KIRK SPEAKS: Ohio State

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I don’t know about y’all, but I am still absolutely BUZZING from last weekend’s victory at Michigan. It’s just so rare to win a game in that fashion, let alone as the Iowa Hawkeyes, let alone against a team that was gifted a win on a last second pass a few weeks prior.

Sometimes life is just beautiful yknow?

Unfortunately we cannot dwell in the past forever. It’s Big Ten season now and that’s a gauntlet in itself every week. This week is particularly challenging, as the Hawks are hosting Ohio State, one of the best teams in the country. They’ve got their work cut out for for them, and I don’t know if the Woodshed game from 2017 is replicable.

But, you’re not here for my takes, you’re here for the man in charge’s takes. Click HERE for Kirk Ferentz’s full transcript, and check out my highlights and commentary below.

Let’s start with the run game:

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.

The run game has been really interesting so far this year. It’s pretty much been feast or famine. But in the same vein, the run game has done enough in these games to make a difference. As noted in our Discord, the run game was only getting 1-2 yard gains in the first half, but turned those into 3-4 yard gains as the game went on. Not eye-popping numbers, but effective enough to make a difference. Still though, it would be nice to be able to rely on the run game a little more in these big games.

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.

Hank Brown man…I don’t know what to say. He made huge plays when it mattered most — I guess that’s the best place to start. Yes, that Michigan penalty was a game changer in itself on that final drive, but all game long, when the team needed him to make huge plays, Hank delivered (as did Reece Vander Zee, for that matter). Brown still has things to work on for sure, but this was a huge game for him in terms of confidence — and confidence from the fanbase. We’ll need more of that this weekend to have a shot at victory.

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.

This I think is an area where Kirk being such a long-tenured coach can be an advantage. I admire how it sounds like he’s gotten these guys ready for this game, particularly after such a crazy victory. It’s also just life in the Big Ten — it truly is a gauntlet that never stops. The bye week will come at a nice time in the season, no matter what the outcome is this season, but it will taking good preparation from the players and staff for Iowa to have a chance in this game.

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.

A fun question here, and it’s fun to get Kirk’s take on it. You all knew he was going to go back into the archives for this answer. You can make valid arguments against Kirk’s mentality about needing all of these games to be close and dirty in order to win them instead of, you know, just outright winning them by a large margin, but I do think the best teams know how to win games in a variety of fashions, and we certainly know that Iowa is capable of that under Kirk Ferentz.

Also, this may be controversial, but I do agree with Kirk here when he says that his team is not in the entertainment business. You’re right, Kirk — I’m not entertained for a lot of these games, I’m just chewing my fingernails and wondering what could have been…until Brown hits Vander Zee for a walk off touchdown on the road.

Then I’m entertained…but I would have liked to be a bit more entertained throughout the game 😉

Let’s end with this:

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.

Just kind of an interesting answer here from Kirk as far as still getting “butterflies” about the game of college football and wins throughout the season. Not that we needed anymore indication that Kirk loves to coach, but he’s right when he says in the answer that, if you get over the butterflies, the nerves, the highs and lows, you should probably move on. And we all know that it’s clear that Kirk is not taking these special wins for granted.

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