Leistikow's thoughts: Kirk Ferentz stunned by news that son Brian Ferentz won't be retained
IOWA CITY − Every year, Kirk Ferentz splits his Iowa football team’s regular season into two mini-seasons – one before the scheduled idle weekend, one after.
The first eight-game block featured a rash of major injuries to key players, terrible offense and, almost miraculously, a 6-2 record.
The second four-game block technically begins with Saturday’s 2:30 p.m. game vs. Northwestern at Chicago’s famed Wrigley Field. But this mini-season is already off to an unprecedented start, with Monday’s bombshell news that interim athletics director Beth Goetz informed offensive coordinator Brian Ferentz, Kirk's son, that he will not be retained beyond this season.
That prompted Kirk Ferentz to take his own unprecedented action – to remove regularly scheduled player media interviews on Tuesday. According to former longtime Cedar Rapids Gazette beat reporter Marc Morehouse, who was covering the Hawkeyes back in 1999, this has never happened in the 25-year Ferentz era.
Sure, the move was a way for Ferentz to retain some public control of his football team, considering the ousting of his son was publicly out of his control. But it also was emblematic of his determination to beat a feisty Northwestern squad that has given his program problems in the past and is coming off an impressive win against Maryland. Iowa (in a four-way tie at 3-2 atop the Big Ten West) still has a realistic shot at appearing in the Dec. 2 Big Ten Championship Game if it can keep its players focused and sharp for four games in 21 days.
More: Everything you need to know about Saturday's Iowa vs. Northwestern football game
Ferentz understands that this game week has begun with a major distraction. He understands the importance of media interactions but wants to shield his players – who normally talk to the media at 11 a.m. on Tuesday, well before Ferentz’s 1:45 p.m. press conference – and assistant coaches from additional distractions this week.
“I thought it was best to protect our players a little bit," Ferentz said. "In light of what’s going on right now, I think it’s best to stay tight and keep our focus on the game at hand.”
While it limits coverage from a players’ point of view, it makes sense and, per Ferentz, this is only a one-week thing. About five to six players will talk after Saturday’s game and another batch of six to eight will speak next Tuesday ahead of the Nov. 11 Rutgers matchup.
With that, Kirk Ferentz was the sole voice of the program this week. Here are the top takeaways from his 30-minute news conference Tuesday.
From his very first comments on the matter, Ferentz was visibly bothered by Monday’s news.
After an opening statement about injuries (just about everyone not out for the season, except cornerback TJ Hall, should be good to go) and Saturday’s opponent (the Wildcats are 4-4), Ferentz dug into the stuff everyone was waiting for.
Here is how he started after a deep breath …
“Basically, (I’ll) say this. OK, for 25 years, I’ve tried to operate with a singular focus of doing what I feel is best for the program,” Ferentz said. “And that’s mainly the players and everyone that works inside this building. That’s my first obligation. My philosophy, my practice, has been pretty consistent. Typically, we go through the season and then run an evaluation of our program, top to bottom afterward. Yesterday’s announcement was certainly a departure from that practice.”
Those remarks give a sense of the main message Ferentz wanted to get across, which was basically, “This isn’t how I do things.”
But the message from the top in UI president Barbara Wilson and delivered by Goetz (Brian Ferentz's direct supervisor) was that a proper evaluation has not been made in the past and this announcement now serves the university best moving forward. Kirk Ferentz certainly disagrees with the decision, as you might imagine. But that was always the question, wasn’t it? Could the head coach objectively evaluate his son? The UI certainly had a history – after last year’s miserable offense resulted in zero coaching changes – to evaluate in acting before Nov. 1 rather than waiting until well after Jan. 1.
Kirk Ferentz referenced the military at one point and noted regarding the decision handed down by Goetz and noted, “There’s a chain of command with everything, and I respect that and move forward.”
Will Kirk Ferentz be Iowa’s coach in 2024?
That’s the million-dollar question – or $42 million question, considering that’s what Ferentz would be walking away from with over six years left on his contract if he decided to hang it up after this season. I asked Ferentz point-blank if he definitively would be back in light of Monday’s news.
His response: “My plans are like they always are, to worry about this game and (in the) bigger picture, these four games. That’s what I think about, each and every year. That’s pretty consistent, just like the other things I’ve referenced.”
He was later asked again about his own future and chuckled, “I could get hit by a truck tomorrow. That’s a reality.”
Those two answers certainly sounded like a coach who was still reeling from Monday’s news and was still processing the situation. Ferentz needs two wins (he’s 192-117 at Iowa) to tie Michigan’s Bo Schembechler (194) for third all-time among Big Ten coaches and 13 to match Ohio State’s Woody Hayes (205) for second. That’s the type of history he’s on the doorstep of making.
If he stays, Ferentz has a chance to hire an offensive coordinator who can advance the Hawkeyes on that side of the football. Goetz made clear in her comments (after Ferentz’s availability) that she empowers her coaches to make their own hires, but obviously, her office would have to write the paychecks for the new OC. Again, Ferentz returned to his common theme of the day with his response to the type of OC he’d be looking for to replace his son.
“Really what I’m worried about are the next four weeks. And I think anything beyond that is getting way ahead,” Ferentz said. “That’d be an injustice to our football team, to focus on any of the things you’ve mentioned.
"You do what you can do that will give us our best chance to be successful knowing that all four of these games are going to be challenging. That's not going to change. I'd be foolish to be giving thoughts to things that are outside the realm of that."
No change at quarterback: Deacon Hill remains Iowa’s No. 1 guy.
That is hard to believe considering Iowa has by far the worst completion percentage in the country (44.1%), has the worst passing offense outside of service academies Navy and Air Force (116.5 yards a game), is next-to-last in FBS in converting third downs (26.4%) and Hill has the most “turnover-worthy plays” of any qualifying quarterback in the country, according to Pro Football Focus.
Are backups Joe Labas (who started and won the Music City Bowl without a turnover) and freshman Marco Lainez so bad that they can’t beat out Hill? Ferentz took some exception to that assertion and again went back to the “way we do things” mantra.
“We've been evaluating since the start of spring practice,” Ferentz said. “You look at the body of work. Believe it or not, at least I think we know a little bit more about our guys because we see a lot more.
“By you saying somebody else might be bad is suggesting the other guy is bad, too. I don't look at it that way. I try to look at guys who haven't been able to grow very much.”
Again, that cycles back to Brian Ferentz – who has been the quarterbacks coach the past two seasons as Iowa’s offense has cratered statistically. The lack of development or better available options at this crucial position is significant.
Kirk Ferentz makes it sound like Iowa has no better choice than Hill. He commented about the potential upside in keeping Hill, a Wisconsin transfer with no prior college passes before this season, as the starter.
“I think he's got a lot of really good qualities,” Ferentz said. “… This is all new for him. I'm not going to ask people to be patient, but I think it's realistic that it may take him some time to get going.
“We as coaches have seen plenty to be encouraged about and plenty that we feel good about. If he's persistent and he keeps working hard, some better days are ahead for him. He's already done some good things. We'll try to build off of that, just like we would with every player on our team.”
Hawkeyes columnist Chad Leistikow has covered sports for 29 years with The Des Moines Register and Paste BN Sports Network. Join Chad's text-message group (free for subscribers) at HawkCentral.com/HawkeyesTexts. Follow @ChadLeistikow on Twitter.