I think the hardest part about Fran is 12 years of Gesell / bohannon / Connor / Clemmons / Toussaint / Ulis. College is 100000% a guards game, and Fran has had rotten luck with finding guards that elevate his team. It's super fucking weird given that at Sienna he was known for having tough athletic guards that helped him beat teams like Ohio State in the tournament.
Then he gets to Iowa and he can't recruit a complete guard. If they are athletic, then they can't shoot. If they can shoot, they aren't athletic and pretty much none of them could figure out how to play defense against a wet paper bag and stop penetration.
Every other position Fran has gotten and developed wonderful players. Wieskamp/Jok at SG. Marble at SF. White / Uthoff / Cook / Keegan / Kris at PF and of course Garza at C.
It's all about the PG position that has fucked him, and unless Bowen wakes up and the Moline kid turns into the Purdue freshman from this year, that isn't changing anytime soon.