Kirk Ferentz did not leave fans wondering his thoughts about the officiating from Saturday’s loss to Minnesota. In fact, Iowa’s head coach kicked off his press conference by previewing what he was about to say.

Ferentz began by wishing the Big Ten would send his fine payment (if he receives) to the children’s hospital.

“I’ll start off by saying whatever I do say, if the Big Ten deems it necessary to fine me, hopefully, they’ll find it in their hearts to send it to a good cause,” said Ferentz. “Like the children’s hospital, a good place to start.”

Ferentz continued his opening statement and referred to the overall makeup of the game as “peculiar.” He pointed to a large number of replays, punctuated by the last — and most controversial of all.

“It was a peculiar game in the fact we had 6 replays today. I can’t remember a game — maybe we’ve had some with that amount. It’s interesting,” Ferentz described. “Really the last play is just, it’s a little bit tough. Had the (targeting) on the kickoff… the last one was just — it’s hard to take that one, it really is, on a couple of levels.”

As for that final replay that overturned Cooper DeJean’s go-ahead touchdown return, Ferentz says Iowa covers fair catch signals with every officiating crew. That included what constitutes a clear fair catch call.

The head coach also indicated the review initially sought to determine if DeJean was out of bounds or not but morphed into something different:

“First of all, I don’t know how to coach our guys because we cover that in pre-game with the officials, each and every time about fair catch procedures. Above-the-head wave, we also cover pointing to the ground for an errant kick which there were several of those today which we cover with every crew that comes through,” Ferentz explained. “Pretty standard procedure I would imagine, so it was interesting the final analysis of that play.

“Probably the most peculiar part to me is that as I understand the initial replay was to determine if Cooper stepped in or out of bounds, which clearly he didn’t. I appreciate the replay on that… but somehow we went from there to a whole different series of topics, and that’s really hard to accept the explanation that we got.”

In the explanation from an NBC Sports rule analyst, the explanation for the call included DeJean waving his left arm in a sideways manner as a “get away” motion. Ferentz said he thought DeJean’s arms were waving in a natural running motion.

“Most people when they run, their arms do wave. If you looked at the video, it just looked like he was naturally running to the football and then just made a great play,” said Ferentz. “One of the best ones I’ve ever seen.”

As for a message he had to give DeJean, Ferentz said he was at a loss for what to say to the star.

“There’s nothing — that’s the question I have right now,” said Ferentz. “What do you want me to say?”

Fans who are interested can check out Ferentz’s full press conference for the full scope of his comments from the wild turn of events in Iowa City: