Kirk Ferentz News Conference Transcript | Sept. 29

KIRK FERENTZ: Thanks, everybody, for being here. Good afternoon. Just a quick look back. Obviously it was a good win over the weekend. First road trip, and obviously a big challenge, hard-fought game, both teams. Proud of our guys for staying focused and playing through the full 60 minutes. It certainly took that.

I want to congratulate both Hank for the recognition by the Davey O'Brien committee and then also Braeden Jackson just being the freshman of the week in the Big Ten. His return was kind of representative of the team. It took 11 guys really doing a great job of executing. Really nice run by Braeden. Did a great job there. He's been really quietly ascending, and good to see him have some success.

The other key components of the game, just as I mentioned the other day, special teams obviously big. A good job in the ball security aspect, and improvement in the penalty situation as well. Those are all good things.

Moving on to Ohio State, our captains, same four guys: Montgomery, Lutmer, Lee, and Ostrenga.

Injury-wise, it was a physical game. We have a couple guys that are nicked up right now and trying to work their way back through it so may be a bit limited in practice. But all in all came out of it pretty well, so we'll see what that looks like as we move forward here.

We are facing an excellent team. They're ranked and certainly worthy of their rankings. Big team, very talented team, very well-coached team. No big surprise there, and not much that's not impressive.

Starting on the offense, the quarterback is an experienced player, really smart, accurate, and a top-notch quarterback. A couple good running backs, a couple good tight ends and a big veteran offensive line. They're playing really well right now.

Then receivers, they've probably had more top-notch receivers there certainly in the last eight, ten years and then probably go back well before that. They've always had, it seems like, a marquee guy there, and no different right now. No. 4, we saw him a couple years ago as a freshman, awfully impressive then, and now he's two years older and more experienced. Probably, I'm guessing, would be in the argument for maybe the top player in the country. If he's not, he's certainly in the top handful. He's a really good player.

Defensively, a little bit different. They lost a handful of guys. I think three of them were in the top 11 picks in the draft. Just really outstanding players, and two more guys second-round off their defense.

Some really good talent last year, and they've replaced those guys without any hesitation. They're a big, physical group. Front seven especially is really big and physical. Very aggressive in the back end. They picked up a transfer safety and he's an impressive player, too.

Then the special teams, you have a punter who's been there for three years. He doesn't get used much, but he's been there for three years, and he's a really good player. Then they went out and got a field goal kicker who's very active on top of it. He hasn't had a lot of opportunities either. But playing well on special teams. Their coordinator is a guy that was with another Big Ten team. They went out and brought him in this past off-season.

Coach Day has got a National Championship on his resume, and rightfully so. He's done a great job at Ohio State now for quite some time. Then you look at their two coordinators, both offensively and defensively, and they're both former NFL coaches and really good people and outstanding coaches.

Needless to say, it's a really well-coached football team, and quite frankly, it's a little bit easier to talk about them than go out and compete against them.

I think it's interesting if you look back the last 16 games now, last season and the games this year, four games this year, they've really only had two contests that were even close. Other than that, it's been a pretty wide margin of victory for them during the regular season games.

Those two games, I think it was a seven-point differential and one point this year. That just gives you an indication of how strong their team is, how strong the program has been. Big challenge, and we'll have to be at our best. We're looking forward to getting out there and having that opportunity.

Kid Captain this week is Eliana Gaul from Peosta. She's a 10-year-old girl, was diagnosed with spina bifida during pregnancy and was delivered 15 weeks early before her expected day, barely a pound, so obviously an early preemie there, and since has been diagnosed with epilepsy and she's had several surgeries, numerous surgeries, and mostly with her hips and spine. But a courageous young kid and a great attitude. She's now a fourth grader, loves school, loves animals, and again, has a great attitude. Got to see her in August. It will be good to have her back here. Certainly an inspirational story on her part, and will be great to have her with us on Saturday.

Last two things quickly, congratulations to Brandon Scherff. I wish he could help us this week; that would be nice. But you talk about a top-notch player, Brandon is one of the all time best we've ever had. Just a great guy, and it will be great to have him out here with us.

Speaking of farming and agriculture, I remember meeting I believe it was his maternal grandfather, and I remember shaking his hand. I've never shook a hand like that. Jim Brown's I remember distinctly, and I remember Brandon's granddad; it felt like he had a catcher's mitt on. Big, strong hands, so no surprise that got passed on down.

It'll be great to be in Kinnick on Saturday. We'll have a great crowd out there, that's for sure. A lot of interest and excitement in town and all that stuff, and it's all good for everybody. That's what's great about college football. The key for us is to really do our best to get ready between now and then because as I mentioned we've got our hands full and it's going to take basically a perfect game for us.

Q. I wanted to ask about the running game against Michigan and Iowa State, averaging 75 and a half yards per game. I know credit to them, hat tip for them for the way they played the run, but what are the ways you feel like you can improve the run game moving forward?

KIRK FERENTZ: It usually takes a little better blocking and a little better running. That's everybody. There's no mystery to it.

There's ebb and flow in every season. That's where I talk about statistics. It's week to week. Certainly that's not a goal. We want to be probably double that, if not more than that. In a perfect world you'd like to be over 200, but we're just going to have to keep playing.

We're a team in growth and progress right now, so we'll just keep pushing forward.

Q. Is there an update on L.J. Phillips? He wasn't listed on the injury report but he didn't see any time --

KIRK FERENTZ: He was good to go. We just didn't have an opportunity to -- but he's good to go.

Q. Jeremiah Smith is probably a generational talent at wide receiver. How do you adjust your base defense to try to contain him without actually trying to overhaul the entire scheme? I guess what makes him stand out among -- I know last year you mentioned Makai Lemon was one of the best receivers you've gone up against, but what makes him so elite?

KIRK FERENTZ: Different kind of players. Lemon just had a great game against us. But you talk about Smith, there are several guys over the last 20 plus years, first guy that comes to mind would be Saquon Barkley, just different guys. They're at a little different level.

The performance Barkley had against us out there is about as impressive as you're going to see. I thought we knocked him out of the game. He took a hit on one of those plays and came back in a couple plays later. It's amazing.

Really a good player, plus great toughness, and he's doing the same thing in the NFL.

This guy, I remember two years ago getting ready a couple plays he had made the week before that he's perfectly defended and he still makes the play. Sometimes that's the way it goes.

I remember being up in New England's camp late 2000s and seeing Randy Moss do the same thing on a red zone play. I was sitting next to the secondary coach and he looked at me and just went like that (shrugging). That's what great players do.

If you can find a way to maybe make them a little bit off their rhythm, that's a good thing, but it's easier said than done. Then usually if you do one thing, you're compensating somewhere else or just giving something else somewhere else. It's a tricky one.

Q. I know you touched on it in the open, but what stands out about a Ryan Day-coached football team?

KIRK FERENTZ: They're always prepared. They're talented but they're well-coached and well-prepared and don't beat themselves very often. That's pretty much been the case since he's taken over. He's done a phenomenal job.

I know their fans aren't always happy; imagine that. If they'd have won by 20 every game, then I guess it's a tough thing. But they do that quite a lot. They do that a lot. He's a great person and excellent coach.

Q. It looked like Tyler Brown was gimping a little bit towards the end of the game --

KIRK FERENTZ: We'll see how it looks like. He's not fully back, but we'll see.

Q. Regarding Hank and his play overall through that whole last drive, how much maybe equity does that gain for you when you can see a guy basically go and win a game like he did?

KIRK FERENTZ: Kind of going back to that whole discussion all the way through it, whenever it started, all we can do is evaluate what we see during practice, and then there's a lot of other factors that go into it. You watch guys do a lot of things, their academics, how they train in the off-season, all those kinds of things, how they engage with teammates.

But the point is practice is probably the most important thing for evaluating a guy, although those things don't usually overlap. But the one thing you can't do in practice is some of the things he did Saturday. We don't let our guys get whacked in practice, and in the real world we do, and he certainly did Saturday.

But he kept playing and played through that. That's a good sign, positive sign.

Then tough to simulate a situation like we were in where you've got a long way to go, tough environment, tough opponent, go right down the list of all the things that make it challenging. I don't know how you simulate that in practice, kind of like trying to get ready to play in an environment like that. You can try, but it's not the same.

It's like anything in life; when you experience something, typically you're a little better in that situation next time around, whether you do well or not do well, and the key is how do you rebound if you don't do well.

But this will help him a little bit. Next time he's in that situation, he'll have that at least to draw confidence from.

Q. In some ways, Iowa is almost a verb in college football, like you've got "Iowaed," meaning a game where maybe statistically it doesn't make sense and yet you pull them down into the deep water and you win in any way possible. I wanted to know where that philosophy kind of starts and how wholistic is it, encompassing the whole program, whether it's strength and conditioning, its off-season workouts, the way it's taught. How do you get to that spot where Iowa can win a game, and not just this last week but over the years, games where just statistically it seems almost impossible to do it?

KIRK FERENTZ: It kind of really started here probably whenever Coach Fry was here, '78, '79. I've always been kind of entertained and amused because everybody talks about Coach Fry had the white pants, the sunglasses. He had all that stuff that was distracting. It's like motions.

But in our big games -- think about the Michigan game in '85: 12-10, all right. The one in '81, 9-7. The principles I don't think change. I think Barry did the same thing at Wisconsin. Bill did the same thing at K-State. You kind of assess your situation and then find a way to make it work where you're at.

We're all in different situations, especially in college football. It's not the NFL. So I think you figure out where you're at and what you can do and what's realistic and then go from there.

But I talked to our players about that Sunday. We're not in the entertainment business; we're trying to win. We're trying to find a way to win, and that's where statistics are important, but which ones really matter and which ones really count.

I think you have to understand, again, given the situation, whether it's where you're at or what the situation may be, how you want to play. If you're way ahead, it's an easy thing. If you're way behind it's real easy too. You have no choice. But those in between areas you've just got to figure out what's the best way to win.

Long story short, I guess every game is different. Every season is different and every team is different. Those things change during the course of a year too.

It gives you something to do. You just keep figuring out, what can we do here and what will give us a chance. Then you've just got to do what you think is best. I think that's all any of us really try to do, quite frankly.

Q. You've mentioned in the past that you didn't really want to be a head coach in the NFL --

KIRK FERENTZ: Anywhere. Not in the NFL, anywhere.

Q. Seeing the head coach put on the tie to go talk to the owner after a game --

KIRK FERENTZ: Oh, yeah. You've got a good memory.

Q. Last week Jay and Hank mentioned how much college football is becoming to be like the NFL, but you've said throughout multiple times that you're not interested in being done coaching yet. What about college football makes it different from the NFL that you want to keep coaching? It seems like Saturday might be a pretty good example of a reason why you might want to stay in the game?

KIRK FERENTZ: It's all about the people you work with. This is a really intimate experience, and the thing I miss the most, quite frankly, is when you're a line coach you have a much smaller room so it's a lot more intimate and you get to dig a little deeper with everybody. It's a little tougher with a bigger group. That's a challenge in itself, so you try to figure out how to make it work.

To answer the question, it's kind of neat; I was actually jumping around this morning apparently because I heard Case Keenum -- I heard him, I guess it was a locker room speech maybe it sounded like, but that little talk right there talked about all the good things in football. He recognized they have good people there, and basically I think his message was kind of like, I hope everybody recognizes in here, in the locker room here, that we've got an opportunity, we've got good people.

So it can happen anywhere. It's probably harder that you can catch it in the pro ranks. Any sport you can catch it, but it's harder to keep it because once you have success there's a lot of things that -- so that's what I hope doesn't trickle down to our level.

It's all about the people and just seeing guys get better, grow, improve and feel good about themselves. That's what you're hoping for. When they walk away, you hope they've moved forward.

Then the other component is I don't know how many former players are back last weekend either at the hotel on Friday, guys like Campbell and LaPorta and Grant Steen who are actually working so they couldn't be here Saturday, but we had a couple former players with us Saturday, too. Fred Russell was there both days. That's good too because it still means something to him 20 something years later. That makes it a lot of fun.

Q. Just kind of looking back at the game on Saturday, you want this team to keep looking forward toward Ohio State, but how does a win in the way that that team rallied, especially in the fourth quarter, kind of help give especially these younger guys additional confidence to keep buying in the process and buying into the system when you guys have a top-15 match-up immediately afterwards?

KIRK FERENTZ: Yeah, I mean, you've really got to compartmentalize two things from Saturday. First of all, I want the guys to enjoy it. If they went all through Sunday, I'm okay with that. Okay, we looked at the film.

Then you start on your opponent. Coaches are jumping in real hard, and the players look at it at a little different level probably. But I was okay with them enjoying it Sunday, too, but Monday morning, which was yesterday, we were full speed ahead on the next opponent. You just have to do it, no matter who you're playing.

I didn't have to give a talk about trap game because just look who we're playing. That kind of took care of that. That made it easy. Didn't have to work too hard to get everybody back to just reality because the reality is on that screen. Anytime they look at those guys in any three phases.

You just have to compartmentalize it. Whether you have a really good outcome, if it had gone the other way, we could have gotten stopped on the 1-yard line, too, and you have to live on. You have to move on. You have to put it to bed whenever it's appropriate. After a loss, probably the sooner the better. If you don't, you're going to really hurt yourself the next time out. Everybody has to have the maturity to understand that.

That's really what football teaches you, I think, is you'd better -- time and place for everything. And then whatever is left, 11 days, then we can go back and reflect a little bit about what happened here in the first six weeks.

Q. When talking about prepping for Jeremiah Smith, what does that kind of look like on the practice field with the scout team? I know Apollo Payne and Xavier Stinson are kind of running that role. How does it benefit them as well as the defense? How do you prep them?

KIRK FERENTZ: Jeremiah Payne you're talking about? That's what the players are calling him right now. That's a joke. He's trying. He's a really impressive young guy. He's doing a great job, but it's still not the same. We'd have to get him platform shoes. I don't know if they still make those. They certainly don't in spikes.

But he's a great young guy and he's going to play football for us. There's no question in my mind based on what you've seen the last year and a half. But it's like Randle El 28 years ago; how do you duplicate that guy unless you get a guy off the basketball team maybe who's got that kind of quickness and mobility.

It's hard. We have to work on our technique, and like I said, I'll go back to what I was saying a little while ago. Sometimes you can have him perfectly defended and he'll still make a play. That's what great players -- that's what puts him in a really separate category.

Q. I know the cliche answer is probably that all games mean the same from coaches. Talking to players, though, they kind of have a different vibe of this is why they came here, what they love about college football, playing in these types of games, the setting, the atmosphere. Curious for you yourself personally, you've been in a lot of these top-15 games. Does it feel different for you? Do you get any more butterflies? Do you get revved up a little more when you have this kind of stage as an opponent like Ohio State come to town?

KIRK FERENTZ: Yeah, I was nervous five weeks ago or whenever it was, the first game. I was nervous in July just about the whole season and about getting started and all that kind of stuff.

If you get over that, if I get over that, it's probably time to move on and do something else. I'm a little better now quite frankly because I know no matter what happens, unless something really devastating happens, we'll go back to work Sunday. I know that. I'm going to go home Saturday night and be really happy or not so happy, and that's kind of the reality of what we do.

They're all big. They're all important. Some of the best memories I have are games that other people would say, really? I just mentioned Randle El, right? Beating them in 2001 was huge for us because it wasn't looking too good in that first half. That was a really critical game in the small picture but also the big picture.

I guess I was smart enough to know it at that point. But anyway, we got through that one and then were able to get a little traction.

But yeah, there's certain games you'll remember. I was talking to Jay Norvell about that Sunday morning. I got a text from Bob Stoops who's still a Hawkeye. We all remember that '85 game. Jay not as much, but the '81 bout was part of that, and I think Jay was probably redshirted that year.

Yeah, you remember that stuff your whole life, yeah, certainly. That's one of the cool things about this thing.

You remember the losses, too. That's not so good. But they stick with you.

Q. I think it was probably by far Landyn Van Kekerix's best game at Iowa. Can you can provide some insight into his path since he's been at Iowa and what you saw out of him?

KIRK FERENTZ: He was a recruiting challenge in a unique way, speaking of ANF. We were competing with the family farm. Like, he wasn't sure he wanted to go to college, so that was kind of what we had -- fortunately his parents were on our side.

It wasn't a given that he was going to come here in that regard. He's a hardworking guy. He's a good athlete. Sneaky good because I remember playing him on the scout time probably a couple years ago, maybe two years ago, maybe it was three, where he went up and got a ball, made a very nice interception from the linebacker position. I had no idea he could do that, but it was pretty impressive.

He just works hard. He's tough. He's been a good special teams guy and just has quietly ascended in the program.

It's a big part of how we are, how we're built, just guys like him. Good stories and nothing but a great attitude. Hard worker, and he's been a really good team member for us. It's really nice to see him come up big like that.

Q. You mentioned the physicality from Ohio State. How do you think your team handled the physicality from Michigan, and can that experience in a Big Ten opener translate and prepare you guys for Ohio State this week?

KIRK FERENTZ: Yeah, at least we know what it's like. They're different but they're the same. They're very similar teams in that they're really talented. They've got good size. They're built differently, if that makes any sense. Like you can tell what Ohio State's goal is.

They're just a really big -- they're big on both lines. Their guys are all -- on the defensive front basically they're all 300-pound plus guys. It's a little different, whereas they're a little bit different builds and abilities last week, all those guys inside were 300 plus easily.

They're both talented. They both have good size. You play a game like that last week where it was really pretty intensity physical, and you turn around and you've got one more like it, the same way. I imagine a week from now won't be much different either.

That's kind of Big Ten play, if you will. You're either learning or you're not. But I think at least we've been there once, and now here we go, another test.

Q. I wanted to know how much do you think this program and this team's mental toughness is shaped through strength and conditioning and the discipline, such as your toes need to be behind the line; if they're not behind the line -- and then maybe how does that parlay if it's 3rd and 4 in the third quarter and your toes aren't positioned right and a guy crosses your face for a 1st down or whatever. How much of that mindset in June or February helped you guys prepare to win games in October and November?

KIRK FERENTZ: Just the way we started out 28 years ago, strength and conditioning -- I think in any sport, and if I've coached anything else -- I don't know much else, but if I'd coached anything else, I don't know why you wouldn't start with that just because for the most part, I'm thinking about Mickey Lolich, Tigers won the World Series in whatever it was, whatever it was, 1969, something like that, '68. Denny McClain was a 31-game winner, last one, I think. But Mickey Lolich who couldn't run to first base won three games in the World Series.

There's exceptions to every rule, but most sports you're better to be in shape and take advantage of that. I don't know why you wouldn't do it in any sport.

Everything started there, but yeah, that's part of the strength program too is discipline -- again, I'm generational here, but you always think about Vince Lombardi, up-downs and stuff like that. Discipline is just doing the right thing, just doing what you're being told to do or asked to do because it's right. There's a reason for it, and it's right.

There's immense carryover, in my opinion, to answer the question. I think if guys learn there's a rhythm or a manner in which you do things that's right, and there's one that isn't, and it's no different on the field. There's a right technique and a wrong technique. Sometimes you can get away with a wrong technique, but the odds are against you over the long haul, and just understanding that doing things right can pay off for you if you'll do that.

Then it's easy to talk about it, but then when things are really happening fast and you get knocked around and stuff like that, it's a little tougher to stick to your principles sometimes. I think that's what we're trying to teach guys. There's a way to do it. If we all do it that way, then we maybe get a little bit of an edge, and that's always a good thing in sport.

Q. We've heard about the 24-hour rule after a big win. How did you spend your 24 hours celebrating?

KIRK FERENTZ: I went home and watched the second half of a game on the West Coast Saturday night. We got home late. We stayed -- I had a ton of family there, my brother and my sister. Not that anybody cares, but they both came to the game. I grew up there, so I've got a lot of cousins and all that. Anyway, and our players were perfectly happy to sit around for a little bit.

By the time we got back here, it's pretty late, but I watched the second half of a game on the West Coast and went to bed and got up and went to work. Yahoo. But it all felt good.

One thing about games like that, you get a billion text messages, which it's really nice to hear from people, but it's kind of a pain in the ass to try to get back to everybody. Like thanks, but we've got some stuff in front of us right now. We've got to play Ohio State, you don't. But they all get it; it's all good. No complaints.

 

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports