University of Iowa Football

Media Conference
Tuesday, September 13, 2016

Kirk Ferentz
COACH FERENTZ: Good afternoon. Just looking
back, very pleased with Saturday's game as I
mentioned the other night. Just a tremendous crowd,
great environment for the football game. We
appreciate that.
Thought the guys had a good week's focus. Did a
good job preparing. Then certainly were ready to go at
kickoff. For the most part played a pretty clean game.
Pleased with that part of things. Looking at the tape
Sunday, like always, there are plenty of things we have
to work on, plenty of things to be corrected. That's part
of the process this week certainly.
It's a new week and we certainly have a big challenge
on our hands right now, so that's what we're preparing
for.
Captains this week will be the same four guys,
Desmond and Josey defensively, then C.J. and Matt on
the offensive side. Those four guys will represent the
team for the coin toss.
Medically I think we have a good chance to get Parker
Hesse back. I'd kind of compare him to where Jay
Scheel was a week ago. James Daniels hasn't been
ruled out. We'll see what he can do. He's moving
around pretty good right now. We'll play that day by
day. But we certainly can't count on him.
Like always, you have a handful of guys that are day by
day. We'll see how they respond during the course of
the week. Hopefully we'll be ready at kickoff. If not,
we'll play with the guys we have.
All that being said, a couple words about North Dakota
State. Certainly you look at them, they're a model
program. They've had amazing success. Five national
championships in a row, which I'll elaborate on in a
second. That's awfully impressive. Five wins the last
five times out against FBS teams. I think it's 8-3 now
since 2006. All those I assume are on the road.
They're no strangers to having success on the road
going into venues and playing well.
I think probably the most impressive thing to me is if
you look at those championship seasons, it involves
five playoff games per season - excuse me, four. So
you multiply that times five, long story short, 20 games

Rev #3 by #177 at 2016-09-13 20:07:00 GMT

where you have to win or go home. They've been

successful 20 out of 20 of those. That's an amazing
run. That's almost really hard to fathom in some ways.
It carries over to this year. They've already had two
overtime wins. If you look at their team right now, they
don't have a guy in their program that hasn't been part
of a championship. They have great belief in what they
do, and for good reason.
Bottom line, good players, really well-coached. They
play hard, they play physical. To me their style of
football reminds me of the last two teams we played at
the end of the season last year, Michigan State,
Stanford. So it's a different kind of challenge for us.
Faces change through the years with North Dakota
State, names change, faces change, but the way they
play looks very, very similar. My Kodak moment would
have been somewhere late in 2007, 2008, they were
still playing in the Metrodome. I remember them
beating Minnesota, how well they played in that
ballgame. It wasn't a fluke by any stretch. The way
they played in that game, it's still the same thing you
see over the last couple of years.
They've done a wonderful job up there. It's a big
challenge for our football team. We got a lot to get
ready for this week.
Q. Akrum Wadley, two touchdowns last week. It
seems like he's real evolved as a complete back.
COACH FERENTZ: He's grown as a player, that's the
biggest thing. He's had talent since the time he got
here. If we think he's thin now, he was really thin back
then. But he's grown as a football player. He's just a
little bit more aware now, more conscientious, like a lot
of other players at other positions. But he's done a
really nice job. Has had a good preseason. Has done
a good job thus far.
Q. What do you remember picking up George Kittle
at the very end of that recruiting cycle? He was a
tweener then. Did you ever expect him to become
the blocker he is five years later?
COACH FERENTZ: That part is a little surprising. It
was a projection. As does North Dakota State with
their recruiting. They do a great job of that. Certainly I
was familiar with the family. Coach Bruce. Knew of

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Jan's career, tremendous basketball player. You talk

about athleticism in the family, certainly had that.
What we saw on film we really liked. We weren't sure
what he'd be, a tight end, an outside linebacker. But
we thought he was a pretty good football player and a
good prospect. He's got a really good attitude.
In answer to your question, probably the biggest
surprise maybe of the whole thing has been his ability
to block. He does a great job in practice. It's been a
couple years now where he's really learned how to be
aggressive in that regard, works hard at it. He's done a
really good job.
Q. You've had terrific tight ends over the years that
have blocked like that, gone on and had great
careers in the NFL. How important is to it have a
tight end that can set the edge the way he can?
Almost like a tackle.
COACH FERENTZ: Yeah, for us that's important.
That's a really hard job. That's the hardest job I think a
tight end has, is to try a block a down guy.
We've been fortunate. All of our guys, most of them
had to learn it, develop it. I think about Al Reisner. We
threw him in that Illinois game in 2007. He looked
about 12. He wasn't a strong blocker then, but he
developed into one. If you can be well-rounded as a
player, that's good. Certainly George has that ability.
Q. You mentioned comparing them to Michigan
State. Other guys compared them to Wisconsin.
What about them is Big Ten like?
COACH FERENTZ: Just their style of play. They play
with fullbacks, multiple tight ends, run the ball, throw it.
They are very versatile, multiple. But they're going to
block you. They're going to come out and block you. If
you try to block them, they play blocks. They're not
trying to run around and slip people, finesse them.
That's not their style. I'm not judging styles or systems,
what have you, but that is the way they play.
I go back to that Minnesota game. It was in the Dome,
so it has to be a few years ago. That's how they looked
then. You throw on the film now, it's the same thing.
They're well-coached. They play hard, very
aggressively, very confidently.
Again, faces are a lot different, but, boy, they just keep
playing well. The belief that their team has, their
players have, is really evident. Probably no better
example there than the quarterback, right? They get
the second player in the draft, out last year for the
majority of the season. Young guy steps in there, plays
tremendous football. Playing good right now. It really
speaks well to the environment that they've created up

Rev #3 by #177 at 2016-09-13 20:07:00 GMT

there.
Q. Does Daniels get enough credit for his speed
when he rushes the ball?
COACH FERENTZ: Probably not. I teased him the
other night. I said, You're going to screw up your
reputation of being a possession back. Everybody
talks about possession receivers. He popped a couple
big ones now, had a couple big ones last year, too.
LeShun is probably a little faster than people might
think.
Q. Did you see the end of the Central Michigan
game?
COACH FERENTZ: No, I haven't seen it. I heard all
the details.
Q. Do you guys have a rule book expert on your
sideline when stuff like this comes up?
COACH FERENTZ: I'm not going to stand here and
say we would have caught that. We have people that
are pretty well-versed.
We learned something the other night about the kick
interference on the punter. Learned something there
about planting foot versus swing foot, which I thought
the referee made that up. I didn't accuse him of that,
but we questioned him. He was right.
I'm not going to say we're experts on it, but I think we
know the rules pretty well inside and out. It's an
unfortunate situation, it really is. We run that same
play. We use it with a receiver out there. I don't know if
that would solve the problem. We've run that by
officials in our conference. It's just an unfortunate
circumstance.
Q. North Dakota State, a unique challenge knowing
they circle these dates every year?
COACH FERENTZ: We probably have to have a
scheduling meeting. We've taken on UNI two years
ago, Illinois State last year. Both of them have already
- we're FBS, right - already beaten FBS teams this
year. Now we have North Dakota State. This is just a
walk in the park for them. We've gone to the top of the
mountain trying to play the best teams in that division.
Again, I marvel at the fact that they've won as many
playoff games in a row as they have. It's like looking at
Bill Russell's record in playoffs. It's ridiculous. But it's
a real credit to them.
Q. You and your players know what you're getting
into with this program. People look and think,
There's nothing for Iowa to win here.
COACH FERENTZ: I'm not really too worried about
perception. I'll go back to our '09 season, the first

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ballgame against UNI that year. We were very

fortunate to win that ballgame. We had a pretty good
team that year.
That illustration right there, when you play anybody
that's good, UNI was very good that year, they've been
pretty good traditionally - North Dakota State, ditto you got to get ready to go. We'll let other people worry
about perception.
All you got to do is look real close. That quarterback
they had last year, holy smokes. They have a lot of
good players. They just don't have 85 of them. Their
top 40, I would say, probably is as good as anybody's.
Q. Your conference commissioner came out and
said to no longer play these against FCS schools.
Is it unfair, especially geographically, the Dakota
schools would be natural semi-rivals to you, rather
than the MAC?
COACH FERENTZ: They didn't involve me in any of
that level of decision making for obvious reasons, as
you can imagine. I'm guessing it goes back to the
perception thing.

there. Has been there during the entire time this run
they had. Craig Bohl did a tremendous job as well.
But they've had a lot of good players. Again, the
jerseys change, but they just keep playing well.
I did have that thought. We might have to start
recruiting North Dakota because they have a lot of
guys in-state that play well for them.
Q. You cross paths with them quite a bit.
COACH FERENTZ: We do. We haven't ventured that
far north. May have to get Reese a new car or dogsled
to help him out.
Q. Has the reduction in scholarships over the years
narrowed the gap?
COACH FERENTZ: I think so. I think it's been good for
everybody. I'd advocate for that. But if we keep adding
games, we may have to have another discussion on
that.
These guys have played 15 games. Think about what
they've done. Four extra games times five, it's two
seasons in five years.

The reality is that North Dakota State not only can play
really well against FBS teams, they have played well.
Just look at them on film. They're a first-class team.
I'd say the same thing about Illinois State, at least the
team we played last year and prepared for. We're
getting ready for them that year, we're looking at the
championship game where they played North Dakota
State in that game. You're looking at teams that are
really good football teams.

Q. One of the things you often say is this program,

you need stories to emerge. How does Matt fit in
that?
COACH FERENTZ: He's another story. It's a real
testament to our expertise as recruiters. We thought
he would be a gray shirt guy. We've had two
candidates thus far, Julian Vandervelde and Matt.
Julian ended up playing in the NFL. Matt certainly I
think has that opportunity down the road.

I'm just guessing there's good reason for the decisions

we made as a conference. I certainly support that.

Bottom line is they're both excellent players. Matt

played as a freshman. That's how smart we were. But
the guy is a ball of energy, works hard, got great
attitude. He's a really good football player. He's
improved with every step along the way, too. He played
really well for us last year. He's a big part of what we
do right now.

Q. Does the style of play something familiar that

your guys can prepare for?
COACH FERENTZ: It's probably not exactly like us.
But Wisconsin is similar, some of their schemes are
similar. The big thing is it's a little change-up from what
we faced the last two weeks. It's another kind of
challenge for you. No different than if you play a team
like this and then switch to a tempo team or whatever.
It's a new kind of preparation. It's something we're
going to have to try to get down in three days' practice.
Q. They really are selling mountains and beaches
up there.
COACH FERENTZ: They're selling their school and
their program. They've done a great job. One of the
guys in the room here had a lot to do with that.
Certainly Gene (Taylor) was a big part of that.
Tremendous coaches. Chris has done a great job

Rev #3 by #177 at 2016-09-13 20:07:00 GMT

Q. How did Wadley come out of the game injurywise?

COACH FERENTZ: He's okay. Backs get banged up.
That's part of the deal.
Q. You mentioned a couple other guys in your
opening statement that are day-to-day. Anyone of
significance?
COACH FERENTZ: We're going to have that all
season long. A couple guys limited work or no work.
We'll have to see how they are at the end of the week.
Q. C.J. is off to such a good start. What has been
the key to his success?

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COACH FERENTZ: I got asked that at halftime. Kept

getting pressed about what he's doing. He's just
playing well. It's a result of him being a senior. He
works hard. He's a great kid, great player who works
really hard, has a good attitude, practices. The fact
that he's practicing every day has really helped him.
That's what you hope for, any senior is going to play at
a higher level. That's what he did as a junior. Nothing
magical about what he's doing. Certainly he's more
confident, which older players tend to be than younger
guys.
Q. What do you see from C.J. when it comes to off
the field leading the offense?
COACH FERENTZ: Ever since we named him the
starter a year ago January, it's not like he acted any
differently. But I think he embraces the responsibility
that being the quarterback has. It is a different
position. There's certain positions that are a little bit
different inherently. Quarterback in any kind of offense,
doesn't matter what you do, that type of position.
He's just done a really good job. He embraces that.
Does it within his personality, the framework of his
personality. He's a very genuine guy, very humble guy,
yet a very dedicated, hard-working guy. Proved last
year just how tough he is mentally and physically.
When you have those kinds of attributes, players tend
to be drawn towards you.
Q. Good FCS programs tend to have a player or
two that slips through the cracks. They seem to
have a few as well, like Nick DeLuca, Zach Johnson
left guard.
COACH FERENTZ: A lot of familiar names and some
that weren't so familiar, too. They do a wonderful job.
If they are recruiting somebody, that gets our attention.
I'm not a big one for, Who is recruiting this guy? I
rarely ask that of our staff when we look at prospects.
If North Dakota State is looking at them, that does get
my attention because I think they've done a wonderful
job, not only guys in Iowa, but in the Midwest.
You just look at their roster. They've pulled guys from
'Big Ten states' that are really good football players.
Kind of us like getting Josey Jewell. We almost didn't
get him. I don't think they're involved with him.
It's a great thing about evaluation and prospects, what
have you, especially with high school players. You just
never know what they're going to do, how they're going
to grow, et cetera. The quarterback last year, as I
understand it, really grew in high school. Was a 5'10"
guy, grew to 6'2". What happened since he got out of
high school is pretty impressive, too.

Rev #3 by #177 at 2016-09-13 20:07:00 GMT

But certainly they've got a good eye identifying

prospects, and more importantly developing. They get
better year to year.
Q. You're averaging 40 plus a game. How much of
that is C.J.'s growth with what he's able to do at the
line of scrimmage and helping you guys score
more points?
COACH FERENTZ: I think his growth and him being
healthy, that's a good combination certainly. We're only
two games into it. Polls right now, statistics, I don't
even look at statistics outside of your
turnover/takeaway margin. That is important because
you're trying to build something there. Really till you
get to mid-season, I don't weigh those stats too much.
Q. You said after the game that the mental part, the
football IQ part, wasn't there for C.J. early but really
jumped. When did the talent and the IQ stuff
intersect?
COACH FERENTZ: There's no Kodak moment,
breakthrough moment. What we saw during the '14
season, just as the season went on, I think you just
saw a guy, things were really starting to click for him.
He was starting to make a little bit more sense.
Everybody's got a different rate of where things
happen. Again, quarterback, there's just so much that
they have to know, so much responsibility that we can
give them. It's a matter of how much you want to give
them.
When is all that going to take place? It's hard to
define. To me at least it was during the '14 season.
That's what we were seeing behind the scenes. Part of
the reason we opened it up there in December and
made that decision. Again, we're talking about two
good players at that time. Wasn't like one guy was
doing bad, just two good players.
Q. Does it come with a certain amount of
expectation?
COACH FERENTZ: Not necessarily. This is strictly
opinion. I can't back it up factually. The one advantage
of his family background, I don't think like anything
overwhelms him. It's not like, Wow, look, I'm here.
He's seen some really neat things that maybe some
other guys don't get to see in a couple different venues,
a couple different genres, if you will. I think that's
probably healthy for a guy.
But Carson Wentz didn't get that exposure, and he did
pretty well, too. But I think it does help for sure.
Q. The year before he got thrown in against
Wisconsin, kind of a rough outing for him. I think
he was a freshman, like '13. You got a guy with a

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big arm, throws it all over the field, misses a lot of

short pass routes. Does it take a while to harness
somebody who has that kind of live arm, put him in
a structure, allow him to blossom?
COACH FERENTZ: To me it's maturity and learning.
Every position goes through it. Quarterback,
everybody sees them. Everybody has opinions about
quarterbacks. For the most part, just about every
position. I remember Tony Moeaki coming in here.
The comparison I give you with Tony, when you get a
really good first-round draft pick. The guy shows up,
it's like, Okay, we got that one right because this guy
just does things really easily.
That's very, very rare when that happens. Tony, when
he showed up, wherever he was, he fit right in. Put him
with the third team, looked okay. Second team, looked
like one of them. First team, looked like one of them.
For some guys that happens. That's so rare. Most
players have to really work at it. Again, quarterbacks
are out there for everybody to see and everybody to
have an opinion about. Usually you have to learn and
learn through the school of hard knocks. That's usually
how it works.
Q. How much do they learn accuracy during their
time here?
COACH FERENTZ: Some guys are better than others.
I still remember my mentor, Joe Moore, came out here
spring ball in '85. When he got here the night before
he was asking about Chuck Long. I said, He's pretty
good. He goes to practice. That night he said, He's
good, pretty good. I saw him throw like 55 passes. He
counted them. I saw maybe two where a guy had to
really reach for one. They were all right there. That
was a big part of Chuck's game, was his accuracy.
Again, that's something that players develop.
Q. You mentioned that Moeaki, Fiedorowicz, guys
that look the part at tight end. George probably
had to make himself. How does George fit in that
overall?
COACH FERENTZ: Time will tell. Time will tell. Three
scouts at practice today. Pretty much tell them the
same thing every year: We'll know a lot more in
November. That's really the truth of it. Unless you got
a first rounder like we were just talking about, Jonathan
Ogden, didn't take long to scout him. Sit there for
about three minutes and you leave.
Most of our guys we'll know the whole story in
November. We'll really know how their careers went.
You talk about a tight end, go back to last year with
Henry Krieger-Coble. You know how much better he
was in November as opposed to the November prior to.
That's the goal for every player.

Rev #3 by #177 at 2016-09-13 20:07:00 GMT

Q. Rugamba your third corner now?

COACH FERENTZ: Yeah, that's probably fair. Pretty
fair.
Q. Big jump.
COACH FERENTZ: He's our first guy in sub defense,
that type of thing. He's done a good job so far.
Hopefully we can coach him up and work him along.
Q. Ton of freshmen the other day. Anybody that
kind of jumped out at you?
COACH FERENTZ: No, no Oscar-winning
performances. It's good to get them out there, get
them that exposure, get them on a game field. It's way
different than practice for them.
You never count on those things, but when you get
them, it's really great.
Q. When you look at takeaway margin, red zone
percentage, a lot of different stats early on in the
season, a clean sheet. How much do you
appreciate what your team has done?
COACH FERENTZ: That's kind of what I was referring
to when I say we've played pretty clean football for the
most part. We've done a pretty good job taking care of
the ball. Penalty-wise we're doing pretty well. Those
kinds of things, the red zone stuff. Stats, again, aren't
huge right now.
Hey, you certainly like to be building a good base, for
sure. Those are things we work hard on in practice.
We spend a lot of time in camp on all those areas, like
everybody.
So you like to see that that work is maybe paying off a
little bit. But it's just going to keep getting tougher and
tougher each week. It's like we were talking about,
individual players, the real test is how can we run this
whole race. We still got 10 laps to go here. We barely
got our feet in the water right now. We got a lot of work
to do.
Q. How did film of Keegan and Lucas look from
yesterday?
COACH FERENTZ: It was encouraging. Lucas found
out, it happened Wednesday, we didn't know till
Thursday basically that he was going to be playing.
Thought he did a good job. Maybe didn't know enough
to be nervous, I don't know. Anyway, he did a pretty
good job. Something we can build on.
Same thing with Keegan. Both those guys have been
gradually climbing the ladder. Thought both of them
had a good spring last spring. Compared to where
they were last November, December, they've come a
long way.

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They can get better, though, too. It's encouraging.

Both performed pretty well.
Q. In a simple word, is the big difference between
LeShun this year and last year decisiveness?
COACH FERENTZ: Yeah, that and maturity. I would
say maturity, like we're talking about C.J. He feels
better, is more confident, sees things, which ties into
being decisive, too. He's hitting it hard.
Q. What do you do as coaches to help players who
have surgeries? How do you keep them from not
going backwards?
COACH FERENTZ: That's a great question. We had a
young man in here this weekend as a recruit. Talking
about getting into physical therapy, training, what have
you. There's two aspects to that. Kind of like strength
and conditioning. There's that physical aspect of trying
to work a player back. But I think the hardest job, the
most important job, our medical staff doesn't get near
enough credit, there's a lot of lonely hours they spend
with players.
The worst thing for any player is to be injured because
you just don't feel like you're part of it. You feel like
you're on the outside looking in. I don't care if it's a
minor ankle sprain, you miss two days. It's how you
feel.
You can imagine for players that have surgeries, things
like that, their path back is hard. The time they spend
rehabbing is really hard. The mental games that get
played, it's really difficult.
I think as a staff we probably do a good job, try to do a
good job of reinforcing to the players to be positive.
The guys that are with them, the trainers, student
trainers, are with them when they're alone and isolated.
The feedback they get from those people, it's really
important.
That's what they do. They're experienced in that
regard. Yeah, the mind games that happen when
you're injured, when you're out, it's a really different
psychology. You always worry about that, especially inseason because the coaches, everybody is looking
straight down the road at the game coming up.
I think we all try to do a good job. But the people on
the frontline are the medical staff. They do a great job.
It's critical.
Thank you.

Rev #3 by #177 at 2016-09-13 20:07:00 GMT

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