If you are going to be paying a Big 12 football coach, his salary should be comparable to other coaches in the conference, and $925,000 does raise coach McCarney’s salary to the level it ought to be.

The issue at hand is not the athletic department’s decision to pay an immense amount of money to a single person to coach football. The issue here is that the athletic department decided to keep McCarney here at all.

I also agree that Iowa State football brings in tremendous revenue for the athletic department; however, it was not McCarney that brought all the fans to the games, or told them to buy Iowa State football apparel.

Who or what brought fans to the games and caused people to buy football apparel? This was an act done by the football players themselves. No little kid says, “Hey dad, can we go watch Coach Mac rant and rave on the sidelines next weekend? Please?”

Instead they say, “Hey, let’s go and watch Seneca and the team play some great football.” The only reason this football team was broadcast on national television so many times this year was because it had a Heisman Trophy candidate, as well as some other fantastic athletes.

One might disagree and say it is the coach that tells the players what plays to run, which in turn should make them successful. Yes, I also agree with this.

The coaches did OK with play-calling for about the first six games. Then it just became poor.

It was not all of the players’ faults that they lost most of their games the second half of the season. A large majority of it was due to the play-calling by the coaches. How many times did the team have a first-and-goal and not score?

This was something viewers saw repeatedly throughout the season. I have spoken to players that said the reason they lost certain games was because they had been “out-coached” by the other team. The players looked extremely flat, and were having way too many missed tackles as well.

Perhaps McCarney may have been too busy whining and making excuses about the tough schedule instead of preparing his team. In the first game against Florida State the outcome could very well have been different if they hadn’t decided to run an “option play” at the end.

The outcomes of many of the Cyclones’ games could have been different if there had been better play-calling.

I do not agree that McCarney is a better coach than Iowa’s coach Kirk Ferentz, as some have said. Ferentz was named the 2002 Dave McClain Big Ten Coach of the Year, and had an 11-1 record and a share of its first Conference title since 1990. He was also named the 2002 Region Three Coach of the Year by the American Football Coaches Association and took Iowa to the Orange Bowl. He has accomplished all of this just in his fourth year at Iowa.

McCarney has had more than enough chances to do something big with ISU football. In 2001 he was Big 12 Coach of the Year. He has been here since 1995, having losing records five of those years. President Gregory Geoffroy said, “[McCarney] has demonstrated a consistent dedication to athletic and academic achievement.”

If this is true, why were three players ineligible to play in the Humanitarian Bowl because of their grades?

Again, perhaps McCarney was too worried about playing yet another ranked team on its home field to be concerned about his players.

Nicole Woodroffe

Freshman

Pre-law