What Iowa Coach Kirk Ferentz Said at Big Ten Football Media Days

Kirk Ferentz enters his 27th season as head coach of the Iowa Hawkeyes, a stretch of longevity he doesn't believe will be repeated. Not because of what he has done but because of how coaching has changed. Still, Ferentz believes in the foundation of college football.

"My experience is this, that it still gets back to playing the game," Ferentz said. "If you have players that really love the game, love the work that goes into it and are focused on improvement and truly like working with other people, which in football it's the ultimate team game - the more of those players that you get, the better off you're going to be. That's really kind of been the way we look at it."

Ferentz begins the season with 204 career Big Ten wins, two shy of surpassing Woody Hayes for the conference record. Iowa hosts Penn State on Oct. 18 for a game in which that record could be in play. During his press conference at Big Ten Football Media Days, Ferentz discussed change, his team and even social media. Here are the highlights.

Asked about how other coaches could match his lengthy tenure at Iowa. Kirk Ferentz says he doubts there will be any more after him given the changing nature of college football and its pressures. pic.twitter.com/kpgtPcR4Zr
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Opening statement: When I got to Iowa in the '80s, really it was a developmental program. That's my big take-away after being there for almost a decade. I think things haven't changed much. It's the nature of who we are, what we are. That's a term that gets used a lot, but that's really who we've been for really 40-plus years now.

This team is really emblematic of that. We've got a handful of guys that are really established players that have played very well in the Big Ten. They've played very competitively and had success. Then we have a really big number of guys that maybe hopefully are ready to take it to the next step and another group of guys that really haven't played at all, but have been doing the work, been doing the day-to-day where they have improved and hopefully will be ready to play in the Big Ten.

August is going to be a big month for us, I think. Certainly, like every team, see how your team progresses and grows. I think with this team in particular, it may go right into September as well before we really know what our starting line-ups are going to look like, our starting line-ups for the season. I think back to '08, we had two guys, Ricky Stanzi and Pat Angerer, who really ended up being outstanding players and leaders in our program that went into that season as second team players, and when October came around, they were both starters and did a great job. I could see some of those kinds of stories as we go. That's kind of where we're at.

QUESTION: Did you ever think you'd be in Iowa City for 27 years?

KIRK FERENTZ: Actually, it's 36 years in Iowa, and I've been there two times. The last part maybe not as surprising other than we were 1-10 and 2-18 our first 20 games. Yeah, the odds were probably against 20-plus years at that point. Full disclosure, 1981 I grew up in Pittsburgh, and Pittsburgh is - at least Iowa is fairly provincial in my thinking. I had to look on a map to find out where Iowa was. I thought Chicago was the end of civilization as we knew it.

The second question is what would you do in Iowa? My wife and I have lived there 36 years, so it's a great place. Just unbelievable, and just really happy to be there. It's been a great place to work and be part of a great program.

QUESTION: You began by talking about the change that you've seen since being in the Big Ten. A lot of Big Ten coaches have been embracing social media. I just wanted to ask, how is Iowa utilizing it?

KIRK FERENTZ: We're utilizing it. I couldn't tell you how to get there, but we're utilizing it. We have a couple of members of our staff here with us on this trip. I have no interest or really curiosity regarding it at all, but I do realize it's a big part of what we do. It's a big part of life today. I get all that. So, you know, I probably would describe it this way. When we started 20-some years ago, we went in our staff room. There are X amount of people. That's probably grown by two.

We've got a lot of people on the outer wall now. If you had told me in 1999 we were going to have a social media department, I would have looked at you a little bit funny about that. It's one more illustration of how things have changed. We have great people working on that. They're great young guys, and they're as invested in our program as anybody in the program. So I appreciate what they do, all of their efforts, and it's just part of today's world, so embrace it or not.

QUESTION: Was curious at quarterback beyond Mark [Gronowski, with Hank [Brown], Jeremy [Hecklinski], Jackson [Stratton], do you expect those three to be kind of competing through the two through four spots at quarterback? Or how do you feel like, at least entering fall camp, that quarterback competition kind of shakes out?

KIRK FERENTZ: First of all, I mean, last couple of years a few track how that room in our offensive line has really been kind of the same journey, if you will. We've had a lot of injuries. Things happen that nobody could count on or anticipate coming. I can't say enough about the way the guys have stepped in and done a great job. Last year we played with three quarterbacks. Found a way to win eight games and probably left some stuff out there.

Two years ago, won ten games, and that was not a strength, probably playing some guys that probably weren't ready to play at this level yet. It was a credit to those guys that went in there and allowed us to still have success and handling a tough circumstance. I think we have an opportunity hopefully this year to put a guy out there maybe that's a little bit better equipped for it, has the experience and help him meet the challenge.

The bigger picture, I think the whole room right now is really an upgrade from what we've had the last two years. Time will tell. We'll figure out how we go along how that's going to work, but every position is up for grabs right now. We would anticipate Mark being our starter. If one of the other guys can beat him out, great.

In a perfect world, if we're lucky, kind of like the Jay Higgins thing, hopefully somebody on our roster right now will be able to take it if Mark is our starter, which I would anticipate, they'll be able to take the reins from him or we'll have a healthy two-man competition a year from now.

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