to their downfall.
There is irony in using this as an example of Iowa Football. Ferentz is one of the most risk-averse coaches in the game of college football. He’s not a gambler. He’ll punt from opposing territory or take a field goal inside the red zone rather than come up emptyhanded.
The program’s most ardent defenders are hanging their Hayden Fry captain-style trucker hats on the roller coaster theory. In Kirk they trust.
This, however, feels different than those previous slip-and-fall moments. I’ve been there for all of them, including the 2012 season when Iowa finished 4-8. That was the first year Brian Ferentz returned to his alma mater to coach alongside his father. A year later Iowa was back in Tampa at an Outback Bowl and two seasons later it won 12 games, made a trip to the Big Ten championship game for the first time and returned to Pasadena after a 25-year drought.
Remove the Covid-plagued 2020 conference-only season and since that trip to the Rose Bowl Iowa has recorded seasons with 8, 8, 9, 10 and 10 wins.
The past results matter. Iowa is 3-4 and has just one win in the Big Ten but things will get better because of the past, right?
Which brings us back to Martingale.
The fundamental reason why all martingale-type betting systems fail is that no amount of information about the results of past bets can be used to predict the results of a future bet with accuracy better than chance. [Source: Wikipedia]
Chance.
That’s it.
There’s a chance this season is an aberration. There’s a chance Iowa can rebound next season and win 8, 9 maybe even 10 games. There’s a chance the Hawkeyes could be a playoff contender.
The past is the past. It has no bearing on the future.
Kirk Ferentz has, for the most part, been a tremendous representative of the University of Iowa. There is a case inside the Iowa Football complex dedicated to Hall of Fame coaches Forest Evashevski and Hayden Fry. Ferentz will undoubtedly one day have his likeness included in it. Perhaps there will be a statue on the east side of Kinnick Stadium, his bronzed likeness waving up to the UI Stead Family Children’s Hospital. [When this is inevitably suggested by a certain heavenly Hawkeye Facebook page, remember you read it here first, please.]
Kirk Ferentz and Kirk Ferentz alone is responsible for the current state of the program. With his son and one-time heir apparent leading a beleaguered offensive unit that last scored a touchdown in garbage time of a 27-14 loss to Michigan three weeks ago, it has become a national punchline.
So, it’s change or chance?
“It’s just not my preference,” Ferentz told Doug Lesmerises of Cleveland.com in reference to the former. “My preference has been to play it out. And there’s evidence to show that, you know, it’s worked pretty well in the past. So we’ll play it out.”
It’s worked pretty well in the past.
We’ll let it play out.
The next bet is the winning bet.
The man who would rather call for a knee and run out the clock before halftime than take the miniscule risk of turning the ball over and taking a shot at the end zone is suddenly a big dice thrower.
Kirk Ferentz is betting on himself – and essentially his son – for what feels like the final time. He’s going for broke and there’s nothing you or I can do about it. ♦
The host of The Todd Brommelkamp Show with Alex Kuhn, Todd Brommelkamp has covered and commented on Iowa athletics since 1999. The Todd Brommelkamp Show with Alex Kuhn can be heard on KGYM weekdays from 4-6 PM.
