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Kirk Ferentz chimes in on Illinois upsetting Wisconsin
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Kirk Ferentz didn’t get a chance to see Illinois upset Wisconsin as it happened. The Iowa head coach was attempting to avoid an upset himself, as the Hawkeyes were hosting Purdue at Kinnick Stadium.
Iowa went on to defeat Purdue 26-20, marking the first time Kirk Ferentz has defeated Jeff Brohm. It was a nice bounce-back victory for the Hawkeyes, who dropped their previous two games to Michigan and Penn State in defensive battles the last two weeks.
After the game, though, Ferentz was asked about Illinois’ 24-23 upset victory over No. 6 Wisconsin on Saturday afternoon. Having not seen the game, Ferentz gave a pretty general response to the question.
“Well, I think the lesson is that football, conference football at least, I think is tough,” Ferentz said. “It’s my 30th year in this league now and it’s really hard to predict what’s going to happen and when people start thinking that they know the answers ahead of time, boy, that’s when bad things happen. So I have no idea what happened in that game other than I heard the score.
“The other important lesson for our team is you keep playing, you keep playing and celebrate a win, my mentor near the end of his life said celebrate a good block and we don’t do that enough. When you win a game, celebrate, enjoy it, feel good about it and then we’ll critique it tomorrow and worry about it then. But the whole idea is just keep pushing forward and have a good week and put it to bed the next day and keep going.”
Ferentz has been on the right side of some big wins in recent years, knocking off an undefeated and highly ranked Michigan team in 2016 and pummeling a College Football Playoff contending Ohio State team in 2017. He has plenty of experience in the upset department.
Illinois’ upset was also a huge boost for Iowa. With the Hawkeyes till having Wisconsin and Minnesota on the schedule, they still have a good shot to potentially win the B1G West. At least things look a little brighter than a week ago.
The Hawkeyes travel to Northwestern next Saturday before heading into an off week.
Dustin grew up in the heart of Big Ten country and has been in sports media since 2010. He has been covering Big Ten football since 2014. You can follow him on Twitter: @SchutteCFB