Postgame Quotes

Oct. 17, 2015

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No. 20 Northwestern vs. No. 17 Iowa
Ryan Field
October 17, 2015
Postgame Quotes

Iowa Student-Athletes

QB C.J. Beathard

On limiting his throws because of injury…

“Yeah, it was tough. I couldn’t do many bootlegs or nudes and stuff like that. I was a little bit limited in what I could do running-wise.”

On the two running backs Akrum Wadley and Derrick Mitchell Jr. …

“They did a great job. Canzeri unfortunately got hurt earlier in the game, and Derrick and Akrum stepped up and did a great job. We know the talent they have. They do it all the time against our own defense and they did a great job stepping up today.”

On what it means to be the first quarterback ever at Iowa to win his first 8 starts…

“No, all that I’m worried about is that we’re 7-0 (this year), and this team. We’re excited about that.”

On moving the ball well…

“Yeah I thought we could do what we wanted to do offensively. We were inches off on certain plays. That’s just how football is sometimes, but we got with it in the second half and did a good job.”

On the vibe in the huddle after Jordan Canzeri got hurt…

“Obviously he’s a big back for us, our guy right now. But it wasn’t a big blow for us because we expect the next man in to do a great job, and Akrum and Derrick did a great job stepping up. That’s just the way the season’s gone so far. We’ve had guys hurt, Drew [Ott) got hurt; our right and left tackles were going out. We’ve taken that upon ourselves and the next guy in has done a great job.”

RB Akrum Wadley

On getting some big carries…

“I knew running behind our offensive line was going to open up the holes for me. All I had to do was run behind them. They lightened the load for me. I just had to make a cut off their blocks.”

On knowing he would get carries going into the game…

“The main thing I wanted to do was hold onto the ball. I struggled with that in the beginning of the season. That’s the only thing. They told me I was going to get some carries, and I just wanted to pick up where Jordan Canzeri left off at.”

On the team’s response when Canzeri went down injured…

“Next man in. We got four great backs. There’s just a big play waiting to happen. Hopefully Canzeri can get healthy before we play not next week, but the week after that. Any one of us is capable of making big runs, and I just stepped up to the plate.”

On running for 300 yards collectively against a defense allowing 270 total yards…

“It’s definitely a statement. C.J. Beathard was shaken up from the last game and he couldn’t throw as much as he would like to. Big backs, we just needed to step up. It could have been Derrick Mitchell, or anyone. I just stepped up to the plate.”

OL Jordan Walsh

On seeing Jordan Canzeri get hurt and how it affected the line…

“It’s definitely sad, seeing another senior go down like that. We just got to keep working, keep the next running back clean, and let him run. Hopefully he does well.”

On how that game felt as an offensive line…

“Definitely great. We put up the scoring. We went 7-0. It felt great.”

On recovering so well from injuries to the offensive line…

“There’s no magic sauce. We all practice, we all practice each position, right and left, guard, tackle. It’s just next man in, and next man came in, and we try to execute.”

No. 20 Northwestern vs. No. 17 Iowa
Ryan Field
October 17, 2015
Postgame Quotes

Iowa Head Coach Kirk Ferentz

Opening statement…

“Certainly we’re very pleased and very proud of our football team. It’s a tremendous team victory. Our guys in every essence played great team football out there today… Needless to say this is a really resilient group of guys that we’re coaching right now. Seems like whatever we throw at them, whatever comes their way good, bad or different they just seem to respond in a really positive way. I’m proud of the guys for that, proud of their effort today. How good we are I have no idea right now, but I do know that this team plays extremely hard and with a lot of guts. So, it’s just great to be with them today.”

On Akrum Wadley (RB) and Derrick Mitchell Jr. (RB)…

“They were both on my scrimmage list for next week during the bye week, so we’ll count those snaps today as a part of that. Biggest concern about those guys is ball security, and they stepped up big. I think they just got caught in the wave with the rest of team and we needed them badly with Jordan (Canzeri) coming out of the ball game. It was a tough circumstance, so Akrum stepped up and he’s been doing a better job the last four or five weeks in practice. Derrick has been the same way, so we’re just really proud of their efforts and it’s scary to think what would have happened if those guys hadn’t played as well as they did.”

On the resilience of his team…

“It seems that whatever has come our way, we’ve handled it pretty well… the players have. I’d like to say you can teach that, but it’s just something that grows a little bit in a team. We’re getting great leadership, and once that gets going it can be a really good thing. Today we lost momentum before the half, and I was a little concerned about that. But again, that didn’t seem to affect the players. They just came out and played in the second half and did a great job.”

On C.J. Beathard

“Two words I’ve used are poise and toughness. I think he exhibited both of those things, and continues to do so. He’s just a tough-minded guy who wants to compete, but he’s very poised out there. He really has a good awareness of what’s going on. When he gets knocked around, which he has been this year, you know right now he’s fighting some injuries and what have you. But, he keeps his focus where it has to be and he’s done a great job leading us.”

On injuries…

“If I said the bye week couldn’t come at a better time I’d be wrong, because it could’ve come last week. That would’ve been a better time, I was really concerned about that coming in. But, that’s football. You play through those things, you hope other guys pick it up and they did today, that was very evident. You go from there, and then the turnover takeaway ratio thing is something that we really believe in, and I think it’s something that’s synonymous with being a good football team. If you have a bad turnover takeaway ratio you better be really talented, and much better than the other teams and that’s hard to do. We’re starting to build on that, that’s a positive and the takeaways in the second half have been the biggest difference thus far. We’re doing a good job taking the ball away and then usually come out with some points so that’s a positive… We’ve got a lot more faith and confidence in a lot of guys… Guys have to go out there and experience, they’ve got to get banged around a little bit and play in tough circumstances.”

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