Kirk Ferentz fights back emotions in press conference following shutout win over Rutgers

Kirk Ferentz’s Iowa program continues to battle, and that paid off in a big in Week 11. Despite facing a solid defense in Rutgers, the Hawkeyes posted their best offensive performance of the season with Deacon Hill contributing an efficient outing.

After the game, Ferentz was asked about the offensive players who credited the coach for keeping the unit focused during the week. He was visibly fighting back emotions before composing himself for an answer.

“I’ve done it long enough where I’ve been on the wrong side of a lot of stuff in my time coaching, certainly playing. Again, all you really learn is you can’t do anything except keep working with what you have,” said Ferentz. “In our case, the good thing is most of our issues have been — it’s not that we haven’t had enough, it’s that we haven’t had them available.”

Ferentz later explained his approach is nailing down who is available and going to work with what you have:

“Who’s playing and what can you do with those guys? That’s really where your focus goes. So yeah, we’re gonna have some problems with probably our 3 most explosive guys on offense aren’t out there. The season wasn’t going to get canceled, so you just got to keep playing,” Ferentz explained. “And the guys we have fortunately are really good guys and they work hard. I’m just happy to see them experience a little success because at some point you’ve got to have a little tangible evidence that it does work too.”

Here’s Ferentz’s press conference with the question starting around the 3:45 mark:

Paul Harvey

Paul is a lifelong fan and student of all things college football. He has been covering college football since 2017 and the B1G since 2018.