Ferentz: Balance a Key

Sept. 18, 2003

Iowa coach Kirk Ferentz took questions from Hawkeye fans from across the country in his Wednesday night HawkTalk radio broadcast at Carlos O’Kelly’s in Iowa City.

“We think (Mo)will be back in good form in a couple of weeks. We’re all targeted for Ohio State. He’s had a great attitude.”
Head Coach Kirk Ferentz

HawkTalk, a 1 1/2-hour program hosted by Gary Dolphin, is broadcast live to more than 40 Hawkeye Radio Network stations across the state and on hawkeyesports.com worldwide.

Here is some of what the coach had to say.

(on assistant coach Chris Doyle and Iowa’s strength and conditioning program) “Chris Doyle does a fantastic job. It’s hard to believe you could have better people working with you. He does a great job. He’s with (the players) more than any one coach, and he knows when to pick them up too if they need it. He has a great group of assistants with him too. We’re definitely a more physical team than we were a couple of years ago.”

(on Maurice “Mo” Brown’s injury) “We think he’ll be back in good form in a couple of weeks. We’re all targeted for Ohio State. He’s had a great attitude. And he’s had a tough year. He’s doing a great job on the field. You hate to see any player get injured but especially a senior. I told him, ‘At least your shoulder and back will feel better.'”

(on defensive and offensive strategies) “We may see nine men in there with Mo coming out of the game. That was the plan Saturday. The first thing (Arizona State) is going to do is take Fred Russell out of the game. So the key is going to be balance. That’s certainly going to be a challenge for us. The team we’re playing this week is a very talented defensive team.”

(on the coach’s options for receivers) “We are going to have to move our football around. I don’t want any one person to feel as though he has to pick up Mo’s position.”

(on the similarities between Arizona State and USC) “Arizona State and USC is a pretty good analogy. They are similar in a lot of ways. Their schemes on offense are similar, but on defense are different. (Andrew Walter) can really throw the football. You faced (Carson) Palmer in the bowl game and (Ben) Roesthlisberger in the opener, so you’re playing three of the top five quarterbacks in college football. We have a great test in front of us all on Saturday.”

(on his team’s play in the redzone) “We didn’t execute real well down there. But the good news is that we came out with points each time. We played conservatively, but our execution should have been better.”