University of Iowa Football

Media Conference
Tuesday, October 4, 2016

Kirk Ferentz
COACH FERENTZ: Good afternoon. Certainly all of
us are disappointed with Saturday's outcome. We had
a great crowd in Kinnick, and certainly Northwestern
played a really good football game. As we move
forward, look back in January, college football, all
football, you get a new team every January when you
start out, and with that comes new challenges. I think
it's interesting if you look back right now, the teams that
met in Indianapolis at the championship, both have
experienced bumps over the last couple of weeks. So
at this point really there's only one course of action.
That's for us to push forward, continue to push forward
and try to make improvement on a daily basis, and
that's really where our focus is. I think our players are
invested, giving good effort. Right now we're just not
playing well enough at times, and those are the things
that we have to really try to address. The most
important things to be focused on right now are making
the makeable type plays, playing clean football and
then trying to eliminate the self-inflicted wounds.
They've been hurtful to our cause certainly. As most of
you know, winning and losing tends to be a really fine
line, and when you are winning things get magnified a
little bit and some of the things that you're not doing
well get overlooked, and then conversely, when you
come up to the short end, you know, the things that you
don't do well really tend to be more magnified, too. So
that's really where we're at right now. Work started
yesterday morning. Guys have done a good job in two
days of practice.
Our captains this week will be C. J. Beathard and
LeShun Daniels, offensively. Desmond King and Josey
Jewel, defensively. Injury wise, nobody's out of the
game right now that hasn't been out. Got a couple of
guys that are nicked up a little bit in their day to day
and we'll see how they respond as we move forward.
Traveling to Minnesota, they're a good football team.
Very impressive offensively, scoring a lot of points.
Like you would expect, they're big on offense, probably
bigger than in the past. They've got some new linemen
that are really big guys. So the collective effort is big,
tight end is big, quarterback is big and a veteran player,
really good player, good group of receivers and really
impressed with their running backs. The running backs
are all three guys who really run hard and do a nice
job. They're very athletic on defense; they play hard
and very athletic. And then special teams wise, they're

Rev #2 by #177 at 2016-10-04 20:09:00 GMT

good on special teams, as they have been, and have

good specialists. It will be a challenge playing a good
football team, and an added challenge playing on the
road. We'll continue our preparation and looking
forward to getting ready for Saturday. I'll throw it out for
questions.
Q. What can you do to address the pass block
issues, especially at the edge?
COACH FERENTZ: That's something we're working
on, just like everything else right now. And our passing
game hasn't looked really very clean, very rhythmic at
all consistently, and that's going to be one of the things
we're focused on.
Q. Is the leadership group doing the job it needs to
do right now?
COACH FERENTZ: I think we're getting good
leadership from our whole team, not just the leadership
group. Leadership's a collective thing. Everybody's
got an ownership in that and involvement, and it all
starts with having a good attitude and working hard
every day, and I think the guys are doing that.
Q. Is it hard sometimes when things aren't going
right for those leaders to keep their frustration
within themselves and not let it out?
COACH FERENTZ: I don't think any of us are playing
perfect or coaching perfect. We're all frustrated right
now. We came up short twice. That leads to
frustration, and there's not a person in our organization
that can't do a better job, and that's what we're all
trying to do.
Q. Is your awareness of the run defense
heightened even more, not only from what you
have done, but the fact that you're playing against
Smith and Brooks, who are two terrific backs, and
they've got a really big physical offensive line
where it can get really ugly.
COACH FERENTZ: Tight end is gigantic, too. They've
got a big group of guys and they're going to come out,
and they like to run the football. So it's going to be a
big challenge for us matching up size wise, so we're
going to have to do a great job with our technique. The
biggest thing on defense is everybody has to be where
they're supposed to be there, and number two, we have
to tackle better. Those two areas have cost us some
big plays.

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And my point to you would be the things that don't kill

you it's not the five-yard run, six-yard run, not that you
like to give those up, but it's the ones that break out
plus 15, and we had a couple of them the other day,
and that's more about just executing better. And those
are the things we're going to have to do if we're going
to be a good defensive team.
Q. How much is say technique, not being the place
you're supposed to be versus guys get beat?
COACH FERENTZ: Every team has good players in
our conference. Talent disparities and all that kind of
stuff, and I don't think that's our issue right now. Our
issue is just playing more consistently, all 11 guys
being where they're supposed to be on a given play.
And then you have to execute the fundamentals, and
that's what I was talking about the makeables. If you're
not going to tackle consistently, it's going to be hard to
expect to be a good defensive football team. So that's
an imperative. You can't get cut off your feet. You can't
play on the ground. There's certain things you just
can't do defensively if you want to be sound. And we're
not clicking on all cylinders clearly.
Q. Is the defensive performance particularly
distressing because you guys had seven returning
starters and it slid.
COACH FERENTZ: You know, it's just we're not playing
well enough, quite frankly. And to me first thought in
my mind on the defensive side would be just doing a
better job against the run, particularly, again, the big
plays. Those are the ones that really make it tough.
And we gave up a couple the other day. One was a
contain issue. The other was a missed tackle deal,
and those two things come free. That changes the
complexion of the game really quickly. Not that you
want the ball to be driven on you either, but those
things are really hard.
Q. One of your former players on Twitter praised
Josey Jewel and Desmond King for some of the
best play he's seen. On the flip side, didn't think
Cole Croston, left tackle, had been playing up to
ability or the safeties. Are those two areas
concerns that you share right now?
COACH FERENTZ: I'm pretty concerned about
everything right now. And it's really teams meshing
together. We got some guys that are doing a great job,
playing really well, some other guys that maybe can
improve, that type of thing. But it's a collective effort. It
really is a collective effort. And there are individual
plays you can pull out and say this player got beat on
this play. And that's going to happen. And do we want
to try to address those, absolutely, but to my point
earlier, a lot of things get magnified when you go down
in defeat.

Rev #2 by #177 at 2016-10-04 20:09:00 GMT

And you can go back, we're looking at this game from

last year. There were plenty of things that went wrong
in this game, too, yet we came out ahead. It's usually a
pretty fine line, and there's always things to work on,
always things to correct. There's a reason Josey Jewel
and Desmond are well known. They're pretty good
established players right now. So it's just a matter of
everybody else trying to ascend.
Q. Do you anticipate any starting lineup changes?
COACH FERENTZ: Nothing major, but you never rule
anything out. We'll see how practice goes this week.
Q. What all do you put into building that first depth
chart, building the guys you think will carry you?
COACH FERENTZ: It really goes back to what I said in
January. You have a starting point in January with
every team. So certainly your depth chart is based on
the way you finish typically, and then you start moving
forward from there. But that's why I always say in the
spring, depth charts mean something, but they don't
mean everything. And then same thing in preseason
camp, because you're continuing to practice.
Preseason camp is your most condensed period of
preparation and practice, so we really -- coaches get a
chance to evaluate guys in a lot of different situations
and close quarters. Then in season it's a little bit
different because you're in a playing mode. Certainly
we evaluate practice. Health factors into it, whether a
guy, how limited he may be or isn't, and then certainly
what they do in games. So it's a little harder to ascend
as a player probably, if you're a second or third-team
guy. But then, conversely, if a guy's not playing well
enough, we'll give those players opportunity to
compete.
Q. You guys haven't made a lot of personnel
changes because of performance on the field. Why
is that?
COACH FERENTZ: Just I guess how it pans out.
That's like over 17 years you're referring to; right? You
know, it's typical. I mean unless a guy is just flat-out
not getting it done or is really struggling. If they're out
there drowning in the ocean, you're going to try to
throw a life preserver in there, for sure, and get a guy
out of there. But there are ups and downs in
everything you do, and you have to work through those
ups and downs. If we feel a player is incapable, yeah,
we'll make a change that way. Or someone else if we
see them ascending, we'll give them an opportunity
also. And health issues a lot of times factor into that,
and guys take the opportunity and run.
Q. Last year after five games you could say you
guys were maybe five or six points from being 3
and 2, same way this year. Is that kind of what

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you're stressing to this team?

COACH FERENTZ: It really is, and that's kind of the
history of the program. I don't think we're unique that
way. Usually it's a pretty fine line. Occasionally you
get on a run where things just start to pop and all that.
But usually it is a pretty fine line. I think back to a lot of
our really successful seasons, that's how it is.
And the trick is to push it over the top. And last year
we won on a last-second field goal. One of our defeats
this year was by a last-second field goal. Last week it's
a touchdown. We still have opportunities. Boy, you
talk about fine lines, one of the last plays of the game
the other day was a ball down the sideline. If you look
at it, it's a matter of inches, and that's really kind of
what we're talking about.
It was the same line protect; we got back there, the ball
came out, and it was a bang-bang play. We came up
short. But if we're going to be victorious, we have to
make some of those plays, too. But it was a wellconceived play; the timing was good, execution was
good, but we were off a couple of inches. And we had
the guy I'm not going to say wide open, but it was a
makeable play.
Q. What could Desmond King do to get even better
the rest of the season?
COACH FERENTZ: Just keep playing. I thought he
had a heck of a game the other day. He's playing well
on defense for us. He's not getting tested near as
much as last year, for obvious reasons. But he's doing
all he can to help us win certainly, and it goes back to
January. One of the things I really appreciate about
Desmond, I don't think he's missed a snap since last
year. He's out there every day in practice, works hard.
And you know, Saturday it was a little bit unusual for
him because he actually ran forward more than he was
running backwards. A lot of his yards going forward,
but did a great job in the return game. And he's doing
all he can, and that's all we ask of every player. But
he's certainly stepping up as a returner, did that a year
ago. I think that indicates he was an unselfish guy that
wants to play hard and try to help the team.
Q. Backups are always popular after losses. You
look at a depth chart, and you see a fifth-year
senior, Anthony Gair, at safety, and people are
wondering what's he not doing to be on the field.
How close is he to being on the field?
COACH FERENTZ: It's not a knock on Anthony. It's
just that we feel like Miles has played better and
practiced better. Everybody starts clean in January. A
guy like Desmond certainly has a head start, but he still
has to go out and play and improve and work hard too.
And it's strictly based on what we see in practice, and
that's how depth charts get established. Typically we

Rev #2 by #177 at 2016-10-04 20:09:00 GMT

don't like to be reactionary with our decisions, and

hopefully you're looking at things and being rational
and basing it over the big picture and not just a
momentary blip.
Q. This might sound like a vague question, but
weeks go by fast. How do you make positive
changes in a practice week?
COACH FERENTZ: There's nothing really dramatic.
That's one thing I've learned in coaching. Typically
improvement's not dramatic, doesn't usually happen
overnight. And that's the whole concept behind break
the rock. It's a repeated swings at the thing, and you
just keep hammering away. First thing comes to mind
when you bring that up is Eric Steinbach, who for
years, literally years, if he was going left, he would drag
his right elbow. It was driving me crazy, driving Joe
Philbin crazy. And it was a Tuesday practice, I can't tell
you exactly what week of the year it was, sixth, seventh
week, but he actually went left and brought his back
elbow with him, which doesn't sound like much to you,
but it was a break-through moment for him, and I
remember looking right at Joe Philbin; we both couldn't
believe it.
But he had been coached on that point, coached on
that point, coached on that point, and when he got the
feel for it and really developed it, boom, he just really
kind of took off. And he was a good player before that,
but that's an illustration of what can happen to a player,
but it typically doesn't happen overnight. You have to
work at it. And it's that way in every sport where very
few things happen naturally. That's an individual basis,
but for team wise it's kind of the same thing, you just
keep banging away until it happens for you.
Q. You've probably had a little time now to probably
talk to him. Does he want to come back?
COACH FERENTZ: Yeah, I think Matt would really like
to come back. I don't have official word yet, but it
sounds like this one is a little bit more clearcut than the
one we dealt with last year. So that would be good
news certainly.
Q. Five games into the season now. Do you ever
find yourself needing a boost mid season? If so,
how do you do that?
COACH FERENTZ: Playing better is always a good
boost for everybody. I know how our fans felt Saturday
and Sunday. I know how we felt. And as you might
imagine, it probably impacts us a little bit more directly,
players and coaches. The biggest boost you get is
getting back on the field with your players. And we
didn't do it with that intention, but practicing on Monday
as opposed to Tuesday, it's cut however many hours
that is out from Monday morning versus Tuesday
afternoon to be back on the field.

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That typically is the best medicine after you get stung.

So it gives you a chance to get back to work and start
working on something positive, working on solutions
rather than kind of dwelling on what took place, not that
you forget that or put it in the past. Sundays are for
dissecting, looking at things, what can we do to give
our players a better chance to be successful, and then
you try to start implementing that. So it's always good
to get back on the field and just feel some energy from
the players.
Q. Over your time you've dealt with every manner
or frustration. How hard or easy is it to not take
that stuff home with you after a frustrating couple
weeks?
COACH FERENTZ: It's impossible. I mean unless
you're a robot, it basically kills your weekend. But it's
the other way after a win, too. All those little things that
went wrong after a win tend to be, you know, shielded
a little bit and you kind of put them aside. Losses are
it's a one-way street. That's just the way it is. We all
signed up for it, so nobody's complaining.
Q. After the game Saturday, you talked about
tempo a lot and you used the term stuck in sand.
When you guys switch to high gear, when you
switch to no huddle, is that your call and why does
it go away during a game?
COACH FERENTZ: It's just a suggestion during the
game and I suggested it. But nothing was really
looking good at that point. So it was just a shot in the
dark. There's no guarantee. If that was the answer,
you'd do it all the time. Some people do. I get that.
But sometimes change in pace helps a little bit,
sometimes it doesn't. But what we really need to do
right now, I mentioned that one-pass play, like to me,
that's a good illustration. That was good football. We
hit that one slant route to Riley. That was, boom, the
ball came out, that was third and seven, I believe. That
was a good play. And then the converse of that, the
one that sticks out right at the first quarter we ran the
ball twice, instead of first and 10 on the 40, midfield
area, we got a face mask, which I've never seen, but it
was on film. I'm not disputing the call. And then we
get a false start, so we end up third and 21, fourth and
21, punt the ball, give them the ball at the short field,
they score a touchdown. That to me is the focus right
now. Those are the things that we need to correct, we
can correct. And you know, who knows what's going to
happen when you got the ball on the 40 with a little
momentum, a little inertia as opposed to going
backwards, and I know it's the same way for you as it is
any of us, when you watch a team going backwards, it
just feels like you're grinding coffee.

Rev #2 by #177 at 2016-10-04 20:09:00 GMT

So those are the things that we need to clean up. And

I can't document this, but I believe if we can clean
some of that up, you start to gain a little momentum,
you start to look like a football team as opposed to
climbing up Mt. Everest, and that's kind of how it feels,
and those are the things that we need to address and
do a better job of.
Q. Not just penalties. It's a negative play on first
down, incomplete pass on first down. Do you see
this offense getting to a point where it's resilient
enough to handle it?
COACH FERENTZ: I think we have. We have to get
back to it. The incomplete passes, there's two kinds of
incomplete passes, there's ones where, like the one I
mentioned, it's not a high-percentage pass down that
sideline, but you're going to throw the ball down there,
hey, you got a shot at it and if it's incomplete, you go
back to the huddle. The ones where you drop balls, or
makeable plays or a more high-percentage throw that
you don't complete, those are the plays, those are the
ones that we have to do a better job. That to me is the
difference. That's where that line is.
Q. You mentioned self-inflicted wounds. How do
you teach that not to happen?
COACH FERENTZ: It's practice. It's fundamentals,
and like I say, same thing about missed tackles. A
missed tackle against Tony Dorsett is a little bit more
understandable than if they're tackling me. There's a
line of -- you judge that, too.
But if you're playing good defense where the ball is in a
phone booth, then you oughta be able to make that
tackle. We gotta be able to make that tackle or it's
going to be a long season. Those are the kinds of
things that are coachable, addressable hopefully. And
the faster we get there, the better off we'll all feel.
Q. Kids day last year, I think it was, you were
talking about Boone Myers, and it was kind of in
his head or something along those lines. Can an
offensive line's struggles be mental?
COACH FERENTZ: I mentioned Eric Steinbach with
the elbow. That was strictly -- and he was here the
other day. He's got five boys now, by the way. But
anyway, so those are things, again, you just keep
pressing forward.
Confidence, rhythm, all those things, those are things
you earn, you earn as a player. And you just gotta
push and work hard, and you gotta go through the
valleys just as well as the peaks, and if you can't do
that, then you probably need to get out of the game.
Q. Your third down percentage was really good last
year, not so good right now and you're about

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halfway through the season. And I want to say it's

88 percent of the time when you're three wide
receiver shotgun and every single time you're in
shotgun and three wide receiver on third down you
pass. Is that kind of something self-scouting that
you're struggling with or is it something just what
you do?
COACH FERENTZ: I would add on that probably if you
check the down and distances for those, pretty
predictable, too. And as you might imagine, we go
through scouting reports, both self-scout and then also
our opponents. And I think if you would check most of
the opponents we play, it's pretty consistent the same
way. When teams are third and five, third and six, third
and seven, it's not unusual for them to throw a heck of
a lot more than they run, and then same thing, throwing
the ball out of the gun. That's pretty commonplace. So
I don't think that's a big tipping point or big secret.
Again, the thing is we gotta execute better. And my
personal preference would be more third and four, third
and five, third and three. So it would be a heck of a lot
better for us to operate out of if we want to up our
percentages. Those go hand in hand.
Q. I think between third and three and third and six,
there have been 17 passes and two runs. You're
such a balanced program, run versus pass. Are
those situations that maybe it's a little askew
towards the pass?
COACH FERENTZ: Typically I think that's fair to say.
Third and four and beyond and typically skewed to the
pass. Pretty typical.
Q. When you were talking about tempo, I felt like
you were maybe mentioning, talking about
shortening the decision time that C.J. has and just
kind of shrinking that and maybe going a little
quicker. Is that maybe how you unlock C.J. at this
point?
COACH FERENTZ: Going quicker with our procedure
or the ball coming out quicker?
Q. The ball coming out quicker.
COACH FERENTZ: Yeah, the more of those, the
better. The one I alluded to down the sideline, if you go
back and look at it, I can't tell you if it was the next-tothe-last play or third-to-the-last play, but that was a
good play, just bump, bump, and the ball came out and
you go. And the more of that we can get, the better off
we're going to be. And that's a team thing, whether it's
protection, guys not getting open fast enough or maybe
it's us not reading the right plays, right places, all those
three things factor into it, so that's what we gotta keep
working on.
Q. C.J. seemed like he was more of a play maker

Rev #2 by #177 at 2016-10-04 20:09:00 GMT

last year. There was more kind of improvisation in

his game. Is that physical for him? Is it a physical
thing for him to not make things happen on his feet
this year?
COACH FERENTZ: Not to my knowledge. I think just
right now it's where we're at collectively. I think he's
fine physically.
Q. How do you keep this week fun? I mean after a
loss it's tough for you guys on a weekend.
COACH FERENTZ: Yeah.
Q. How do you keep it fun? It's football.
COACH FERENTZ: Practice better. You know, quite
frankly, the fun in football is playing well, playing -- you
never play as well as you want. I mean that's never
happened. But playing more to what we want to be.
That's the fun in football. And it's a lot of hard work.
Football by nature is kind of a hard game. But that's
the fun of it all. Coming off the practice field feeling
like, hey, we had a really good day here, we're moving
forward. And every practice has ups and downs to it
just like games. But just trying to gain a little bit of
inertia that way. That's how you have fun. You just
gotta push through it.
Q. Mitch Leidner has had two really good games
against you. What kind of challenges does he
present not only physically? He's a big guy with a
strong arm and can run. He seems to have grown
and matured as a player over the years.
COACH FERENTZ: Oh, no question. He's a very good
player. He's big, he's physical. He can run, throw.
And he's a leader. At least from our vantage point he
looks to be a very strong leader. That's everything you
want in a quarterback and that's going to be a big
challenge for us. We know that.
Q. What stood out with Ron (Coluzzi) when you
decided to bring him in to punt?
COACH FERENTZ: Well, we thought, number one, he
was experienced, needless to say, being a college
graduate. But we thought he would be a really good
acquisition, good addition to our football team. But
he's done better than we anticipated. And for the most
part he hasn't been flawless, but he's really performed
really well, really consistently. On top of that he's a
tremendous young man, so it's really been a win-win
situation for us, and he's doing a great job kicking the
ball, too, as well as punting it.
Q. Cole (Croston) obviously had a rough day
Saturday. What is your process for bringing a guy
back, for a guy to get back through that mentally?
COACH FERENTZ: It's like any position. It's not fun
when it happens, and some days it just comes
downhill. And that's life. And boy, it's a tough thing to

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go through. All I know is I've watched Cole for fourand-a-half years now, know him pretty intimately, know
his dad, his family. He's a tremendous guy, you know,
and I think that's -- it's kind of like our football team, we
got a lot of really good players and good people on our
team. So it's not going perfect right now by any
stretch, but the guys are working hard, they've got the
right attitude. They really care, they're invested. And
everything I'm saying, that's Cole Croston. He's a
really tremendous young man. So he'll work through
this. He'll fight through this. He's played good football
for us we'll get him back to where he needs to be. He'll
get himself back there. That's the most important
thing. It's not fun, but that was yesterday and now
we're moving forward.
Q. Your first move, though, today is it just thinking
things through, getting him to see the tape? Is that
the first move or do you just give him a day?
COACH FERENTZ: Yeah. They gotta watch the tape
the next day. We don't give them that day. That's just
kind of our routine. But good, bad or indifferent, you
gotta watch the film because I think that's really where
the answers are typically, and it's little things that you
can do better, and normally that's the case. There are
little fundamental things you can really kind of focus on,
and usually when it hits the fan, which it's going to if
you compete, the best advice I've ever been given is
you fall back on your fundamentals, and that's really
where this game starts and sometimes ends.

Rev #2 by #177 at 2016-10-04 20:09:00 GMT

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