Kirk Ferentz has had some tough conversations with his football team in the past few months. Perhaps none was as tough as the one he had to have on Tuesday afternoon when he and athletic director Gary Barta had to tell the team that the Big Ten was postponing their football season. Ferentz discusses how the team reacted and if there's a chance the Big Ten could be playing football in the spring of 2021.

Q: What did he tell the team? Do you plan on going through workouts?

FERENTZ: Above everything, I’m just really disappointed for our players. Players, we talk to them all of the time about how limited their clock is. It’s such a small window of opportunity to play football, be it high school (or) college. If you’re fortunate to play beyond it, it’s even tighter. It’s just disappointing. They’ve worked hard, they’ve done everything we could have asked of them, and then some, and they’ve done it in tough circumstances. So that part, it’s hard.

It’s like losing a game — there’s nothing you can say to make them feel better.

Q: On cancelling practice the last two days?

FERENTZ: It’s not because we weren’t committed to playing this season. My guess was, based on what I had heard, the earliest we’d play would be the 29th … the last week of September. If so, I thought our guys needed a break — they had been going hard for quite some time — and we would pick it up again next week and we didn’t want to risk anyone getting hurt if we didn’t have a season this fall. The plan is to take a week off and then we’ll process this, we’ll figure out a smart way to go about it when our guys get back.

Q: On the players reactions to the news?

FERENTZ: ‘Disappointment,’ is the best word, certainly. But it’s emotional. It’s hard. Fans come up to me all the time and tell me how much Iowa football is a part of their lives, especially here in the Midwest. But it doesn’t mean more to anybody than the players. Nobody. And the coaches are right there with it. That is what we do, it’s such a big part of our lives. But it’s not life or death, either, and this is a good reminder of that. We’re facing something that’s unprecedented in our history, at least in our lifetimes. And we’re trying to deal with it. That probably drove this final decision as much as anything. All that being said, today will be a historic day. And it’s a really disappointing day for everyone involved.

Q: Did you get the sense that the players all wanted to play?

FERENTZ: That’s kind of been the sense of our team. We had a couple of guys mulling not playing, I know. One I think was leaning very, very strongly toward that. But the majority of our guys have all along wanted to play. That’s what they’ve been working for. They’ve demonstrated that more than talking about it, more than tweeting about it, going on social media. They’ve been here day in and day out working in perilous circumstances.

Q: His thoughts on a possible spring season?

FERENTZ: I think it’s too early. It was brought up on Zoom call with other coaches, but I can’t remember if anyone had any idea what that would look like. All of the focus has been what can we do to get to the field this fall. What’s it going to look like? Is it going to be 10 games? Twelve games? We never really had discussion on less than that. We’ve really been focused on that. Unfortunately, we have a really long time to recalibrate, talk about it in an intelligent fashion. When we look at the spring, we have to look at the entire calendar year of 2021. And I’m sure that’s where the discussions all begin. We’ve got time to think about it, and I think that will be the next item of business — what can it look like, and then how do we get to work on making it become a reality.

Q: Was communication lacking from leaders in the conference? Were there things that could have been done better in terms of being fair to the players?

FERENTZ: I can only speak for my perspective. We have had continuous communication with Gary (Barta). I have would say the visits we have had with coaches and athletic directors have been routine and regular. The conference office was involved in that was well, so I think it’s been healthy. I have also learned in life that there’s a chain of command. I am certainly not a medical expert and there are certain things that I think Presidents and medical experts have responsibility for. Ultimately they have the best vantage point for what makes sense for our campus and conference. I feel confident that all the input was taken from coaches and athletic directors, but ultimately someone has to make decisions and I think that’s what happened as a conference. I don’t think it was unanimous, but I feel confident there was healthy discussion and that this was the wisest decision.

Q: You talked about the players and advocating for the season. Many said they felt they would be safer within the football bubble then outside of it. What is your feeling on that? Have they talked about it?

FERENTZ: I think that reflects how a lot of our players feel. I felt that during today’s meeting as well. I guess if you look at the bigger pictures of what we don’t know right now, the NBA has the best of this with a true bubble. That is the best way to ensure you can move forward without interruption. The reality is that a college football team with more than a 100 players makes that a different challenge. The fact that our players aren’t professional makes it a different challenge. We haven’t seen a true contact sport practice and play on a routine basis yet and I think that’s the missing element. Baseball probably closely reflects what we are talking about doing, the numbers involved with baseball compared to a college football team aren’t comparable and baseball is not a contact sport, for the most part. This is a really complex equation and nobody has hard data on it because no one has tried to do this before.

Q: Did things change in your opinion when the MAC decided to not play and how hopeful were you once the schedule was released?

FERENTZ: As it pertains to the MAC making their announcement on Saturday, that really didn’t surprise me. I think all of us had confidence that with the Big Ten announcing their schedule last Wednesday that we had an ability to push back to later in September or even October 3rd. My presumption might be a delay and we were prepared for that. That was with our thinking about not practicing the last two days. For whatever reason it’s the decision we have come up with and I am sure it is based on really good information from very smart people. That’s where we are at and it’s disappointing to say the least, but we will get our feet on the ground and try to move forward the best we can.

Q: Was there a point in the last 24 hours where you thought things were going from well this might not happen to maybe late yesterday where it might be turning back in the other direction?

FERENTZ: You are always optimistic and hopeful. I think again based on the schedule being announced last week that we would get a delay and push things back a few weeks and see what things looked like. I am not sure of the final details on the decision, but we all knew that was a possibility. It wouldn’t surprise me if it ends up going that way for all of college football, but that remains to be scene. I would imagine there were some compelling reasons for the decision, so we will play it out. But it’s disappointing, but also the reality.

Q: Is playing in the spring something that is realistic?

FERENTZ: Yeah, I think so. I think we can do anything we want if we do it intelligently. First we have to think about what’s best for our players and what’s best for them. I think it is totally doable. We might be playing in some colder games, but we get that in December anyway if we extended the schedule. We have to be realistic about it and also look at it as far as spring and fall combined. It will be a different approach, but what we have gone through has been different.

Q: What are the financial implications of the decision made today?

FERENTZ: I think every step of the way it has been impacted, starting with basketball in March. Gary is the expert on that and much has been written about it and it’s common knowledge for a long time that there’s a huge financial impact. Let’s say the whole thing shut down for a year, college sports will come back. It may look different, I don’t think there’s any doubt about that, but they will return and at some point we will be up and running again. I hope for the sake of our student athletes it will be sooner rather than later and we can get them back to doing what they love to do.

Q: Is it possible to ask an athlete to play two seasons in one year?

FERENTZ: I think it would be possible, but we are going to have to be really smart about how go about it. The first thing would be getting the guys ready to play in the spring and then what you do after the spring season and getting them ready for the fall and the adjustments you would have to make as far as training. Those are things that we should give thought to and if we do it in a smart way, I think it can be done.

Q: Playing in the spring would potentially open things up for early enrollees. Could you see an early enrollee contributing?

FERENTZ: It’s possible. I would assume that would be legal. A lot of things have been impacted at the high school level, so there might be more early enrollees. In the coming months I think all those questions will have to be answered. You may see more senior players leaving too, but the NFL has the capability to sliding their draft back and they can make adjustments. My guess is they will if it ends up being spring football for college players. The bad news is we have plenty of time to figure it out.

Q: How much more guidance do you or did you think you got from your league in all this? Now that the decision has been made, do you need more to inform the players about?

FERENTZ: It’s always important. As we move forward now with football we have to figure out the rules in the fall and potentially for the spring. If I was the commissioner of sports in the world I think it would be nice not to see college football teams raiding each others rosters for transfers based on this until the landscape settles a little bit. That might be naïve thinking on my part. You would like to think everyone would be respectful of each others positions right now.

Q: You do have a couple of players who plan to enroll early. Would you discourage them to not enroll early because you wouldn’t want them to waste a redshirt year?

FERENTZ: Our policy is it’s up to the player. We don’t encourage it necessarily, but it’s up to the player. I haven’t really thought this out. So the potential 2021 spring season, I don’t know if it would be with the four game redshirt rule. I would hope so, but we have to see how it unfolds.

Q: You have had guys who left early in the past and you currently have players who maybe aren’t first rounders, but maybe needs a season to prove themselves even more. Do you anticipate conversations with some of your players who could get drafted, but maybe need a season to lift their stock? Do you think all your players will return to play in the spring?

FERENTZ: I can’t answer that last part. The players are going to have to sift this out as we go along too. I think all of us figured out a few weeks ago that there was a strong potential that sure fire #1 picks may opt out and we saw some of that happen. We may see more of that now. As far as the spring, I think there are players in our program and other programs that will think that our a little bit. We have to find out what the NFL is going to do with their draft. Will they have it in April or push it back a couple of months? I think that would weigh into a players thinking too.