Kirk Ferentz News Conference Transcript | Sept. 15

KIRK FERENTZ: Good afternoon to everybody. Thanks for being here. I'll talk a little bit about last weekend briefly and then move on to UNI's game. Again, happy to get the win Saturday. Hard-fought game. Felt a lot like a conference game, and that's usually the case when we play those guys.

I thought a lot of good things out there, a lot of positives. Always things on Sunday that are good teaching examples for our team to learn from. That's every game, so certainly it's the case there.

Just to highlight a couple things, we did a good job with ball security. That's two weeks in a row we've done pretty well there. Penalty situation was better Saturday, but all three of the offensive penalties really cost us. We overcame the one and were able to come back and get a first down, but the other two we weren't. Those are certainly significant.

In games where every possession counts, that stuff factors in.

Then overall, pleased with our special teams. The guys did a good job there and certainly impacted the game in a positive way. Happy about that.

Both teams really competed hard and got down to the fourth, and proud of the way our guys stuck with it. Ended up keeping the ball 11 minutes in the fourth quarter and really didn't benefit from any big plays during that possession, but did a good job controlling field position and being patient and moving through and finally getting the score that we needed. Happy about that.

Transitioning forward, want to congratulate Caden Buhr on the Big Ten recognition that he received. Very well-deserved, and also recognition from the Lou Groza committee. Happy about that and proud of his progress.

I think about how he started out here two weeks ago, and for him to bounce back, had a great week of practice last week, and I think that really carried over to the game. Happy for him.

Captains this week will be the same four guys: Montgomery, Lutmer, Lee, and Ostrenga.

Injury-wise, Tyler Brown is starting to get some work. I don't know that he'll play this week, but at least he's working back. Vonnahme, I doubt will be ready on Saturday, at least at this point I don't expect that.

Then we have a handful of guys that have done very well, are really sore right now. We'll see how that progresses as the week goes on and play that by ear. But we'll take it day by day on that one.

UNI is a 1-1 football team coming in here. Played a road game way out in Eastern Washington that first week, came back, had a big win against Drake at home last week. Looked really impressive there.

Coach Stepsis is a really good football coach and did a great job at Drake, and you can see they're already putting their mark on the program at UNI right now. The quarterback did a good job last week, a big guy, left-hander, and threw the ball really well. Also a threat to run the thing.

Receivers, tight ends, a good group of guys there that have been threatening and doing a good job.

Defensively they're an aggressive team. The thing that stands out to me at this point just watching tape are the linebackers. They're active, very much all over the place defensively, and same thing on special teams.

Last week they did a good job getting sacks, turnovers and coming up with big plays, so it just looked like a really good effort. Probably the thing that stands out to me the most watching them right now, we've only got two games so it's early season, so it's always a little tough in these first couple weeks getting a feel for the team, this year's team, but last year a couple plays that stood out, especially North Dakota State. There was a play that went against them, and guys on the other side of the ball just chased like hell all the way across the field. They were losing the game, and the effort that you saw, I think that tells a lot about the kind of coaching that the players are getting and the kind of attitude the players have.

I think back to our first year here, we got smoked up in Wisconsin our next-to-last game and came out and played our best game in the last game, in a game that, quote-unquote, didn't mean anything. It was an indication guys are doing things right. I think that's what we saw on film.

The other thing that stands out from last year is they blocked six punts and kicks, and that's a big number for a season. Again, I think it's indicative of good coaching and good effort by their players. That's what we're expecting on Saturday.

Kid Captain this week is a 15-year-old, Beau Harvey, who's from Cascade and was born with a rear heart issue; was getting treatment in Michigan and the family transferred the care over here to Children's Hospital a while back, and unfortunately developed a really rare heart condition that required a heart transplant, so he received that about 10 months ago here and is on the road to recovery right now from what I'm told, well on that road, doing very well. It'll be exciting to have him here with us to be part of the weekend. Looking forward to that.

Then with the Hawkeye Media Hall of Fame, all four members going in, I want to extend our congratulations to all of them, Gary Dolphin has been here longer than I have and just does a wonderful job certainly on the air. Also is great with the I-Club, all the stuff he does for the university. If anyone was born to do his job, it's Gary. He's a natural at it. Great to see his efforts be recognized.

Steve Roe, 33 years here, sports information, 12 years specifically with football. I certainly enjoyed my time working with Steve.

Steve Batterson, an Iowa grad and did a great job for the Quad-City Times, unfortunately passed and certainly is missed. I always enjoyed my time with Steve.

Mike Hlas, an outstanding columnist for the Gazette, certainly good to see his efforts get recognized as well. Mike was probably the first guy I ever did an interview with after I got hired. I traveled out to Baltimore. We were playing, I guess it would have been the Lions at home, and he came out and we sat down Saturday night for a really nice visit. I remember that and just always appreciated his vantage points on things.

All four have done great jobs, obviously, and certainly worthy of the recognition they're receiving. Just wish them the best and really appreciate the coverage that they provided of our program for our fans.

With that being said, I'll open it up for questions.

Q. Kind of a two-fold question. You mentioned DJ being hurt; can you elaborate on that? Is it going to be an extended injury? I'm more curious about the mechanics of making the decision to stick with Hank through the entire game last week -- was that Tim's call up in the booth? How does that work during the game where you kind of make that decision to go, hey, we're going to stick with him?

KIRK FERENTZ: There really wasn't much discussion. It was just one of those games where things weren't perfect, certainly, and being down 10-0, but I think we all felt like, hey, let's just keep playing and see what happens. Kind of feel that way about this whole situation right now. We're going to kind of play it by ear.

Probably the thing I want to accentuate is we're really happy with both players. Both Jeremy and Hank are doing a good job. They're doing a good job in practice. I feel confident that we're going to play well with either one of them in there.

We'll have a game like that. We never really got to the point where we discussed it. We'll kind of keep playing it week by week, see how it goes, as long as both guys continue to practice well. It wasn't a big discussion on that.

With DJ, I don't think he'll make it this week, but there's a good chance a week from now he should be good to go. It's day by day, so like a lot of injuries, you're never quite sure until we see how things materialize.

Q. Kamari Moulton, is he going to be good to go this week?

KIRK FERENTZ: We'll see. He's one of the day by day guys. We probably have a handful of them right now. It was a physical game. Guys are sore. We'll see.

Q. A couple times where obviously Hank didn't turn the ball over, made a lot of big plays, but maybe he kind of keyed in on his first option too much and didn't go through his progressions. When you're working with Hank or Jeremy, whoever it may be, how do you kind of get a player to get through his reads, whether it be working with them psychologically, is it working on chemistry with the receivers? How do you teach a quarterback to get through his reads, and what's your take on that?

KIRK FERENTZ: First of all, I'm never going to pretend to be a quarterback expert or a kicking expert or a lot of things, quite frankly. But my experience is it's just a matter of time typically. Sometimes that time doesn't come. But to me, more guys play, the more they're in game situations, and practice really is important. It's a great starting point for everything. But ultimately it's how you perform in a game. Some guys do it better than others. It's just something that either comes along or it doesn't.

I'll go back to Caden, an easy one to cherry pick. Certainly an auspicious beginning for him, but boy, he came back and just settled down, and then things -- he practiced really well today, so hopefully he's developing the confidence that can only come by going through it.

A lot of times, in fact most times, a high percentage of times, you have to fail some to move forward, and that's kind of the way sports are and life is. In fact I think we did see that with Hank. I think he did some really good things. Missed a couple throws but then really hit -- the first big play that we hit there kind of opened the game up. We needed it at that point, and it gave us a chance to climb back in and tie the thing up.

Q. A little bit of a two-parter for me as well. Do you expect to rotate every two or three possessions? Again, I know that was the expectation going into this game last weekend, didn't happen, but are you expecting to see both quarterbacks this weekend, and can you talk about Hank's confidence, especially after that 56-yard deep shot to Tony Diaz? Not something that we've seen him do.

KIRK FERENTZ: I'll go back to that play again. They were making it tough on us and making it tough for us to run the football. So that play really kind of opened things up a little bit and gave, I think, everybody a little juice. After that we started playing with a little bit better rhythm and tempo.

But he had missed on a couple, too, prior to that. Again, you've just got to stick with it and keep going. We really haven't had a conversation about how we're going to handle it yet, but I think just broad-based, I'd say this: We will have that conversation. But both guys are practicing well, and we, again -- I think I can speak for everybody on the staff. I think we all have confidence that both of them are good players right now. Much improved from a year ago; I'll just put it that way. I think that's how we feel.

We'll see how it all shakes out, and ultimately whatever we decide is always subject to change once you get into a game, and I guess I'll reserve the right to pull that card if necessary and just, hey, let's see how this goes or let's make a move here.

Q. Zach Lutmer said in there he's still working his way back. Do you expect him to be your punt returner once he's not on a pitch count anymore? I know Brevin Doll hasn't had a chance to return to kick yet, but he's at the top of the depth chart there. What has he done to earn that spot?

KIRK FERENTZ: Brevin is really good in practice. To your point, we haven't had a chance to return a kick. Maybe one of these days we will, so we'll see how that goes. But it's a matter of time.

He's done a really good job. He's playing with more confidence right now, and I think you watch his confidence, he's doing a great job in that regard. He's really cut out a good niche there and doing as well as anybody we have. He's flying down there.

I think it was the first week he was wearing 55 or something. I was like, who the heck is that guy, 55, going that fast. But yeah, okay, got these fake jerseys now. But yeah, we solved that; he's in 13 and is going to wear that, doing a really good job.

Then regarding Zach, we'll play it by ear. We want to be smart about how we do it because he's had some issues. In the meantime, that gives the other guys a chance. We'll just kind of see how that goes. But we have total confidence in Reece. Evan is a really good prospect. I don't think he's there yet, but he's a really good prospect on top of it.

Q. Is Hank Brown your starter?

KIRK FERENTZ: He started last week, and as I stand here right now, he'll probably start this week. Like a lot of guys, yeah.

Q. Subject to change?

KIRK FERENTZ: Everything is subject to change, yeah. Pretty much everything.

Q. I wanted to ask about Parker Sutherland and having UNI come here to his hometown and what it'll mean to not only be able to use the sport as a way to help heal this team but also to bring and share Parker's story to the Iowa Hawkeye fan base as well.

KIRK FERENTZ: Yeah, that's two weeks in a row we're talking about a really sad subject, obviously. It's a tough deal. We have our plans to pay tribute to him, and we'll do that privately. Our hearts and thoughts are with everybody involved, certainly his family first and foremost.

Sounds like he touched a lot of people, and for me to pretend like I knew him personally or anything like that would not be fair, but I will share this with you: Rick Nelson is a guy I've got a lot of respect for, an outstanding coach. He's the line coach at UNI. We've known each other a couple decades now. Always admired the work that he did, high school coach in the state, did a good job that way, and he's back at UNI.

They come down to our camps and we get a chance to visit a little bit in the off-season. So was out there on the field this past summer was Rick was just explaining to me what a tremendous young person Parker was, somebody who worked with him directly and was with him day by day and just talked about the kind of person he was, not only just a good football player but an outstanding young person.

It's a really sad thing, and again, our thoughts are really, first and foremost, with the family. This was a tough, tough deal.

Q. Do you have any update on L.J. Phillips, how he's doing?

KIRK FERENTZ: He's getting better. I don't think he'll make it this week, but we'll see. I'm not going to say no yet. It's a lower leg thing, so just getting the confidence to play that position, a little bit different. We'll see. He's making good progress.

Q. With the running game against Iowa State, they did a good job of bottling that up. You guys did start to break them down in the fourth quarter a little bit, but curious your evaluation of the running game, how much of that was what Iowa State did, how much was maybe offensive line related, running back related, and how you guys can kind of get back on track moving forward?

KIRK FERENTZ: Yeah, I'd give them a lot of credit. They had a good plan. They played extremely hard. I thought all their players played extremely hard all three phases.

Our guys played hard, too. It was just one of those things. I've always felt like you can take the run game away if that's what you're determined to do, and that probably is part of the reason we hit the big play that got things going for us.

Then we did a little better job in that fourth quarter. I may have said it before, but I remember 30 years ago hearing Tom Osborne talk about the effectiveness of the running game usually starts to show more so in the second half than it does in the first half. Sometimes you get out there and things just work, and that's great when it happens. But a lot of times you have to work for that to get it done.

Then again, if people are going to truly shut off the run, that's where we've got to be able to answer with something, counter it and have some answers there, and I thought we found ways to do that on Saturday as well.

I think that game is representative of what we're going to be involved in a lot of weeks here in the future if we're doing our part. First of all, you have to be in close games first of all, and then you've got to find a way to win them. Hopefully that's the part that we can gain from. But not taking anything for granted; it's going to be tough each and every week out there.

Q. Cam Buffington seemed to have a nose for the football through the first two weeks. He's ninth in the country in total tackles. What did you remember seeing from him when he first got to camp? How has he adapted to being that starter at middle linebacker? And do you feel like the jump from 8-man to 11-man is maybe a little bit overblown? There was a little bit of discussion about that for him going into the season.

KIRK FERENTZ: Yeah, so many things to talk about right there. I'll start with the 8-man, 11-man, and I'll throw in 9-man, too, because that's what Greenway played in. I still for the life of me don't understand why there's nine and eight. I don't get that. I get why there's eight, or I could get where there's nine, but I don't know why you have eight and nine. That doesn't make sense to me.

But it didn't seem to affect Chad at all. Chad was actually a safety and quarterback when football players are football players. I've long thought that. You think about Dallas Clark going back; pull that one out. Certain guys are good football players.

We thought we saw that during the recruiting process, tremendous kid, tremendous family, and he's an impressive young guy. I guess maybe I didn't say it last Tuesday, but I think it was on the radio show on Wednesday and I was talking about a play Wednesday in practice that he made, and there's certain guys that see things a little easier and quicker, and then he has the ability to accelerate on top of it. It starts with seeing things and recognition, thinking about Abdul out there -- these fields used to be out there 25 years ago, and the first time you saw him on the field in person, like boy, he gets where he's got to get real quickly.

I'm not saying guys are born with that, but some people do it a little quicker than others. Then when he gets here, he knows what to do, too. He's a good young prospect and a great young person. I think he's going to be a really good football player for us. He's off to a good start for sure.

Q. How about 6-man?

KIRK FERENTZ: Is there 6-man? Where is that?

Q. Montana.

KIRK FERENTZ: Montana, yeah, that makes sense. That makes perfect sense. I get that part. Six, he probably has less people at that school -- all I remember is Greenway had 28 kids in the senior class. The school was like little house on the prairie, swear to God. It was K through 12 in one building. It was the damndest basketball practice I ever saw. It was outstanding. 18 kids on the court. It was awesome. Eighth graders up to 12th. Perfect.

Q. You were an FCS coach a few decades ago. You've run the gamut of the teams you've played, whether it was UNI in '09 or UNI with David Johnson or South Dakota State or North Dakota State and then there are others that kind of field teams in some ways. How different is it now preparing for FCS programs because of the portal and their losses? Like David Johnson probably wouldn't have played at UNI 12 years ago or whatever. Now versus then, is there a separation there that's almost unfair to have these kind of match-ups?

KIRK FERENTZ: The stat I heard was five of them have beaten Division I teams this year, FCS-FBS. They have five wins right now so far.

The main program all you can do is compare it to UNI. I'm more familiar with UNI back in that time period. At one time UNI was way ahead of us, that's for sure, when I was at Maine. Now, things have changed a little bit. It's a little bit better. They have a stadium now and all that stuff.

Like the last several years, how strong that conference has been with Dakota schools, UNI traditionally has been good. When you schedule them, you're taking something on, and that stuff is all year-to-year now to your point with the way the new system is.

You asked a question the other night, too, and I'll cite this one, probably nobody had more transfers than Oklahoma State in the country, and look what they did last Saturday. We're in a time right now it's really hard to handicap everything. It's almost like individual basis you have to look at.

But the one thing that is common, the commonality is that you'd better be ready each and every week. I'll go back to our '09 game. I'm thinking of one game in my career, which I'll probably go to my grave saying we got screwed a little bit on, and I normally don't blame it on outside circumstances, but there's one that was a little tough to swallow. Then I'll also go to my grave knowing that we lost that game, and that took a miracle to win that game in '09.

To me, what it circles back to is the attitude you take into it. That was with a really good team. We had a good team and we were coming off a good season. You have to go into every game with the right attitude and right respect for your opponent and what it takes to be successful, and I think that'll never change.

If you get into a game and it works out not being that hard, then just consider yourselves fortunate. But we don't get many of those during the course of a year; that's for sure.

Q. We talked to Boston today, and I know you have a lot of experience with Australian punters, but he shared a lot of the culture changes he's endured since coming here. How have you seen him get acclimated to American football? And two, what has he done to stand out and make you confident in him being the starter?

KIRK FERENTZ: Based on what I've seen, he's acclimated pretty well. He's an easy young guy to like, has a great attitude. He's always upbeat, and he works really hard on the field. He certainly has had some ups and downs on the field. For a while there heading into the season, probably the two weeks prior to that, for the most part it was pretty good, but it seemed like there was one a day that would go hard right real fast and not go too far. So I was kind of expecting to see one of those, and knock on wood, hopefully it won't here in the future.

He's done a good job that way. I think I might have referenced this the other night, but I think his being naïve to American football is probably healthy in some ways. But he's naïve to it, and there's a freshness, an innocence where he loves the game, he loves his teammates. He's been great that way.

Then his dad was a professional athlete, so I think he kind of grew up understanding the arena of competition and those types of things. I don't want to look too deep into that. But I think that's -- so he's comfortable with that part of it, yet the game is very, very different, and the stadiums have to be mindblowing to him, and wait until we start going on the road. That will probably be another level of excitement for him. So it'll be interesting.

Q. A few players have mentioned the mantra, work the hardest the longest, both on Saturday and then again today. I'm curious, when did that start, and how have you seen the players make that a reality on the field last week and moving forward?

KIRK FERENTZ: Yeah, coincidentally, it's kind of a Tom Mooreism. It's in his book, talking about that. Probably the first time Tom spoke to our team, it was probably about 15 years ago, something like that. I've got the notes -- somebody typed them up for me because my handwriting is terrible. But anyway, I have them all, and that was one of his points basically at the end summing it all up. That kind of worked its way into the discussion last year when the player committee decides on what we're going to use as our mantra, if you will.

It's really what the game boils down to typically; it's about -- you expect it to be tough, and then just understand you're going to have to go the full 60, maybe more than that, to get it done. The longest part, like the fourth quarter doesn't matter if you don't play well going up to – you have to give yourself a chance. That's kind of the evolution of the whole thing, I believe. Then the players picked it.

Q. Kind of had heard Jeremy didn't have the greatest week of practice last week. Curious if he's doing better this week in practice. And also, in a perfect world, how important would it be to get him some quality game reps going into Big Ten where you can get a quarterback injury potentially?

KIRK FERENTZ: First of all, you didn't hear that from me. I'm not cosigning that one. I didn't think that at all, quite frankly. I don't think we had anybody that was perfect out there. Things happen, and that's part of the position, that position especially. That's what practice is for is getting that stuff cleaned up and doing well.

I thought he had a good week. It really wasn't as much about him Saturday as it was the game and the way it was going and just where we were at. As I said earlier, alluded to earlier, I've got an open mind right now. We'll have a conversation. The coaches will all talk about it on Thursday. But both guys are really practicing well. I can't overstate -- again, I'm not telling story. Both guys are better players than they were a year ago. That's how it's supposed to be.

I think Kamari Moulton, I have never seen him run as well as he's run the last two weeks. I think that's just part of being a veteran guy who's been out there and going trial and error and all that kind of thing. It's really true, if you want to talk about quarterbacks, I think it's fair to say about all of our guys. Brad Banks is an easy one to cherry pick, the GOAT after the Iowa State game in 2002 and Player of the Year eight weeks later.

Certainly his ascension happened after that game. It's part of -- it's rare when a guy just has that and no bumps along the way. It's just the way it goes. Happy with both guys. I think they're both practicing well, and they're both guys that the team believes in, their teammates believe in. We'll just keep playing it day by day and keep an open mind, see where it all goes.

 

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