Rose Bowl Game: Iowa vs

Stanford
Wednesday, December 30, 2015

Kirk Ferentz
Iowa Hawkeyes
An Interview With:
COACH KIRK FERENTZ
THE MODERATOR: We'll get started with the second
half of our head coach press conference. We're joined
now by Coach Kirk Ferentz. Coach Ferentz has led the
Iowa football team for 17 seasons and through 12
victories this season alone. He's led Iowa to 68 Big
Ten victories and was recently named the Big Ten
"Coach of the Year." Most of you also should have
received a press release this morning that Coach
Ferentz recently also won the Bobby Dodd trophy. So
welcome Coach Ferentz, we'll get started with
questions.
Q. Just curious, why do you stand and not sit at all
your press conferences?
COACH FERENTZ: I guess that's what I do when I go
to work on the field too. So it's just a little more
comfortable being on your feet, and it's probably about
as simple as that. Plus, I have a hard time getting out
of a chair anymore. I'm getting old, so (smiling)...
Q. Coach, what similarities do you see between
your team and the Stanford team?
COACH FERENTZ: Well, I think any similarities would
be a real compliment to our football team, but I think
really what you're looking at are two teams that really
have competed extremely hard week-in and week-out
this entire season. They're a very well-coached
football team. They're very physical, and they've got
good players, a lot of good players.
But the thing that really strikes me is the effort that they
play with, the teamwork, the cohesiveness. And,
again, I think they're very, very well-coached. I'm not
saying we are, but when I look at Stanford, that's what I
see.
Q. Good morning, Coach. I want to ask you the
same question I asked Coach Shaw. The fact that
you haven't been here in a long time and they've
been here -- this is their third time in four years.
When the game starts, how much will any of that
make a difference?
COACH FERENTZ: Yeah, I think it's a big of a factor.
But I think the thing we've shared with our football

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team, we've played in a lot of big games and for us

every game this year has been extremely big. We've
been in a playoff mode since week one. So as the
season went on, the stakes went up a little bit, certainly
our last couple games had a lot on the line, and then to
play in Indianapolis, it was a great environment. It
wasn't the Rose Bowl, and I get that. But, you know, I
think our guys will be ready to go. They're used to
competing. They're used to being in really live, active
environments.
The only other thing I would equate it to, we played in
the Orange Bowl in 2002. Thought we were coming to
the Rose Bowl that year, and it didn't work out. We
didn't handle that trip very well as a program. When
we went back in '09, I think our approach was much,
much better.
So as coaches and as a program I think you learn
through the years, you learn through your experiences
and it's just part of the deal. So hopefully we'll be
prepared. But at the end of the day, as good as this is,
it's such a historic bowl. I can't imagine there's a better
environment in America to play college football. It's still
a game. Once the game gets going, it's a game on the
field. Our challenge is to play a really good football
team.
Q. These seniors have never won a bowl game.
What have you seen from them in this bowl prep to
lead you to believe they could win this one?
COACH FERENTZ: You know, that really goes back to
January. There are a lot of things that we haven't done
or hadn't done, and they've been able to accomplish a
lot as a class this season. So it's one more thing on
the list, certainly, that I think they're cognizant of. And I
think our leadership really took off somewhere during
the course of the summer. We were okay in the spring.
We practiced well and we had a solid football team, but
I really think the story of this football team happened
during the course of the summer during camp, and it's
continued to evolve.
I don't think they're -- it's really pretty rare to see a
good college football team that doesn't have a great
senior class, and that's certainly what we've enjoyed.
These guys are determined. I know they want to close
out their careers on a high note. I'm sure Stanford's
seniors feel the same way. So that's what's going to

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make it a great contest.

Q. You mentioned it is just a game, it's a Rose Bowl
game. But you guys haven't been here in 25 years,
so it's kind of a big game. Has there been anybody
outside of the football game that's reached out to
you, given you advice or said anything that's
resonated with you that means something to you?
COACH FERENTZ: Not really. Again, it's just kind of a
process. I've been here twice as an assistant, and that
seems like 50 years ago. It wasn't quite, but it was 30
and 35. But you learn from every experience you have
in life. Certainly it's just part of the deal. So I would go
back to our two BCS experiences and the Orange Bowl
in '09 and '02. We had a championship team in '04,
played in a big bowl and beat LSU. So we've been
down that road. Certainly a lot of our former players
have shared things with our players during the course
of the season, not this week, necessarily, but during
the course of the season.
And, again, the basics are still the basics. That's one
thing about sports. Whether you're playing in Augusta
or the British Open or you're playing in the Rose Bowl,
at some point you have to block out all the other stuff,
and you've got to concentrate on what the task is. And
for our guys, it doesn't change. We've played 13
ballgames this year. I think we've prepared well for 13.
We've competed hard in all 13, and now the challenge
for us is to do it for 14 times. And we'll have to do it to
the best of our ability, because that's what it's going to
take to beat this team. They're a championship football
team. Just an outstanding team. There are no
weaknesses that we can find.
Our challenge is to see if we can play our best game of
the season.
Q. I know you lost one of your back-up tight ends
the other day in practice. What is the health of
your team going into this game? Is there anybody
else who won't play or is on the fence?
COACH FERENTZ: Yeah, Jake Duzey was a tough
loss, and you're not from our region, but Jake's coming
back off a difficult injury that he encountered back in
the spring. So it's been tough every step of the way,
and it's really unfortunate he took a step back. He
really, unfortunately, didn't get to play a key role for us
this year. But you feel bad any time a player gets hurt
and they can't compete and can't do what they want to
do and love doing. Certainly when it happens to a
senior, it's magnified in that regard. So that part's very
difficult.
But, otherwise, I think basically our team, we've got a
couple guys nicked up like anybody does during the
season. I think everybody's got a chance to play

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tomorrow or two days from now, so we'll see how it

goes. But we're optimistic we should be pretty much at
full strength.
Q. Coach Shaw said that he knew his team was a
Rose Bowl team in training camp. Did you know
your team was a Rose Bowl team at any time
during the season?
COACH FERENTZ: I've been coaching at Iowa quite
some time now. This is my 17th year back and 26th
overall, and I think if you look at Iowa football teams,
typically it's a real process. It's something that our
good teams evolve over time, and it's really paramount
that we make improvement. If you look at our roster, I
could go right down the list, there's an awful lot of guys
on our roster that have improved dramatically since
August, not to mention last April. So I can't say that I
felt that way. But I would also say that the majority of
my years at Iowa, I've always felt like we have an
opportunity to grow into a good football team that
requires leadership, that requires staying fairly healthy,
which we didn't do this year, but the guys really didn't
let faze them.
And we need some good stories, and we've had some
of those too. So those are things typically the teams
I've been around that have been successful whether in
the last 17 years or back in the '80s, usually it's a
developmental thing. '85 might be an exception to that.
Even our 2002 team that went undefeated in the Big
Ten, we probably were picked 8th or 9th in the
conference that year. So that's probably more typical
of us.
I think it's funny, somebody from Columbus just sent
me a preseason prognostication from whatever the
paper is, the Dispatch, and they had three football
experts that had us either third, one had us third and
the other two had us fourth in the Big Ten West.
So, yeah, I think if I had made that claim back in
August, somebody might have been chasing me or
locking me up a little bit on that one.
Q. With all the Iowa fans expected to pour into LA
and Pasadena, I know Stanford fans will be there as
well. But what do you expect this environment to
be like for your team with all that support?
COACH FERENTZ: I'm guessing it will be similar to
what we encountered at Indianapolis. I don't know how
many fans were in the stadium, but it felt a lot like a
home game. It was easy for the Iowa folks to get there
being at a Midwest venue. But the Rose Bowl's a very,
very special thing to everybody involved in our
program, certainly our fan base as well. I do remember
distinctly in 1981, Jim Zabel, legendary radio
broadcaster in Des Moines, his crack was last person

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out of the state shut the lights out as they headed to

California. So we anticipate a really enthusiastic
following here. Our fans have been tremendous
historically, and I think we'll probably witness that on
Friday as well.
Q. When people think Iowa football, they think
physicality and toughness. How do you go about
developing that type of characteristic throughout
your team?
COACH FERENTZ: Yeah, it's really not a new concept,
necessarily. But it's something that we emphasize. I
think every coach, no matter where they are in the
country, they look at where they're at and what they
think is realistic and what gives them the best chance
of winning. In our case, and it's really all I know about
my adult coaching career, all but nine years have been
spent at Iowa, so those are just some feelings that I've
developed through the years. When we came back in
1999, it's really no different than what it was when
Coach Fry was there. It's always amused me a little
bit. Coach Fry is known for the sunglasses, the white
pants, the razzle-dazzle stuff. But if you looked at his
best teams in the big games, they won with
fundamentals and doing the little things right, and
playing tough, hard-nosed football. That's really a
tradition at Iowa. I can't speak to what happened
before Coach Fry got there, but I got to experience that
for nine years.

recruit him because he wasn't tall enough to go to

other schools in our conference.
So it's just we're comfortable with that. I think I
probably learned that in the '80s also. We had some
outstanding linemen, but you get a guy like Mark
Sindlinger, might have been six foot. A dominant
wrestler, and Mark came in and started three years on
three good football teams, '84, '85, '86 and captain and
all that stuff. So you have to look a little deeper, I think
to see some value in a player and some really good
qualities.
Most people do have good qualities, so if you look
deep enough, you find those things. Really, the key to
the whole thing is what the players do once they get
there. I think that was kind of has been and continues
to be how the wrestling program at Iowa operate too.
You just learn from other people that way.

Then my background growing up, the people I grew up

with in coaching, the people I've worked with in that
nine-year hiatus, if you will, from the program, it just
reinforced all the things that we think are important in
football. So those are things that we've tried to build
our foundation on, and that's kind of where we're at.
Q. Last year I asked you at the bowl game about
describing your program as developmental. This
year you hit, quote/unquote, hit on a lot of guys in
that realm. You can go up and down the list. How
does that happen? How does that sync into
something like this?
COACH FERENTZ: When we go shopping, we don't
get to go to the gourmet store. I guess it's one of those
deals. Some schools do. They get to pick the guys
that my sister could tell you are great, great football
players. We're not against that by any stretch. But it
just historically has not been the nature of our program.
So I think it forces us to think a little bit outside the box.
Look a little bit beyond maybe the obvious and try to
see something in a player that we think is a redeeming
quality. First guy I'm thinking about here is Bob
Sanders who couldn't get on the nicest roller coaster at
Disneyland because he's not tall enough, but the guy
can play football. And that's why he was available to
us. He's a Pennsylvania native. We were able to

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