Ferentz talks loss to Purdue
While Kirk Ferentz was disappointed by what he saw on the scoreboard, he also saw several bright spots from his team of Hawkeyes. Ferentz discusses the impact of penalties and turnovers on the outcome, a play called last in the first half, and much more.
Opening Statement
First off all, just a couple of comments.
Obviously it was a long road to get here. Someone told me 302 days. It was a long time between games and we are appreciative of everybody’s efforts to make this happen. Secondly, I am just really proud of the effort of our football team. I thought the guys played hard and practiced all week pretty well for the most part.
The other thing is there’s no substitute for playing games, especially this year. It’s been a really strange preparation and it’s also always tough to win on the road and that is especially true in the Big Ten.
I thought we did a lot of really good things out there and saw a lot of positives and a lot of good plays. Then there’s the obvious story that there’s a lot we have to work on. In particular, turning the ball over and penalties. I think half those penalties were major penalties of more than five yards.
Then the other thing that hurt us is we let 40 get going in the second half.
We are certainly going to see a lot on the film and that will be good to teach off of and teach good situational football, but if we can get those things I referenced correct and do a better job moving forward than it’s going to be tough to expect to win. That’s just the measure of the conference that we play in.
What is comes down to is us getting back in there tomorrow and responding in the right way, putting in another good week, and seeing if we can’t make the improvements that you need to make if you expect to win football games.
Q: The penalties jump out right away. 100 yard worth of them. Some of them were uncharacteristic of your team with false starts or personal fouls. Did the reduced camp have something to do with that?
FERENTZ: Perhaps. False starts are only five yard penalties, but they are momentum killers. It makes it tougher to maintain some rhythm offensively and it makes the hill that much more difficult to climb to get a first down. Then the other ones, the ten yard plus, they impact the game a great deal, including the last one, the hands to the face. That gave them a 15 advance to the goal line. All those little things add up during the course of a game. We thought we had done a pretty good job in that area. Just not a lot of live work with only one major scrimmage this year, so maybe that was showing up. Hopefully we can do a better job of that and with the turnovers. We have to do a better job with our ball security.
Q: What happened at the end with Bell getting wide open in the end zone?
FERENTZ: I’m not sure if we had the right matchup’s covered. I think the guy who thought he had coverage thought he had a little help inside. There was probably some miscommunication there. The other thing is Bell is just an outstanding player. In my opinion, he is one of the best receivers that we have faced. He gave us a hard time last year and he did it again today. He is really tough to cover, knows how to get open, and he’s a strong player too. As you saw today, he is a strong and physical guy, so it’ hard to keep him under wraps and he’s a great weapon for them.
Q: Linebacker depth was an issue today. Can you update us on that and also Austin Schulte was a notable person missing. How big of a deal is that for you guys?
FERENTZ: It’s big from the senior leadership standpoint. Austin is a tremendous young man and leader even when he wasn’t playing. He’s one of those guys that just helps everybody out. It’s probably going to be a couple of weeks before we get him back.
Jack was a surprise during the week. We found out he had mono. That wasn’t something we were expecting walking into a medical meeting on Monday. It’s going to be a couple of weeks before we get him back. He’s a young player that gives us some leadership qualities and gives us a heartbeat out there. I think Nick did a great job sliding in and Barrington, who has been a good player for us, even a forgotten player at times. Both those guys did a good job and Barrington had a pick today, which was good to see. We aren’t making any excuse there. We weren’t quite good enough today.
Q: Was Sargent in for ball security or was that just part of the rotation you were using at the time?
FERENTZ: We had total confidence in all three guys. We didn’t play Ivory quite much. Tyler is a good football player and I thought Mekhi was playing great in his quiet way, being productive and running strong and tough. It’s a shame because he does a good job and he’s not a sloppy player. We plan on playing all three guys during the course of season. Shadrick Byrd has really improved and he played special teams today. That will be the plan moving forward and I don’t see any reason to change that. It was an unfortunate break and I am sure he’s sick about it.
Q: How would you assess Petras first start?
FERENTZ: We have had a couple of years to watch him, as I’ve said publically last November and December he really started to come around and he looked like he was ready to go. He has prepared well and as we all know, it’s been a usual times. Nobody is more committed and prepared than he is. I thought he played really well. There are things we will see on film where you say you wish he would have gone here or there. I thought it was a really good start for him. The way he operates, I feel confident he will be a better player next week. I am confident we will have a better team next week as along as we look at the film objectively tomorrow.
Q: You guys rushed for 195 and passed for 265. How to leave this game, encouraged or discouraged?
FERENTZ: A few things. You talk about rush yards, I don’t know many they had in the second half with their back, #40, That impacted the game. We play better defense when we don’t let people run like that and he impacted the game. That is some we will have to correct.
The key to football is how many points you score and we came up four short. But, there are some real positives in there. We did some good things in the run and pass game. Now the key is how do we clean up our play to give ourselves a chance to win next week instead of coming up on the short end.
Q: Looking at the pass rush. You have lost guys. Did you consider Raider or something different?
FERENTZ: The way Purdue attacks you, it’s better to stay in your base with the four down front. Then I mentioned the run game, it’s better if we aren’t in Raider with the way 40 was running the ball. There was some good pressure with the pass rush. We just have to keep working there. I thought our guys were working hard up there and were close to getting more than one holding call. As long as we keep working, we will keep getting better. I thought Chauncey was doing a good job out there on the guys he was match up against. We just have to keep digging, but I think we will be alright there.
Q: What was the thought at the end of the first half when you got down to the ten and ran the ball and let time run off? Were you playing for the field goal or should you have more aggressive and tried for the end zone?
FERENTZ: I think if we had it to do over again we would take a shot into the end zone. We had time for one more throw down there and then go for the field goal. We were hoping the run would pop through there because sometimes that happens. If we had it to do over again, we would probably rethink it. We were not playing for the field goal there.
Q: Is this the first time you have done Wildcat and did it take some arm twisting to get it done? And some comments on Tory Taylor at punter?
FERENTZ: With the Wildcat, that might be the first time that we have done it. We have been talking about it since February. We were just looking for some ways to use the skill set of some of the guys that we have and we thought it was something we could integrated into our offense. We have put a lot of thought into it and hopefully we have simplified it enough to execute it.
Then on Tory, this is probably a good way to finish this up. He is kind of representative of our guys. We have guys from Chauncey Golston to Alaric Jackson that have played a lot of football and played really well. Then you have guys like Spencer and Tory. He not only not played, but he never saw an American football game played like before today. So in his first punt, he had to punt out of the end zone. There was a lot to like out of him and a few things he would like to take back. He is probably pretty representative of our football team. We did a lot of good thing out there and we have other things that we need to clean up.
This season is different than any other we have been tough. It’s an eight game march, plus one. The least we have had since I have been here is 11 and standard years it’s 12. We have had disappointment early in the season, like starting out 1-2 in 2004. Whatever happens, what counts is what we do moving forward. We have a lot of good guys on our football team who have worked hard and I think they have shown a lot of character. We haven’t had a lot of live competition, be it against ourselves or other teams, so seeing them out against a big time opponent and seeing a lot of good things means as long as we have the right attitudes, approach this week the right away, we will look forward to suiting up next week.