Ferentz's New Plan Has To Be About Accountability, And Adaptation

The Iowa football coach likes order, but that world has to be disrupted.

In the days after Iowa's campus was shut down for the COVID-19 pandemic, Kirk Ferentz said he began planning for the return of his players.

He was thinking two weeks, and all will be back to normal.

It turned out to be much longer.

It turned out to only be the beginning.

Once the date of return for the players was set, Ferentz, Iowa's football coach, began putting together plans for the restart of the preparation for the 2020 season.

"Model A, Model B," he quipped in an interview last week on ESPN.

We're well past that by now. By this point, Ferentz is probably on Model L.

What was supposed to be a quiet, although disrupted, transition between the 10-win 2019 season and a 2020 season full of questions has become chaos.

Chaos is never welcome in Ferentz World, where the last thing the coach has ever wanted was drama.

Oh, it's here.

Allegations of racial disparities within the program by former players during a time of the nationwide conversation into race and privilege has put Iowa under a microscope of what has gone wrong in a cocoon that, according to many former players, hid distrust and mistreatment.

In two video conferences with the media in the last week, Ferentz appeared uncomfortable and shaken. The conversations he had with current players in the last week, and former players over the weekend, plus the allegations made on social media, told him of issues he either didn't see or didn't want to see.

Ferentz pledged accountability in both video conferences, and now it's up to him live up to that pledge.

The Hawkeyes had a team meeting on Monday, and Ferentz has said there will be one-on-one discussions with every player.

Hearing is one thing. Listening is another.

Ferentz must trust the character of his players. So much is made about how the program recruits players with strong character, and now he must let that be on display.

Ferentz relaxed the social media restrictions on his players on Monday, and they responded with thoughtful posts that allowed fans to see sides of them we normally don't get to see.

It was a refreshing moment for a program that needed one.

The bigger challenge is ahead.

An independent review of the allegations against strength and conditioning coach Chris Doyle is beginning. Doyle took to social media on Sunday to defend himself, saying that he did not make racial comments toward players, and vowed to fight the allegations.

It's hard to see a path for Doyle to come back to the program, especially if Ferentz wants to keep the trust of those he has made vows to about accountability. And there may be others on the staff who have to go.

Ferentz also needs to listen to the parents of current players, the ones who have taken to social media and given their support to him, saying they know he'll do the right thing.

Even recruits in the 2021 class, who have pledged their support for Ferentz, are watching to see what happens next.

The cocoon of Iowa's football program has unraveled, and if it's uncomfortable, well, change always is uncomfortable.

Ferentz has vowed to listen. Accountability is one thing, but it must be followed by action, even if that means disruption to the order.

"Iowa football got better today," kicker Keith Duncan posted on Twitter on Monday, a day when everybody had a voice.

It needs to get better every day.