Ferentz updates Iowa football

Kirk Ferentz will hit the stage in Chicago on Tuesday morning, but he caught up with the Iowa beat writers on Monday late in the afternoon for a little housekeeping session to go over the latest moves on his roster and update the two deeps.

Ferentz discussed a couple of players taking medical redshirts this year, updated the injury situations with a couple of players, and discussed the recent departure of Manny Rugamba and a few other players this summer, along with the addition of a JUCO running back.

Opening Statement

A couple of medical updates. We had two serious knee injuries in the spring with Aaron Mends and Wes Dvorak. They are both working back now, but to put a realistic time frame on when, or if they will return is tough to do right now.

We have a couple of other guys that are working back that aren’t quite back at full speed, but hopefully they will be ready to go in August.

Toks and Kyle Taylor are not going to be able to play, medically, moving forward, so they have taken medical redshirts.

Roster wise, everyone knows as much as I know. Sargent joined us in June and we are happy about that. Then Manny Rugamba, Nate Wieland, and Cam Harrell have all transition and they are going in a different direction. That’s the update on that. The only other thing is we were not pleased about what we learned about Brady Reiff this past weekend. I met with him today and he is going to go through a couple of steps. One of the items of interest is he will be suspended for the first game.

That’s pretty much the update and I will be happy to answer your questions.

Q: Cedric Boswell gone too?

FERENTZ: Yeah, he has also left. He is going to transfer.

Q: Romeo McKnight as well?

FERENTZ: Yeah. He left a while back.

Q: What about Spencer Williams?

FERENTZ: Spencer took a medical back in the spring. All three of those guys are medical. They are done playing, unfortunately.

Q: What do you do with those scholarships? Do they go to a few walk-on’s?

FERENTZ: We have a little room right now. Like every year, we have a couple of guys that we think are in prime position to earn those scholarships. We will see how camp pans out, but we have a couple of guys in mind right now. What we don’t use, we will carry over into recruiting.

Q: Is Sargent on scholarship?

FERENTZ: He is.

Q: What are your thoughts on him?

FERENTZ: It’s interesting with him, what peaked my attention the most was we were aware of him at Iowa Western and then Kelvin Bell saw him play live in the first week of December. He made the comment once he got back that he thought he was a D1 player and could be a really good running back for us. At that point we didn’t have room and it didn’t make sense for us. Then as we moved forward and we the medical situation with Toks becoming final, it just made sense.

He has been tremendous. He got here in the first week in June and has been a tremendous young man and on top of that, he’s a really good football player.

Q: Does he have his associates? Three years to play two?

FERENTZ: He was a qualifier coming out. He was not there because of eligibly.

Q: One of the big things in the off-season that happened was gambling and college football perhaps having to issue injury reports. How do you feel about that?

FERENTZ: We will do what everyone else does. I assume that if we go to this, we as in Big Ten schools, we are going to go along with it. It would probably be along the lines of the NFL formula and if that’s what we choose to do, we will adapt.

Q: Why did things not work out with Rugamba and what did he tell you?

FERENTZ: We sat down sometime in late June, before the break around the 4th, and came to a mutual conclusion that it was best to get a fresh start elsewhere.

Q: Freshmen rules have changed with the ability to play four games. How are you looking at it?

FERENTZ: First of all, I think it’s a really good thing. The most obvious benefit is at quarterback and you have the ability to do some things with a freshman quarterback if you are in that position, which we have been a couple of times.

It also gives you an opportunity early in the season to maybe test drive somebody and see how they come along. If it doesn’t work or materialize, then you can pull back and protect that year. Then there are guys who might be ascending during the season. Not necessarily due to injury or attrition or it might be that the guy is coming on and he can really help us late in the season.

Q: Players will show they have to belong. You said test drive it still comes down to performance.

FERENTZ: Yeah, you base everything off of what you can evaluate, like practice, and how they handle things, like the time demands of college football. You still never know what’s going to happen on the field. It can go either way. Sometimes guys get on the field and a guy like Nick Easley really came to life.

Q: So you would be open to if a wide receiver, the light goes on and he’s getting on the field?

FERENTZ: Sure, anybody. If they can help us win, I am all for it.

Q: How are you looking at the free safety position with Brandon coming back and Jake playing well last year at the end of the year?

FERENTZ: It’s a good problem to have if it ends up being a problem. The good news is I think all those guys are pretty versatile. We will play it by ear.

Q: When you say versatile, are you talking about maybe moving one down to linebacker?

FERENTZ: I know Phil talked a little bit about that. I don’t know if it would be a permanent thing or for a game depending on who we are playing. For a lot of the teams that we play, it makes some sense to be in that type of a package. There are still a lot of unknowns with the linebackers right now, so it gives us some flexibility.

Q: Have you had any time this summer to reflect on passing Coach Fry this year and what it would mean? Have you talked to Coach Fry?

FERENTZ: I got to see him back in April, but quite frankly, I haven’t thought a lot about it. Nothing has really changed, as I joked about in the past, but maybe all the games that could or would have been and if we had gotten any of those, this would be a dead topic. That would be really nice. Unfortunately, it’s not playing out that way.

Q: There’s been some come to the Northern Illinois game and see Kirk Ferentz break the record. Guessing that makes you cringe a little bit.

FERENTZ: I hate any of that stuff. My request is going to be once we get to August, we are going to talk about 18 and not what’s happened before. I realize it’s relevant now and it’s a topic. I get that. Once we get to August, it’s straight ahead to the 2018 season.

Q: Have you noticed or heard any of that talk?

FERENTZ: I haven’t heard it, but maybe I don’t travel in the same circles. I’m just seeing my grandkids and they don’t watch the games too close.

Q: Have Brian Ferentz and Eric Chinander had any nice discussions like they had when Eric was out in Oregon?

FERENTZ: Things probably changed a little bit on that front. Eric is a great guy and all of us are really proud of what he has done. We talk about the guys who went on to pro football, but Eric is a guy who was a walk-on, like Will Lack, and just did a great job every day. To see him have professional success is fantastic.

Q: With the Nebraska series, are we headed back to Iowa and Nebraska on Black Friday after the two year hiatus?

FERENTZ: I think so. I think there is an opportunity. I don’t have final word on it. My sense is that is what everyone is hoping for. It’s unfortunate that it didn’t work out for the years we are switching away. It just seemed natural. It was nice and orderly and it made sense. So we blew it up and started over again.

Q: It just seemed to make sense from a showcase perspective for the league.

FERENTZ: It gives us a weekend for matchup’s like that one. The Black Friday thing was appealing to us. It wasn’t our idea, but it was appealing and something they had been doing for a long time before we ever got involved. I think we all thought it was a pretty good deal.

Q: What are your thoughts on the new kickoff rule?

FERENTZ: That is going to be a big topic. We have talked about it, but not in great detail. It is a really interesting rule and I think it’s going to lead to some really interesting discussions. Right here on the front end of it, there’s probably not going to be a set formula because there will be a lot of variables. If you need a play, certainly that’s a consideration. If you have a dynamic return guy, that is a consideration. Anytime you try to bring one out, all you have to do is miss one block and you are inside the 20 and that’s not good. The odds tell you to just take it on the 25, but it may not be that simple.

Q: How did the changes in recruiting shake out for you this spring and summer?

FERENTZ: Pretty well. We were, for the most part, able to get the guys we wanted on campus in June. Our initial thought was not to go with official visits, but as we went through it, it became apparent that it made sense.

It’s kind of like we have closed the book on chapter one. There are a handful of guys right now that we really have strong interest in. I am sure that will expand. It’s amazing that as prospects play their senior year that prospect emerge, like Mike Daniels, Hyde, or Desmond King. Hopefully that will be the case and hopefully those guys aren’t signed somewhere else. I think we will start chapter two here pretty shortly.

Q: Hayden went 20 years. Does year 20 mean anything to you?

FERENTZ: Not really. I am appreciative and feel very fortunate. There are a lot of factors that went into that and I feel very fortunate. I hope there’s a lot more to come.

Q: What are your thoughts on corner because at some point you thought you would have Rugamba and maybe Josh Jackson before he left early.

FERENTZ: Creamer came on this spring and I think the other guy that is trending upward is Josh Turner. He had a really good summer. The guys ran over the weekend and he ran like a champ. He was young in the spring and he is starting to show signs of being the guy that we recruited, so that’s encouraging. We have an open mind towards the first year guys too. We will let those guys come in and compete. Typically in the back end we have ended up that way historically so there some potential there. We will just see how it all shakes out.

Q: Do you think about Hooker there at all?

FERENTZ: He’s another guy that could probably play linebacker too. We will keep him inside at safety.

Q: Could Sargent be a 15-20 carry guy?

FERENTZ: We will see how it all shakes out. I think he could for sure, but we will see. I always poke fun at the watch lists. If you letter you get on a watch list. The Doak Walker list was safe for our guys since none of our guys had a carry last year. We liked what we saw from Toren and Ivory, but it’s about the depth right now. We have two good freshmen joining us, but Sargent is a little bit older and has been around a bit more, so it made sense. Not saying he’s James Butler, but there are similarities in the type of players that they are. His personality is like that too. Just a really eager and appreciative guy.

Q: Was Levi Paulsen’s injury in the spring? Was it bad?

FERENTZ: It wasn’t really bad. Levi is working back from it and we hope he will be full speed in August. I think we have to be mindful and take care of him. Cole Banwart has done a nice job and give us versatility.

Q: When is the first practice?

FERENTZ: It’s August 3rd. I am 100% sure of that one. It’s at 6:50 in the evening because we have finals that day.