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Everything Kirk Ferentz said prior to regular season finale against Nebraska
The Hawkeyes are preparing for their regular season finale against Nebraska. On Tuesday, Iowa head coach Kirk Ferentz met with the media to discuss the latest with his squad, how his culture has stayed in tact and much more. Below is everything he had to say.
IOWA CITY, Iowa– The Hawkeyes are preparing for their regular season finale against Nebraska. On Tuesday, Iowa head coach Kirk Ferentz met with the media to discuss the latest with his squad, how his culture has stayed in tact and much more. Below is everything he had to say.
Good afternoon, everybody. Appreciate the flexibility on changing today’s time. It’s a little bit different kind of week for us. Appreciate you bending with that. Just wanted to start out, congratulate Tory Taylor on being Big Ten Special Teams Player of the Week. Had another great performance. He’s had a tremendous year. Nice to see his efforts recognized.
Then also Phil Parker being a semifinalist in the Broyles Award. It’s 15 high quality coaches. Just happy to see Phil and the job he’s done for a long time be recognized. Keep our fingers crossed often that one.
Just talk a little bit about last Saturday. I think the win was really emblematic of Big Ten football in November. Full team effort, full 60 minutes, the whole nine yards, another close game. Really proud of our guys and the things that they did especially in the last 15, 16 minutes.
You think about getting the stop on third down, great play by Castro coming in to get the quarterback and giving up a field goal instead of a touchdown. Certainly was pivotal at the end of the game. Two good last possessions by the defense certainly to get off the field two times. Good punt return by Wetjen, and then the offense taking advantage of that. One of the few times in the second half we had decent field position and capitalized on that.
Then the last possession, we converted a third and eight to be able to keep the ball and run the clock out. Just a really good job by the entire football team. I’m guessing it will be the same thing this week, same type of game as we move to Nebraska.Captains are the same four guys as we’ve had the last couple weeks: Joe Evans, Jay Higgins, Logan Lee and Luke Lachey.
Injury-wise, about the same as last week for the most part. Looks like Diante Vines and Beau Stephens will not be able to make this one. Outside of that, everybody’s got a chance. We’ll see what that looks like, short week here.
Talking about Nebraska, Coach Rhule’s done a great job. Basically a new staff, one holdover from previous. They’ve done a great job in a short amount of time, 5-6 right now, playing really good football. It’s kind of interesting, if you look at their schedule, they lost the first two games. We were through a transition here. It’s been a while now, but it took us about two years, took them two games to get things going.
So they lost two games, won five out of the next six, really looked good, and now they’ve lost three straight. You look at it, it’s two three-point losses, last week in overtime it ended up being a seven-point game or a touchdown game. They’re playing really well, playing competitively and doing a helluva job. My compliments certainly to the staff, but also their players. Their players have done a really good job.
They’ve got a lot of new faces but also a lot of guys who have been there, and they’re playing at a really high level. It’s a real compliment to them.
For us, it’s going to be another tough challenge. Tough venue going over there. 80,000, 90,000 people over there. Just looks like another Big Ten football game. It’s going to be a tough challenge. The team that plays it best will come out ahead obviously.
Last couple things. It’s the Heroes Game. It’s a great concept to recognize two citizens from both states, a citizen from each state. I think the whole part of that is good. As it turns out, we’ve got another 25-year teacher up in northwest Iowa. Everything I’ve heard, just made a tremendous impact. I think two of the most underrated professions probably law enforcement and teachers. I’m happy to hear about that recognition.