Penn State's 0-4 Start 'Doesn't Add Up,' Iowa's Kirk Ferentz Says
Iowa coach Kirk Ferentz joked this week that he has watched Penn State football for 70 years, even though he's 65. To him, this particular Penn State season is a puzzle.
"Yeah, just doesn't add up, especially when you watch the film," Ferentz said. "Doesn't add up. Football, you've heard me say before, football is a strange game. You just can't predict everything that's going to happen."
Iowa visits Penn State on Saturday bearing a two-game win streak in which it has outscored opponents 84-14. Yet Ferentz hasn't beaten Penn State since 2010, a six-game losing streak that includes a 17-12 loss last season.
So Ferentz, who has kept an eye on Penn State since his high-school playing days in western Pennsylvania, is maintaining a long view of this game. He called the Lions, despite their 0-4 record, a "very impressive team" that "for whatever reason have come up short."
Ferentz also compared Penn State to Northwestern. After going 3-9 last season, the Wildcats are 4-0 and sit atop the Big Ten West standings.
"It's kind of like the record Penn State has right now," Ferentz said. "Northwestern wasn't that far away last year, in my opinion. But they [were] just kind of missing a little bit of something. And we talked when we played them [in a 21-20 loss] about them picking up the quarterback [Peyton Ramsey], a perfect fit for their operation. It's just that little variable to get over the top sometimes, and that's not surprising.
"... There's just a lot of strange things going on this year, and I'll go out on a limb and say there's going to be more strange things here in the next six to eight weeks."
Ferentz made his first trip to Penn State as a coach in 1980, when he was a graduate assistant at Pitt. The Panthers, ranked fourth, defeated No. 5 Penn State 14-9.
As a head coach, Ferentz is 4-4 at Penn State but has lost four of his last five games at Beaver Stadium. So he's not taking the visit lightly.
"When our guys look at the film, unless they are just delusional, they are seeing what we are seeing: guys that are a lot of good football players," Ferentz said. "Things are not quite just clicking yet, and my guess is it's going to at some point. I just hope it isn't this Saturday."
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