Kirk Ferentz of Iowa Football expresses his thoughts on Brian Ferentz not returning for the 2024 season.
On Monday, interim Athletic Director Beth Goetz stated that Brian Ferentz, the son of Iowa head coach Kirk Ferentz, will not return next season. Kirk made his first public remarks on Tuesday.
IOWA CITY, IA – Iowa head coach Kirk Ferentz met with the media for the first time since interim athletic director Beth Goetz announced that offensive coordinator Brian Ferentz would not return for the 2019 season on Tuesday. Brian will remain on staff for the rest of the season.
Kirk revealed his thoughts on how everything happened, his future intentions, previewing Northwestern, and much more inside the Iowa football facilities. This is everything he had to say.
First and foremost, we’re coming off a bye week, which is sometimes a good thing and sometimes a negative thing. It was very useful at this time of year. We’re a little bruised physically. It allowed us to rest our players who had been playing a lot, give them a mental break, cut down on what they did, and then move some of the younger guys forward. It is always a terrific opportunity for the team to progress. That’s what we hoped to do last week.
We’re back in game week mode, and our focus right now is on getting ready for the game in Chicago.
This week’s captains are Joe Evans, Jay Higgins, Luke Lachey, and Logan Lee.
T.J. Hall is still out, but everyone else should be able to play and be a little bit healthier than they were the last time we were on the pitch. That is unquestionably a good thing.
Northwestern appears to be a club that is playing well, playing with confidence, playing with enthusiasm, and improving week after week.
I believe their head coach’s statements in his news conference yesterday mirrored that, and from what I’ve seen of them recently, they’re building momentum and playing with confidence. They’ve had a new quarterback for the last three games. Saturday, he seemed to be a catalyst for them, and he was doing a good job out there.
If you look at last week’s game against Maryland, there are basically two things that stand out to me. They were up by seven points. Maryland brought the ball down to the one-yard line and attempted three shots from there. Northwestern received three stops, which is both spectacular and challenging. Northwestern, on the other hand, seized the ball and drove it, whatever it was, 77 yards for a field goal.
Basically, Maryland had a chance to tie it up, and the next thing you know, Northwestern has a 10-point advantage and has taken control of the game. That tells you a lot about them.
Going back to the Minnesota game, the fact that they were down considerably, came back, scored 21 points in the fourth quarter, and won in overtime shows that a lot of things are going well up there, and their players are responding.
That being said, we see this as another challenging Big Ten road game, and we expect it to be competitive and close. I’m sure both sides are thinking that way as we go into it.
Kid captain this week is Lincoln Veach, a young guy from Maquoketa. Lincoln was diagnosed with leukemia at age 4. It was complicated by a life threatening infection during his treatment time. Spent around 100 days over in the Stead Family Hospital. Pretty tough road there — ten surgeries, chemotherapy, still on chemotherapy. Advancing and getting better. He’s a kindergartner right now. Amazingly tough guy. We’ll be thinking about him and his family this week when we travel over to Chicago.
A few of things about yesterday’s announcement: I’ll briefly discuss the announcement that came out of the AD’s office, and I imagine you’ll have questions. We’ll get a few of those later.
For the past 25 years, I’ve tried to operate with the primary goal of doing what I believe is best for the programme, which is primarily the players and everyone who works in this building. That is my primary responsibility.
Basically, my philosophy and my practice has been pretty consistent. Typically we go through the season and then run an evaluation of the program top to bottom afterwards. Yesterday’s announcement is certainly a departure from that practice, but that’s really what we’ve tried to do for the past 24 years.
Final analysis, just let’s say this. I’m really proud of our players, proud of our coaches. They’ve done a good job over a long time. What we do now is move forward, and our focus is on getting ready for this game and then, bigger picture, all four games.
Decisions made on Saturdays, player-wise, are based on us watching the guys during the out of season, in season, a lot of hours of evaluation time we spend with them just in classrooms, all those types of things.
I’m just very proud of our players. They did an excellent job, in my opinion. Our team has done an excellent job. You face problems that you cannot always predict, and this season is one of them. You work your way through it. You work through it, and that is our goal for the future. I am really pleased of the programme and its success, and this is something we will have to work through as well.
As you are aware, I requested to be the public voice this week. I decided it would be best to protect our athletes by removing them from the interview list. You’ll get the opportunity to speak with them on Saturday and possibly thereafter.
Given what’s going on right now, I believe it’s vital for us to remain tight and focused on the game at hand. That is the most important thing, and it is what we owe to our more than 120 players. That has been our primary concern. Our aim is to keep moving forward and try our best to close out this four-week stretch strong.
Right now, we have an opportunity to accomplish some pretty fantastic things. I believe we’re all excited about it. This programme has had eleven 10-win seasons in the last 100 years or thereabouts. We have an opportunity for that, and possibly more, which would be historic.
It’s just like any other game. Our concentration is on accomplishing what we can this week. That is the only one that matters. What we can do this week to be successful, and that is where our attention is focused. Again, I’d like to express my gratitude. There will be plenty of time for discussion after the season if we want to go over every detail, minutia, and so on.
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