KIRK SPEAKS: Indiana

Well folks, the heart attack Hawkeyes have returned!

Now that conference play is here, nothing is going to come easy, as evidenced by the Hawkeyes’ up and down win over Rutgers on the road last week. How do the gods of the Big Ten scheduling department follow that up? A difficult test against a very solid Indiana Hoosiers team (yes, that did pain me to write). We’re in unchartered waters here for many reasons, and this will definitely be a difficult test in a season that has already been full of them But enough about what I think, you’re here to read what I think about what head coach Kirk Ferentz thinks about this. Big difference! So let’s get into it. Full transcript HERE, highlights below.

Let’s start with injury updates:

KIRK FERENTZ: Then medically, Jaz will not make the game, so Patterson is out this week, and we’ll see how that goes as we move forward.

Pay no attention to the fact that this man was listed on the depth chart yesterday.

Q.  I wanted to ask you about running back with Jaz out. Is it Kamari and then McNeil, Washington?

KIRK FERENTZ: The few, the proud, the free. Whoever is healthy is in there. We have Kamari back. He looked really good the other night, and he’s doing great. T.J. certainly is ready to roll, and then Nathan would be the next guy up. That’s pretty much where we’re at right now. We’ll play with the guys we have.

Why is it always running backs? It will be good to have another game with a healthy Kamari Moulton. They will once again need strong offensive performance this week if the defense is going to do…whatever the defense did last week that allowed Rutgers quarterback Athan Kaliakmanis to look like a damn Heisman candidate for most of the game.

Q.  The difference between Mark Gronowski in the passing game from week 1 to last week, it’s pretty evident. From your vantage point, where have you seen them take that next continued step forward, and it just seems like Mark is playing with supreme confidence right now compared to maybe that first game against UAlbany?

KIRK FERENTZ: Yeah, first games are tough for everybody typically, every player on the roster, but certainly somebody that hasn’t been in the program, and he missed spring ball, and I don’t want to minimize that at all. I don’t think you can minimize it.

Especially with our offense there’s a lot of verbiage, a lot of things going on, so it takes time to get acclimatized a little bit, and with each week he’s more and more comfortable running the ball, operating, leading the team out there. It’s been good to watch him grow with confidence. Not surprised by that. He’s a really high-quality guy.

But you can’t overstate the importance of practice and repetition. True in any offense certainly, but for what we do, I think it’s really important for him.

Maybe…make the offense simpler in some ways if the guy you bring in can’t participate in spring practice so he can succeed early on? Just a thought!

But in all seriousness, this is the Mark Gronowski we hoped we’d see, and I really hope it continues, because when he’s on, this offense is fun to watch.

Q.  I wanted to ask about Curt Cignetti’s quick rise and turnaround for this program. Have you ever seen a head coach be able to make that kind of adjustment for a program like Indiana and bring it to national spotlight like this?

KIRK FERENTZ: I’d have to think long and hard if anybody has done it. It’s been very impressive. Part of it is we’re in a new era, if you will, where it’s a little different when a coach comes in because of the portal. New coaches now can basically clear their roster out, if they choose. I’m not suggesting he did that. Then the players can transfer pretty freely.

What I’m impressed with is how many players came from JMU. I think it was in the teens last year. We didn’t play them, but I think I heard like 13, 15, something like that. But I do know this: the first bye week we had last year, I can’t remember who they were playing, I was kind of flipping channels and was like, I don’t know who that 13 guy is, and I looked it up, and it was a guy from JMU. A lot of their best players are guys that came from there.

I think that’s two things. Everybody always worries about recruiting. A lot of those guys that played for him at JMU I’m sure weren’t recruited by Power Four schools, yet they’re playing power football right now. 13, I mentioned him. Two of their best defensive linemen, in my opinion, are guys that played for him. They have a couple linebackers that played for him.

A lot of those guys did a good job, but the fact that those guys came with him and really gave them a good foundation, they went out and got a good quarterback from the Ohio University, a grad transfer, I believe last year. So you have more available to you in today’s age when you switch coaches.

I’m not minimizing the job they’ve done there as a coaching staff and the players that were there last year and the ones this year. It’s really impressive. And then I’ll just rattle down the road here a little bit, but one of my curiosities is when you make big roster changes, how do you get guys to play cohesively, and they’ve done that. They did it last year and they’re doing it right now, too, with a lot of new players again. That’s really impressive. That’s good coaching. They clearly have a vision of what they want to be, and it looks like it’s working really well for them.

This is a really great answer from Kirk here that I think hits the nail on the head in regards to the concept of building teams primarily via recruiting or the transfer portal. Recruiting in any sport is still going to play a vital role to get athletes on campus, but then you need the culture for them to want to stick around and actually develop. When you look at some other teams who primarily build in the portal every year, it’s not really leading to success like you’d think, because of all the movement, playbooks, etc. Obviously Indiana has gotten some great players for the portal as well that weren’t at JMU, but I think Kirk is spot on here about balancing (and he doesn’t mention it as much, but retaining) your recruits vs. additions via the portal to build your roster and have some consistency year over year. I think it’s going to make more of a difference as more and more guys leave programs for a big day pay, but possibly don’t see the same on-field success in a new program.

Q.  Coach, you’re 0-10 in your last 10 against ranked teams. What do you have to do differently this weekend to get a win?

KIRK FERENTZ: Probably score more points than whoever it is we’re playing. That’s about as good as I can do on that one.

Just when you praise a guy for giving a nice answer, he turns around a few questions later and gives you this answer to a legitimate question. Thanks coach! Really insightful! Surprised he didn’t mention that he was only 3 points away from beating Iowa State for good measure.

Q.  Just curious, Rutgers, the way they were able to pass it in the first quarter, first half, how much was that you guys versus what they were doing in the passing offense? What was your diagnosis of that?

KIRK FERENTZ: Well, it wasn’t perfect. I thought their execution was pretty much flawless. The quarterback was doing a great job putting the ball where he had to. I mentioned their receivers, but the bad news is we have a similar challenge here. This quarterback is probably a better thrower, and the receivers aren’t as tall in 9 and 8, but 13 is a tall guy. He’s got good size. But they’re all good players.

We’re going to have to do a better job. We did a better job in the second half, disrupted them a little bit better. You have to do a lot of the little detailed stuff that maybe we weren’t doing well in that first half, which gave them access to makeable plays, and then their execution was excellent. I would expect based on what we see out of Indiana that their execution is really good in the passing game, too.

We’re going to have to try to find a way to disrupt things a little bit, but like I said, getting to the quarterback is tough. He gets the ball out really quickly. A lot of challenges there.

Defense will really need to step up early in this game. Second half really did show improvement, but in a game like this against a team that put up 63 points a week ago, you can’t really afford to have too slow of a start, especially if things aren’t going well on offense (but let’s hope they will!). I think this season might actually come down to the weekly performance from the defense. If they’re playing like they’re capable, it’s a tough out, but these deep passes continue to be a problem that needs to be fixed, fast.

Q.  On Dayton Howard, that 42-yard catch, what have you seen from him? It seems like now he’s starting to get some more runs, he’s improved as a blocker, but he just has different physical attributes than some of the other receivers and a big downfield threat. What have you seen from him?

KIRK FERENTZ: I think I said this before the season. The first four or five weeks, or in this case this season it’s a five-week block, you learn a lot about your team because our teams tend to develop and grow a little bit, even your older guys. You need your best guys, older guys to play their best, and we have examples of that where some of our veteran guys are really playing at a good level and doing a lot of good things.

But yeah, you hope there are going to be some younger guys stepping up and making progress and getting that confidence they need to play well. That was obviously a big play in the game the other night from a team standpoint, but I hope it was a big play for him as a personal because sometimes you just have to gain confidence by doing something pretty special in the game.

I thought he did that. That was a great effort on his part, great concentration, and that point of the game is really where things turned a little bit for us. That was a huge play in the game. I’m hoping that will give him the confidence because he lacks a little bit of experience, a little bit of confidence like a lot of players that haven’t played a lot.

This was the play that really sealed the game in my opinion, and it was a tremendous catch at that. I am starting to believe in the hype here.

Let’s end with this:

Q.  Some of your offensive players were talking about how proud they were that they were the reason or at least one of the main reasons why you guys won the game. What does their finish and that comeback show you about what they’re capable of?

KIRK FERENTZ: Yeah, I think we’re in a little better shape maybe, but I’ll go back a couple years ago, we won four straight there at the end of the season two seasons ago to put our 10th win up. We were more a defensive-oriented team, much like we were in ’81. I’ll date myself. But that’s the way that team was built.

But I would also suggest or argue the offense did what they had to do to be successful. I remember hitting a big inside play, Leshon Williams against Nebraska, and I think we were in a counter against Illinois to put the ball in position to get a winning field goal. So you do what you’ve got to do to win games, and that’s really how we were wired.

But I think we have a chance now to hopefully be a team that can score a little bit more than we have the last couple years. That’s been part of the goal.

But it’s kind of an accumulation of a lot of things. You’ve got to have a linebacker that can block. You’ve got to be a quarterback that can operate. I think we’re probably a little bit better at our receiver position, and we’ve had good backs, but I think we’ve got a good group right now, so hopefully we have enough balance where we can make them have to defend us a couple different ways and then find some ways to come up with some points, enough to win with.

KEEP THE POINTS COMING, KIRK!

Well folks, I said this last week and I’ll say it again this week: the next time I “talk” to you, we will know a lot more about this football team. We do this week in that the defense might be a little shakier than we thought at times, and the offense can be a little better than we thought at times. Is this the week it all comes together for an upset win? (I hate typing this about Indiana football) I hope so!

GO HAWKS