Kirk Ferentz met with the media on Wednesday afternoon to discuss the Hawkeyes 2022 recruiting class.

KIRK FERENTZ OPENING STATEMENT

First of all, I just want to welcome everybody. Just talk a little bit about our bowl prep and then also the biggest thing today is signing day, so I will hit that.

Then I'll turn it over to our director of recruiting, Tyler Barnes, and he'll be able to give you more in depth information about our recruits.

Certainly, since we got back from Indianapolis, our guys have been really pretty much entrenched with their academics. We're in finals right now. So we're trying to give these guys some space. It was a long season, hard season. It's really important our guys get a chance to bounce back and recharge a little bit, not only physically but also emotionally. We are trying to be a little bit mindful of that.

Really we'll wait until we get through this week. We worked lightly a couple times, but we'll wait until we get through this week and start working in earnest for the bowl preparation as we go along. One thing I wanted to get across to our football team was that we won 10 games this year. We're only one of 10 teams in the history of the program to do that, so they can really be proud of that. We still have an opportunity to become one of only five teams to win more than 10. So those two things are certainly significant in themselves.

More importantly, it's just a great opportunity to play in a tremendous bowl game against a really good opponent, tough opponent from the SEC. So that in itself is really exciting. When we do start getting ready, football-wise, that will be first and foremost in our minds.

Just on a side note, we've had a couple player departures, a couple guys who decided to enter the transfer portal. One player has decided to forego his last game, at least the last game this season, and another year of eligibility to play in the NFL. Certainly, it's just a sign of the times. I think everybody's kind of experienced some of these things, and we certainly have over the years.

The bottom line is we just wish all of our guys nothing but the best moving forward in whatever path they choose to take. We'll just continue to push forward in that regard.

In terms of recruiting, I think really things don't change an awful lot overall. Our approach historically has been to try to get to know the prospects as well as we can, get to know their families, talk to coaches, teachers, counselors, people in the schools and gain as much knowledge as possible about each and every prospect just to see if we really believe they're going to be a good fit in our program.

Then it's a two-way street. We certainly want them to come to campus and have an opportunity to do the same with us, really get to know us better, get to know the people on campus better, and most importantly, talk and visit with our players just to get a feel of the program.

I think this past year was a little bit interesting, certainly different than a year ago. At least all of our prospects have been able to be here on campus, all but one, I should say, for official visits, but they've all been on campus. They've had a chance to investigate, learn more about the program. So that's been helpful. Thank goodness that opened up back in June.

We also in turn have had an opportunity to get out and get in schools, maybe not as much as in a normal year since really we were just out last week. But it gave us a chance to be in some homes, visit with people, and learn more about the prospects. We feel really good about the class. There's no question about that.

Again, our biggest asset continues to be when prospects come to Iowa City. Be it to go to a game in Kinnick, but most importantly, I think, just to experience Iowa, experience what it's going to be like to be able to go to school here, be part of the program, meet with the academic experts in their given areas of interest, also meet with the counselors, Liz Tovar and her staff, meet with other people on campus, and obviously the coaches, coaching staff.

Most importantly, I think, be hosted by our players and spend a lot of time with our players just so they can get a feel of the program. I really feel fortunate that's been able to take place. Again, feel really good about the class.

The bottom line is this. To be a college football player and play in our program, it takes really hard work and serious commitment. I really feel that each and every one of the 17 guys we signed today understands what it is we're looking for, and I think they fully embrace that challenge and are looking forward to getting here just like we are.

It's certainly exciting. It's always exciting to add to your football team. So we feel really good about the group and just want to compliment our staff, the support staff, all the work everybody's done. Compliment the efforts of our players. This is pretty much year round because prospects come year round, at least in a normal year, and that began in June. So our guys have given up a lot of their own time to spend time with the prospects. That's a huge part of recruiting. So we're really appreciative of that as well.

All that being said, we're just really excited to have these guys join us, excited to have their families be part of the program. With that, I'll throw it out for questions. Then Tyler Barnes will come and just help fill in some blanks for you. But I'll throw it out for questions.

Q. Good afternoon. Hope you're doing well. Wanted to ask you about Xavier Nwankpa, five star kid, about that process of getting him. Then that visit with him last -- I think it was last Monday, where you were in home and how he kind of blurted out that he was coming to Iowa and what that moment was like for you.

KIRK FERENTZ: That moment was pretty good, as you might well imagine. So the process itself was long. We've identified Xavier a long, long time ago. It doesn't take much investigation. He's one of those players that really jumps out at you on film. I wasn't at the Prairie game. I saw the first half, had to go back and join our team that night. Turns out he blocks the winning field goal. Really good players have a knack of doing that, and that seemed to be part of his DNA.

But the other part about Xavier, I think, that's so impressive is the kind of young man he is. He's a really impressive young person, very humble, and just really excited about his mental makeup. Just excited to have him join us. Great family. They're a really supportive family, and it's been fun to get to know them.

It was kind of a long, long process. I don't know if anybody could have predicted a couple months ago what was going to happen, but last Monday night was a real highlight for us just to have him accidentally, I think, tell us that he was going to become a Hawkeye. It was early in the evening, which made the evening a really good evening. Just took a lot of pressure off our shoulders and made it really an enjoyable evening.

Q. Speaking of Xavier, how helpful has it been since he's committed to be recruiting. He was joking with Tyler Barnes about coming for his job on Twitter today.

KIRK FERENTZ: Well, I didn't hear about that, as you might imagine, but we're just thrilled to have Xavier join our program, first and foremost as a player and representative of the university. It's going to be great. If he wants to take on some side jobs on the side, I'm all for it.

I do mention our players are the ones who sell the university. They sell the program. So I think Xavier's already helped do that with some of the current class that we signed, and he'll continue to do that in the future, and that's super. I'm just really excited about that.

Q. Coach, you've had several commits just today alone, some flipped, some outright commits. What do you attribute the late success that kind of builds up to getting so many commits in one day, and what is that experience like as a coaching staff having to reserve spots or all that kind of goes into that process.

KIRK FERENTZ: First and foremost, I think we just try to be patient. We move at a pace that we think is smart. Ultimately, when we go out for prospects, we try to run the race with them, see where it's going to take us. At some point you find out you're doing well with the prospect, sometimes you're not. Then as you move forward, you just make adjustments.

A couple of the guys that announced today, we knew about that maybe a little bit earlier in the process. But bottom line is we really do believe we run the full race. There were several guys we signed, Koen is a good example, Entringer, who was really more of a soccer player actually. It's an interesting story. Spent a lot of his time as a child growing up in Arizona as a really good soccer player and is new to football. Last couple years, two years, I guess, he's played football. He's learned it real quickly and done very, very well at it.

He's a guy to me that is a late developer. He's got a world of potential. He's already a good football player. So we just kind of ran the entire race with him and looked at his film from this year and just were extremely impressed.

Olando Trader is probably another example, was a MAC commit. We watched him hard during his senior year knowing that corner is a position of need for us. That thing worked out.

T.J. Hall was committed to another school. There was a little turbulence in that program, so we stuck with him. We happened to have a connection to T.J. His dad played for Don Patterson, who knows an awful lot about the Iowa football program. His dad played for him at Western Illinois. So we had a little bit of a connection there, a little tie-in, and that worked out really well.

For us we just try to be as thorough as we can with the evaluation, try to take our time, not make rash decisions. If we're not sure, we try not to make a decision that is a four-year commitment. We just try to be prudent, smart, and run the entire race with the prospects.

Q. I know in the past you haven't really wanted to do the NCs and visits just simply because you're trying to juggle game preparation with a visit. However, when you look at the Penn State game, in particular, three guys that came for visits, all three ended up, and they're all highly touted prospects, all committed to you. Plus you have a lot of future guys that have that potential as well. Have you changed your mind at all on that based on what we just saw, or is it still just kind of developing with the times, I guess?

KIRK FERENTZ: Not really. I think in a perfect world -- and I can think of two of the guys you're referring to. Xavier came for his official visit that weekend. He's an interesting guy because he's been on campus anyway. He's been here for games, so it wasn't new to him, but the environment that day was absolutely fantastic.

But he's also been on campus to do all the academic stuff, and he knows some of our players on our current roster, so that helped us as well.

The one thing I think when a player comes during -- and T.J. Hall is a good example. He came on his official visit for that weekend. What you miss out on is they don't get as much time with our players because our players are sequestered on Friday night. That happened to be a game that went late. So Saturday night's kind of short. It cuts into the time they get with our players, first and foremost.

But also just being with a group of recruits, I think that adds to the chemistry sometimes with a group. Still in a perfect scenario for us it would be players get to come here for several games in Kinnick so they get the feel of the atmosphere and then come on an official visit where there's a lot of time and a lot of space and they get a bit more thorough picture of the program. That, to me, is still the ideal way.

But when you talk about prospects from outlying areas like California, like Florida -- and Jazz is an example of that -- it gets a little different that way.

Q. Kirk, not only did you land Xavier, but you also landed the No. 2 prospect in the state with Aaron Graves. What is it about Iowa that has helped you in really landing the best recruits out of this state, do you think?

KIRK FERENTZ: First of all, it's a tale of two cities there. Xavier ran the entire race. Ten days before signing, before we knew what he was thinking, we knew we were in the race, I'm not so sure of where we were six months ago, quite frankly. But obviously, we knew we were finalists. We weren't sure until 10 days ago what he was thinking.

Conversely, Aaron was an easy sell. Aaron wanted to become a Hawkeye. That was a real easy one. It happened really early. I don't know that we've offered anybody younger than Aaron. Gosh, is he an impressive young man. We're thrilled he's joining our program.

We're going to try to do our best each and every year to recruit the state as well as we can. If there's a player we feel like is going to fit really well in our program, we're going to try as hard as we can to recruit them and convince them this the best place for them. All that being said, there's still a lot of competition, and it's never easy -- rarely easy. I shouldn't say never, but rarely easy.

Q. As you know, the recruiting isn't done with the portal situation, roster movement all over the place. But you've never taken anyone at quarterback. Is that something you would consider in this cycle with so many names there? And in general, just with the portal so full right now, what is your approach? Aggression, I guess, aggression level at positions of need.

KIRK FERENTZ: You never say never. I was just telling somebody the story about Brad Banks over the weekend. When Brad came here, we were looking to get a high school quarterback and that was our goal, try to build with somebody who was going to be here for a longer period than a year or two years. So in a perfect world, I think that's how you want to build your roster just in general circumstances.

As of all of us know, at least everybody on this call knows, the world of college football is changing really rapidly. Players are going to depart, and they are departing right now at a record pace. They may be joining at a record pace too. I think our approach to the portal is going to be the same as it's been with prospects. We're going to try to be thorough and make sure we're identifying the right things.

Ultimately, it's like a prospect, you want to get somebody who's going to come to our campus and really maximize their experience and be here to run the entire race. That's the goal. It doesn't always work out that way.

So we'll continue to evaluate our roster. We'll continue to evaluate what is available. If there are players out there that we think can help our program either immediately or maybe long term, we'll consider that.

As I think about the portal, I think about guys like Zach VanValkenburg. I think about guys like Jack Heflin. I don't know what the market was for either of those guys. I think about guys like Mekhi Sargent, and I can tell you what the market was for him a couple of Aprils ago, or May, whenever it was.

All three of those guys ended up being great players in our program. Both Mekhi and Jack made NFL rosters. Mekhi was a captain for us. Both of them made NFL rosters this past year.

So that's probably more the prospect we're looking at, but we'll entertain any possibilities. If we feel like they're going to help our roster, we'll consider anything.

Q. You were a bit prophetic back in late June when you talked about the visit weekend and you kind of tempered the expectations a little bit. How challenging is it to kind of stay patient when things don't go well, or as well as you hoped, in a situation like that and kind of run this race, if you will, borrowing from your own terminology?

KIRK FERENTZ: A couple things. A year ago, it was unusual because whatever the number was, three or four prospects, five, I can't remember, ended up signing with us. Never got here for an official visit. We never got to meet them face to face because of the pandemic. This year's a little bit different because things opened up in June. But if you think about it, over the course of the recruiting period, most of those prospects, other than local guys, didn't have a chance to get here from the start of the pandemic on.

So a huge component of recruiting for us is getting prospects here in Iowa City and getting them here on multiple occasions. So I think it was realistic back in June to think that maybe things were going to be a little slower than normal, whatever normal is anymore.

And the bottom line, again, is to make sure we're getting guys that we really feel good about, not only in terms of their athletic potential but their ability to really fit in our program and work in a way that's going to benefit everybody.

So I think it's like anything. If you're not sure, just don't make a move. We want to be patient, continue to learn about guys. I think all of us were confident too that there would be good stories that would emerge. Guys like Olando, guys like Koen that had their best football still in front of them, well in front of them, and it just panned out that way. It really worked out to our advantage, I think.

T.J. Hall is another example. He was committed and all that back in June, I believe, to another school. The longer it went, it just kind of worked out in our favor.

I firmly believe there's probably a couple players out there right now that we're not aware of that probably could help our program. We'll try to do our due diligence and see if there's anything we're missing and then push forward after that.

Q. What impact did COVID have as you're recruiting many of these kids while that was still going on?

KIRK FERENTZ: We made the best of it. Zoom was a huge component of what we did, and it remains helpful, but it's not the major part anymore. During the pandemic, we had no choice to do anything other than Zoom, whether it was visits, virtual visits, facilities, all those kinds of things. That's a heck of a lot better than it was 30 years ago, but it's still not the same as getting in front of people and really getting a feel for the personalities of people involved.

There's no substitute for that. I don't care what business you're in. I certainly know in education, in coaching, you've got to be with the people you're working with. It's the same way in recruiting. Ultimately, again, that's our best chance is when a prospect comes to campus several times and really gets to know the feel of things.

Again, I'm not pretending or suggesting that every kid comes here and falls in love with it. Sometimes it's just the opposite. That's healthy. That's good because that's what recruiting is all about. Each prospect figuring out what it is they want. Then eventually end up at the school that's going to best meet the things they think are important.

Q. Kirk, getting back to the transfer portal, you mentioned you've hardly lost anybody compared to the national average, I would guess. A very prominent national coach today said that the transfer portal has caused total chaos, that there's tampering galore, there are no consequences. Adults are manipulating young men. Have you found any of that to be true?

KIRK FERENTZ: Yes, yes, yes, yes, all of the above for sure. It's really sad. My understanding -- I'm just a novice at this stuff. The portal is kind of like NIL. I think we're all just on the front end right now. We really don't understand the total ramifications that are going to result here.

There's no question. One thing I have seen over the years is there are more and more adults with bad intentions. Or at least, I'll say they've got bad intentions dealing with young people and influencing them in a way that maybe -- it's really no different than going to a little league game where parents are just kind of misguided on what they think is important.

It's still about -- when you're competing, it's about the camaraderie, the teamwork, trying to do your best as a team, at least in our sport. That's all you can ask anybody to do.

I think, when it comes to college athletics, I think it's still important to come get a degree. We had six of our former players here last Thursday night visit with our seniors and juniors, and each and every one of them to a man said that the value of getting their degree, not necessarily that they're going to use that degree in their chosen field of their professional lives, but just the value of getting that degree. And these are six guys from different age ranges and all different backgrounds all sharing that information with our players.

It's still a huge component of the college experience. Hopefully, you have a really good career in the meantime. If you can take it beyond that, that's great. If you can benefit from NIL, that's great. All those things are good, but there's still something about signing up and running the entire race and sticking with it. I think it's part of the sport.

But all that being said, I'll go back to the original point. One thing I learned 23 years ago, actually when I got to Maine in 1990, you can't make everybody happy. Certainly in a program not everybody's going to be happy. Not every player is going to be happy on the team. It's just unrealistic. That's reality. In that regard, it's probably good when players have the freedom to leave.

You just hope a guy leaves for the right reasons. He's not leaving too early. And somebody with bad intentions might be influencing him, and you hope that's not the case. I shouldn't say bad intentions either. Maybe self-centered intentions for that adult. Sometimes that happens.

Q. Just one question about quarterback now. At the midpoint from the championship game to the bowl, have you made a decision as far as who's going to start, or is that still in flux at this point?

KIRK FERENTZ: This may shock you, I have not looked at one play of Kentucky yet. I think we've been on the field, let me think, three times maybe. I think I'm correct in that. We've been on there three times with our older guys. We're not remotely close to thinking about that right now. We're just trying to keep our guys moving a little bit, let them sweat, no contact, get them on the field and off the field.

We'll start preparing next week. Our focus as coaches has been on recruiting, getting our guys warmed up. We had a big recruiting weekend this past weekend. We'll start thinking about football here as these finals wind down. We certainly are not going to win or lose a bowl game at this point just because of what we've been doing. We've got more time.

I was telling the staff today I can remember last time we went down there. I think we probably went down nine days before the game. I had not seen a stitch of film on LSU because back then the recruiting rules had us traveling right up almost until departure, so it was just like a mad house. My fear right now is we'll probably have too many ideas up on the board next week because we still have time to get going.

Personnel stuff, we'll just see who's healthy, who practices well the next couple weeks, and we'll go with the best guys to give us a chance to win this game. It's going to be a tough game, but we look forward to that.