Kirk Ferentz Keeps Focus on Team

It felt like Kirk Ferentz wanted to say more, yet he knew any protestations would be futile and probably quite a bit tone-deaf.

It had been not quite 24 hours since the announcement that Brian Ferentz, Kirk’s son, would be Iowa’s offensive coordinator for the remainder of the season, and then his time with the Hawkeyes was done.

The decision was not Kirk Ferentz’s — it belonged to interim athletics director Beth Goetz, a decision that had to be made given Iowa’s offensive struggles, given the odd contract provision that had become a national punchline and a topic of conversation that no one wanted.

Kirk Ferentz didn’t agree with the decision, otherwise it would have been his call.

And you could tell on Tuesday, during his weekly press conference, that he wanted to say more.

But in those 45 minutes, everything was left unsaid.

The focus, Ferentz said, belonged on Saturday’s game at Northwestern. Then the game after that, and the game after that, and the game after that.

Decisions on program evaluations, Ferentz said, have always been done at the end of the season in his program.

A trigger pulled at midseason did not follow that rule.

The details of what happened since the 12-10 loss to Minnesota a couple of weeks ago, when the Hawkeyes had just 12 second-half yards, and what led to Goetz’s decision weren’t coming from Kirk Ferentz or from Goetz.

Goetz called them “private conversations.”

“I had access to the announcement that you read, that we all read, over the weekend,” Ferentz said.

Any player reaction wasn’t going to happen. The usual weekly Tuesday morning availability was canceled for this week, as Ferentz wanted to be the lone voice within the program speaking on the matter until after Saturday’s game.

That voice said a lot of things, but so much more seemed to be held back.

Ferentz deferred to Goetz. It was her call, given that she was Brian’s supervisor to get around the university’s rules on nepotism.

“There's a chain of command to everything, and I respect that, and we move forward,” Ferentz said.

Goetz said she understood the magnitude of the decision.

“I think any time people are involved in any decision, it's difficult, right?” she said. “And certainly those that mean a lot to our university or institution. And so that's always a piece of the puzzle. But at the end of the day you make the best decision you can, what you think is the best interest is of the program, and of the institution.”

Iowa ranks 130th in Football Bowl Subdivision play in total offense. The Hawkeyes are 108th in rushing offense, 128th in passing offense, 118th in scoring offense. Those numbers are similar to last season, and two seasons of those kinds of struggles limit the employment timetable of anyone.

And then there was the provision that former AD Gary Barta put into Brian’s contract heading into this season, the 25-points-and-seven-wins-per-game-or-bust clause that national pundits adored for its absurdity, and this disaster seemed so imminent.

There are four games left for the 6-2 Hawkeyes in the regular season, Ferentz repeated on Tuesday, and then a bowl game and heck, run the table in those final four games and maybe there’s a Big Ten Championship game appearance.

That, he insisted, was his focus.

“Really, what I'm worried about right now are the next four weeks,” Ferentz said. “I think anything beyond that is getting way ahead. That would be an injustice to our football team to be thinking about any of those things that you mentioned.

“My first loyalty is to the football team. Things are in your control, which I think this is. 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.”

That includes Brian’s replacement, he said. And that includes his future.

“Things are as they always are, to worry about this game and bigger scale, bigger picture for these four games,” Ferentz said. “That's where my focus has been this entire season. Obviously there were more than four games a week ago, two weeks ago. That's what I think about.”

So many things to say, so many things that he wanted to say. Yet, Kirk Ferentz tried to insist, it’s a different focus.

“The decision has been made. It's the university's position. We're moving forward. We have four games,” Ferentz said. “What I'm looking at,we're a 6-2 football team right now. It's not great. It's not perfect, but it's not bad. We do have an opportunity to win 10. Again, just like I said a minute ago, it's going to be extremely difficult, but we have an opportunity.

“I always tend to look at what's the upside on things. Right now that's our goal to win those four games that remain just like I'm sure everybody else on our schedule is trying to do. If we get to win 11, we'll try to win 11. If we get a shot at 12, we'll go for that, too. If we go beyond that, that would be great. That's probably about as good as we can do, which would be OK. That's really all that matters at this point.”