Kirk Ferentz News Conference Transcript | Oct. 6

KIRK FERENTZ: Good afternoon, everybody. So just to look back real quickly on Saturday's game, certainly had a lot of respect for Ohio State going into the game, and it's only been really reinforced since that time.

We knew it was going to be a big challenge, and I think two key things, as I referenced on Saturday, took place in the game. We started out, gave them an easy access to a score to start the game off, kind of like the Texas-Ohio State game quite frankly.

Then the sequence right there before half really was costly for us, the illegal procedure penalty was harmful. Had a conversion on a third down, chance to be across midfield with under two minutes and a chance to control the clock and also hopefully come out with points. It was a big swing right there where we couldn't convert and gave them the ball back and they scored.

If you're going to win a game like that of that magnitude, you have to play clean football. We've been involved in those before, and you have to pretty much make everything go your way, and we weren't able to do that. Tough outcome there.

I thought the guys prepared hard, played hard, and what we'll do, like every game, learn from it, and then we move on. That's what we did on Sunday, came in and watched the tape and moved on.

Last thing right there is disappointment. Typically it's part of the season. We've only gone through one undefeated season since I've been here. You have to learn from it and then deal with it. Really what matters right now is how we respond, and we're off to a good start this week.

Going to need that with a challenge going up to Washington. That will be another challenging Big Ten game on the road, a night game, tough environment. Already got one of those under our belt and looking at the same kind of challenge.

Captains are the same four guys: Montgomery, Lutmer, Lee, and Ostrenga. Injury-wise, the only two questionable guys right now are Hank Brown and Ty Hudkins. That's who we're looking at there. Otherwise we're in pretty good shape.

Once we move past the game film from Saturday, turn and flip the calendar Sunday early afternoon, everything's been on Washington right now, squarely on Washington. It needs to be; it's a short week. So we have to get ready there.

They started out 3-0, looked really good. Now, they have two losses in Big Ten play, three points and four points, seven points combined. Both games were really competitive against two good teams involved in both of them. They're a good football team.

Jedd's a really good coach. He's done a great job up there in a short time in his third season right now and just have a good football team.

Quarterback is extremely dynamic, one of the better players in the country from what I can tell. They're aggressive on defense. They do a good job in really all areas there, and they're good on special teams. It's what you'd expect from a good team, good program.

This will be our second road challenge. That's of note as well. It's a challenge in terms of playing a good team, also a challenge in terms of the environment. I've never been there, but I've heard it's a tough place to play from several people. Part of it's they have a good crowd, good stadium, and they have the structure above, which kind of captures the noise in there. So it makes it a little bit of a challenge. We'll really have to concentrate and do a good job there.

Kid Captain this week, JJ Ward is a 6-year-old from Davenport. When he was born, they found a mass on his stomach area at birth and brought him to the Children's Hospital here, Stead Family Children's Hospital, and were able to remove that.

Basically gets diagnosed with cystic fibrosis at that point, and he's coincidentally being treated with a drug that was the research from the Stead Family Hospital, kind of was the impetus for the drug, and it's really slowed things down a little bit and made things a little bit better for him.

As I understand it, he likes to play catch with his care team, enjoys the outdoors, and enjoys art. Just an impressive young man, and we'll be thinking of him on Friday.

Last two points real quickly, I want to send thanks to Pat McAfee. First of all, I really enjoyed meeting him on Friday. It's the first time I've met him in person, really enjoyable guy, good football guy, really positive guy. More importantly, I want to thank him for his generosity. I understand he made a $1 million donation to the Children's Hospital. That's much appreciated and just an outstanding gesture. So a big Pat McAfee fan, that's for sure.

Just finishing up here, two-plus weeks, talked to our guys about a 20-day stretch as we transition into Big Ten play. We're down to just a couple days now, down to Friday night. That's really been our focus is to try to get ready for three very challenging games. The calendar is kind of squeezed down here right now, and it's all about us finishing our prep and then showing up ready to go. We'll have to be at our best Friday night.

Q. You mentioned Hank Brown's questionable, so I'm going to ask what is the preparation going to look like for him in terms of leading up, especially with it being a short week, and how prepared does Hecklinski need to be to potentially step into a role in Seattle?

KIRK FERENTZ: The good news for Hank is he's gotten a lot of reps over the last X amount of weeks, so that's the good news. He's limited what he can do right now, so we'll see. We can't count on him, I think that would be short-sighted on our part.

The other good news is Jeremy's done a great job. He really has. I complimented him yesterday in our team meeting. He went and played really well. I think that's a real tribute to the way he's practiced. That was a very visible -- we have a lot of back and forths on the depth chart, but everybody's watching the quarterback thing.

I know he's had to be disappointed the way things turned out, but it's a real credit, I think, to him and his character the way he's practiced. That's what he should do, but it's not always that easy to do what you're supposed to do.

He's really practiced well. I think that showed up on Saturday. As I've been saying, I feel like we have two good quarterbacks right now, and I think that showed on Saturday. We'll play with whoever is ready to go.

Q. You obviously bring in Tom Moore this year. What stands out to you about the impact he's had on this team?

KIRK FERENTZ: I can't pinpoint anything specific. I think it's just a general benefit for all of us -- it's not like he's up giving speeches or things like that, but it's more one-on-one type things or he may say -- just shares observations both with the coaching staff and the players.

Again, I think it's neat. You're talking about a guy who's 87 years old, you talk about a true veteran, I think it's Tom Moore. I think it's really neat, but with all due respect, young people right now aren't quite as big on tradition as they were 10, 20, 50 years ago, but everyone here, I think, understands who Tom is and appreciates him for his career, what he's done, the people he's worked with.

So it is fun to see younger people and coaches -- most of our coaches are younger too -- just being interested in taking in from his wisdom and his experiences. Again, he's just so low key about it all. He's not a man of a lot of words, but when he says something, it goes right to the point typically.

Q. Wanted to see if I could get some clarity at safety position. Lutmer is good to go then. Tyler Brown, is he going to be good --

KIRK FERENTZ: No, sorry. Tyler is out. I don't know when I said it last week or two weeks ago, but he's going to be out for a while.

Q. Will you go with Hawkins? Styles was in there, what can you tell us about him?

KIRK FERENTZ: Yes.

I don't think we can count on Hudkins based on what I know thus far for this week. Basically, that's your three top guys are right there, and maybe get Vitti or some other people to work into it. Hopefully we keep the guys out there and keep healthy and keep improving, especially in the communication part.

It's funny, Micah, that's the first point he made when he spoke to the team on Friday. We did have some communication issues prior, with crowd noise here. Home crowd noise can be a factor for the defense. We've got to make sure everybody is on the same page. We won't have that problem for them this week, so that's good news.

Q. Obviously QB competition went all the way to the wire here. If you do have to start Jeremy or do plan to start Jeremy, how much does that competition or letting it play out, I guess, all that time, how much do you feel that could benefit you guys in a situation like this?

KIRK FERENTZ: I don't think there's any downside to having two good players. We feel good about Hank. Right now it's just a matter of can he go physically? Based on what I know thus far -- and he's still got three days here, so anything can happen -- but based on what I know thus far, it would be foolish for us to say he's starting. If he does, great. If he doesn't, we go with Jeremy, and we're ready to do it.

I guess the good news is one benefit about it being so close, it's so far proven to be accurate. Whoever's in there is the guy we'll go with and not worry about it. We'll have a week after this game is over to contemplate and see where things are. We'll have more information then too. Really our focus is just on getting ready.

I complimented Heck the way he jumped in there and never really flinched on Saturday. Again, he'll do the same thing this week. I don't know why he wouldn't.

Q. I always like to use the phrase that you know more football than we'll ever forget, especially when it comes to like the offensive line and the running game. When you evaluate where the run game's at right now, how close do you feel like it is? Does it look a lot closer to breaking through than it looks like from our perception? I know you're not hitting the panic button quite yet, but can you just take us through what you're seeing and what you guys want to continue to build toward in the run game?

KIRK FERENTZ: It will take a lot to make me hit the panic button. That's a bad button to hit. I guess there's bigger ones. Yeah, it's just moving forward. That's one thing typically that's what film shows is how close you're on some things and what have you, but there are a lot of factors that go into everything that happens out there typically.

Part of it's your competition as well. Statistics and polls are just something this time of year I'm not going to worry too much about. Obviously we're cognizant of it and working to address everything, but we'll know more here in about four or five weeks where we're at. I guess that's the best way I can put it.

In the meantime, we're working as hard as we can. It comes down to the little details to your point. Little things are big things, and it's always been that way in football, unless you just have supreme talent or great ability that maybe somebody else doesn't have. It's something we're working on certainly.

I'm optimistic we'll be fine, but still got to go out and do it. At some point we've got to do it. I do know this, we're a better team if we can be balanced. The more balanced we are, the better we'll be. I know that's historically been the case other than maybe '04. That wasn't by choice. It was what it was, so had to do it.

Q. I know a point for you going into this season was with the offensive line, making sure you had the right five guys in the right five places. Is there any consideration to trying Kade Pieper at center, to moving someone within the five, or potentially looking outside of that five to give someone else a chance? Or do you feel like it's still you have three new starters and that group just needs more time to grow together?

KIRK FERENTZ: I think based on what I know right now, we feel pretty good that we have the right guys out there doing the right things. You're always keeping an open eye to everything, a fresh eye to everything, every possibility. We'll have a chance to regroup on that one a little bit next week too.

I guess just be careful about evaluating guys that -- again, to me it's really early right now. Pieper hasn't played a lot of center, but he could play very well. Down the road I could see him playing it like all the time.

Coincidentally, I just complimented Cael in the weight room yesterday morning just on what he's done thus far. Watching the film on Sunday, he's just quietly playing really well. If you think about he's played five games in college, I think he's doing a really good job.

He had one or two plays on Saturday that aren't representative of the kind of the player he is and the way he's been playing. But it dawned on me the other day that he just kind of -- it's a good thing because you really haven't noticed him because he's doing a good job. I start thinking about it, this guy's played five games. I think he's really been pretty impressive.

He's got the advantage of being a little bit older. He's not a first or second year guy, so he's got a little more physical maturity. But I'm really pleased with his progress, his development. I think those guys are all improving weekly. We'll get there. We just have to keep getting better.

Q. Coming out of Saturday going into a short week, I understand you might not change the thing you call it, which being 24-hour rule, but does it almost need to become a 16-hour to 12-hour rule where the response is that much more important with one less day to prepare?

KIRK FERENTZ: It really was. There's times we stretched 24 to, whatever, 30 a week ago Sunday, let them have all day Sunday to enjoy it. But to your point, that's a great point. When we finished up here early Sunday afternoon, we made a point of telling them it's over, moving on. You don't have time to look back. We'll let other people do that, but we need to get on to the next opponent and start thinking because that's what this week is all about.

The reality is we miss our off-day this week. The off-day is on Saturday. The time that players have had to regroup a little bit and just recalibrate, they don't have that this week. They have to be smart about what they're doing, be cognizant of what the schedule looks like and make sure they -- we've encouraged them to understand what a routine looks like and what it should be, knowing it's different for every player.

Now they've got to try to squeeze that into a six-day window instead of a seven-day window. Hopefully they're all doing that, and so far so good.

Q. Another one on the run game. Keep in mind, kind of like what David said, we're just kind of throwing stuff at the wall here, but is there any concern about the lack of continuity with the running back room? I know you love the depth of the group, but is there any concern that the lack of continuity, having four guys and some of them are injured, they're in and out, that leads to the lack of consistency the last couple games?

KIRK FERENTZ: I don't know, it's an unusual situation to your point, and I've thought about that. My guess is at some point somebody's going to try to grab it here a little bit and take it.

Then the flip side of that too, because I have thought about that, it's kind of unusual, two weeks ago had a couple of guys that really couldn't go. LJ missed a couple weeks. Kamari was limited a week ago, I guess it would have been. So that gave other guys an opportunity to really step up and go.

Maybe one of the positives there, I don't think it's a stretch to say some of the experience that Braeden Jackson has gotten here early in the season is part of the reason he had the confidence to do what he did at Michigan. That was a really decisive return.

So there's benefit to it all, but my guess is -- again, I'm not a fortune teller, but I think as we move along, things will probably settle out, and we'll kind of get locked in a little bit more.

Yeah, there's only one ball, and we're going to throw it too. There's only one ball.

Q. You made it pretty clear on multiple occasions you don't like these West Coast regular season trips, and you were able to put a stop to them until you didn't have a choice anymore, obviously because of the toll it's kind of taken on your team. What have you kind of learned, and what kind of adjustments have you learned going into this year having to do this a couple times to maybe lessen the toll a little bit?

KIRK FERENTZ: 20-plus years ago it made no sense to me to schedule one when you didn't have to. Why would you do that? No competitive advantage there. Quite frankly, I think it's worse, when you think about Washington coming here and having to play us at 11 a.m., talk about being screwed up. That's the worst end of the deal.

Good news is we're not near as bad this time. It's a 6 p.m. kickoff as opposed to like 8 p.m.. I think Arizona State was 8 p.m., and then we had the rain delay down there. So that's a positive thought.

The bottom line is, again, there's a lot of FCS Division II schools that are driving on buses back and forth. I've got some good trivia for you guys, too. This summer I was re-reading Make the Big Time Where You Are, Frosty Westering. Pacific Lutheran won the Division III Championship in football. It just so happens Pacific Lutheran is in the Seattle area coincidentally. Five straight road games, 15,000 miles, and I doubt they were flying on a charter flight. It was probably commercial.

I can give you another story about -- I forget about this one. Maine in 1990, one of our former players was here for the game last weekend and reminded me. That was the longest ever away game in the history of two teams playing in America. I think it was 5,100 miles if you flew directly, which we didn't because we're low budget. We had to go to Portland on a bus. Then to Atlanta to Dallas to Honolulu, and it was a mismatch game, so we got our butt kicked. But we came back and won our first game week 6, I think it was, against Rhode Island.

Good stuff comes out of that. So long story short, it isn’t that big a deal. We're not taking a Greyhound bus. We're not taking a train. We're going to fly there in four hours. Guys will be killing four hours of the day before a game somehow, so they can do it. They all have iPads. They won't even know it was a trip. No big deal. We'll be all right.

That won't be the reason. Our attitude in the game will be the biggest factor, I think, and our opponent, getting ready for our opponent.

I did have that thought when I read the book. I thought, this is going to be it. This is perfect because I knew that question was going to come at some point. Whenever that was, in July. Sorry.

Q. I wanted to ask about some of the flags, the penalties and some of the mistakes. What did you see kind of on tape there? Is there any added emphasis going into this week on that? We didn't really see that through the first four weeks.

KIRK FERENTZ: Not really other than I probably could have filled in the blank better Saturday on that, been more specific. Penalties are not good. I think you guys have heard me say you want to be in the top quarter, top third. You don't want a pacifist team that never gets penalties, that's not a good thing.

But really -- and this ties into the other day -- what really hurts you are the penalties that are unforced or they're judgment fouls. You hit a guy out of bounds who's clearly out of bounds. That's just being selfish and stupid. And then the unforced ones, the illegal formations and unforced penalty, false starts are unforced in my opinion.

We had a personal foul, another big play in the game, personal foul on a kickoff cover by a really good guy and it was just not intentional, but it was still why do that? Which gave them the ball on the 40. You're playing Ohio State, and you don't want to give them the ball on the 40 yard line, and it cost us points there too.

Those are the things that you just -- that's the importance of penalties or the timing of them. Third and three, false start will kill you. Third and three to third and eight is a big difference. That's the stuff you really have to be on top of. Traditionally we've been pretty good there, and we'll continue to work on it.

We don't have a drill for it other than it's concentration. Just got to be aware of how it can hurt you as a team.

Q. What are some of the challenges that Washington's quarterback poses to your defense, and what are some things that you learn from facing a mobile quarterback against Michigan that's helping you prep for Friday?

KIRK FERENTZ: My headaches began however many weeks ago we played Iowa State because he was the guy playing for Washington vs. Washington State who was Iowa State's defense. We got to watch that entire game countless times. You just watch this guy playing, and he really played well. That would have been last year's Washington-Washington State game.

He's a really dynamic player. He's a good thrower. He can run. They can design runs with him. He can just pull it down and go. He's one of those catalyst-type players. You can tell everybody responds to him.

When you play a guy like that, it just makes things a little bit trickier for sure, and it makes everybody just a little bit more -- you just kind of -- you have to be, I don't want to say tentative, but you have to be a little more reserved a little bit. It makes it hard. Puts the pressure on the quarterback who's got the ball every play. So it makes it tough. Good player, really good player.

Q. You mentioned this in your opening statement, but you've never been to Husky Stadium.

KIRK FERENTZ: How about that? I've been to the Kingdome, what a dump. Like the Metrodome, you know. It was good in its day.

Q. As a coach that's been in as many different stadiums as you have, how weird is it to reach this point in your career and be like, yeah, this will be a good one?

KIRK FERENTZ: I've never been in the old Oakland one either. They don't have a team anymore, but that's another one I never hit. I'll find a positive. They have good lockers rooms, I hear. That's rare in college football. You can't believe how bad the locker rooms are.

They've got a good one because the Seahawks were in there for a while, which usually means you've got a good locker room if the pro teams go in there. They at least have standards. We don't have standards. You ought to see some of these locker rooms. We've got a good one, and Minnesota has a good one, too.

Anyway, we'll look forward to that. The biggest thing is the opponent we're playing. They're a good team, and they're hungry for a win, just like we are. That's going to be one of those games, I think.

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