This morning, new Iowa State Head Football Coach Jimmy Rogers gave his introductory press conference alongside Jamie Pollard and outgoing ISU President Wendy Wintersteen. Given the turmoil of the weekend
that was (aside from basketball’s blowout win at Purdue), this press conference provided the first real opportunity for Jamie Pollard and Jimmy Rogers to finally push Cyclone fans to turn the page on the Matt Campbell era and turn doom and gloom into hope and enthusiasm.
Here’s the press conference in full:
Some thoughts and takeaways I had from Jimmy Rogers’ first words to the Cyclone faithful:
- Before even answering a question, Jimmy mentioned his RBF (Resting Bitch Face) and said he just looks like that; he’s not always angry. As someone with my own case of RBF, I appreciate the playful shoutout.
- The first thing I noticed right off the bat was that Jimmy Rogers is a very direct and intense person who speaks plainly. Specifically, his directness was noticeable as a stark contrast to Matt Campbell, who was well known to dabble heavily in “coach speak,” which could be irritating when fans were looking for some clarity on a particular situation. One style isn’t necessarily better or worse than the other, but Rogers appears to at least generally be more black and white in his responses. That said, the intro press conference is mostly softball questions, so we’ll see if my observation remains true through spring ball and into the fall.
- As a further testament to that honesty, Jimmy shared an emotional response after the first question about his journey to Iowa State, and even teared up a bit when talking about his experience walking on at SDSU and being thankful for his opportunity. Without a doubt, Jimmy Rogers wears his heart on his sleeve.
- Rogers made a very clear point to honor the legacy of Matt Campbell, understanding that lots of Cyclone fans are still mourning the departure of Campbell, and ignoring the fact that he’s following up the greatest coach in school history won’t win fans over any more quickly.
- He also made a point to mention on multiple occasions that he did not originally intend to only stay at Washington State for one season, but saw Iowa State as a unique opportunity that justified the jump. Lots of people outside the program have felt the need in the last couple of days to attempt to paint Rogers as a mercenary that will leave at the first sign of success, which I suppose is possible, but I see his career path simply as a function of significant opportunities popping up at the right time for him. SDSU literally plays in a different division and plays for a different trophy, so if he aspired to coach at the highest level of college football, the move to Wazzu made perfect sense. The move from Washington State to Iowa State after one season may paint the picture of a mercenary, but you have to remember that Washington State is now fully a G5 school following the implosion of the Pac-12, and provides very limited upward mobility going forward. For context, their NIL budget this past season was $2.5 million, and Iowa State’s next season will be $14 million. It’s hard to blame him for wanting to move close to home while also seeing a 6x increase in his available roster-building funds.
- When asked about his on-field plans, he mostly talked defense and very specifically mentioned that they would be utilizing a four-man front (most likely a 4-2-5 scheme), and that they would need to evaluate and re-tool the roster to fit that scheme. We didn’t get a lot about the offensive side of the ball, but rumors have been percolating that former ISU running backs coach and running game coordinator Tyler Roehl could potentially be a candidate for the offensive coordinator position.
- Concluding the press conference with something to the effect of “Can we be done? I have a roster to build.” kicked ass. That’s exactly the tone he needed to set. Guy just wants to play football.
Overall, I thought this press conference went about as well as it possibly could have for Jimmy Rogers. He’ll be moving on to meeting the current players and trying to retain as many of them as possible to maintain roster continuity. It would not surprise me to start seeing news of intentions to transfer over the next month until the transfer portal officially opens, so we’ll be keeping an eye on that.
Thoughts on Jamie Pollard’s Sidebar
Ordinarily, I wouldn’t bother writing much about sidebar interviews like this, but I think Jamie had some very interesting comments that are worth discussing.
Firstly, my qualms with how Jamie Pollard has handled a number of situations are fairly well known if you’re a consumer of any of the podcasts or YouTube shows I’m on, so I tend to judge him more harshly than most. But, I will give Jamie credit for addressing the “controversy” over the weekend stemming from a now mostly-debunked post on the Cyclone Fanatic forums, which essentially painted Pollard as a tyrant who ran Matt Campbell out of town and will eventually run TJ Otzelberger and Bill Fennelly out. He didn’t lose his cool or anything. Just stated the facts and calmly brushed it off.
The major points in the interview that caught my attention regarded the funding of revenue sharing and NIL, particularly from the university and the state. In the past, President Wendy Wintersteen maintained a fairly strict financial bifurcation between the university and the athletic department, forcing the AD to self-fund virtually everything through TV contracts, donations, and other small revenue sources. Today, Pollard discussed his hope that the university would be open to supplying some level of funding to the athletic department via the direction of incoming President David Cook, who aggressively funded North Dakota State’s athletic department.
Athletics funding from the university isn’t universal across college football, but it certainly isn’t uncommon, and could be critical for Iowa State to be able to financially compete with its peers in the future and hopefully establish a situation where they can dip into above-the-cap spending, which is what sets college football’s elite apart from the proletariat.
An even more interesting comment which I was not expecting to hear was Pollard discussing optimism that the Iowa Board of Regents, which controls the state funding that gets directed to Iowa’s public universities, could be more open to establishing a structure that allows the State of Iowa to fund some portion of revenue sharing obligations to the athletic departments at Iowa State, Iowa, and UNI. That’s obviously a significantly more complex issue given that it involves the state government and a reallocation of tax revenue, but it’s been done in a number of other states (especially in SEC country), and could be the key to making sure the state’s flagship athletics programs remain nationally relevant and competitive and continue to be a massive source of economic activity for the state.
We expect to see lots of roster activity over the next couple of months as Jimmy Rogers starts to find his guys for next season, so we’ll be keeping tabs on all of the transfers in and out of the program, as well as the various assistant coaches that will make up Jimmy Rogers’ first staff.
