We head back to the early years under Kirk Ferentz for this weeks Hawkeye Conversation and catch up with former Iowa player A.J. Blazek. We discuss how he ended up at Iowa, moving into being a graduate assistant for the Hawkeyes after his playing career, and his journey as an assistant coach.
Q: Let’s start with the football journey for you. You start out at Butler Community College in Kanas and then end up at the University of Iowa.
BLAZEK: My grandpa was a long time high school coach in Iowa. My dad was a long time coach in Kansas, Missouri, and Nebraska, so when you grow up as a coaches kid, football is pretty important to you.
I was dying coming out of high school. If Ft. Hayes State would have offered me books, I was going. I just wanted to be on scholarship. It would have been a good fit and I was dying to get there, but they just didn’t have anything left.
I went to a couple of JUCO’s in Kansas over a weekend. Well, nobody really wanted a short slow linebacker, so I went for offensive line. Not that anyone wanted a short lineman, but it gave me a chance. Troy Morrow, who was a family friend, was the tight ends coach and so I went over there. It ended up going there and they covered the tuition and we covered the rest of it.
They told me they wanted me and that was important, so I committed to play there. I grew a little bit and got a chance to play with some unbelievable guys. We had a handful of guys who went on to have careers in the NFL, so we had coaches come in to see those guys and they found this guy with a flat top, ear ring wearing, wild offensive lineman. From there, my recruiting picked up and Fran Verducci, the offensive line coach for Hayden Fry really was the one that started looking at me.
At that point I was really looking at Northern Iowa and that was probably where I would have ended up.
After Hayden retired and Kirk was hired, I asked my dad if I was still going on my official visit? We called him and we talked to Amy Thomas, the recruiting secretary and she said, let me check and get back to you. That really wasn’t the answer we were looking for in the moment. (laugh) Then she called back and said, yeah, Kirk wants you to visit. That was when he had no assistant coaches hired and it was like the day or two after his press conference.
Thank goodness he was an offensive line coach. I came up my visit and it was him, Bobby Elliott took me around and did the tour with me. Then I met with Kirk and he said they were thin on the offensive line. He still jokes with me about not having to wear the cowboy boots and the big coat. I knew you weren’t very tall and you weren’t very big. He believed in the strength program they were going to have under Chris Doyle.
When he offered, he said we need a backup center and I had a scholarship offer. I had just come from a junior college and nobody wanted me 18 months ago to ok, I’ll take backup center and go run with it.
My family is all from southwest Iowa and Iowa fans, so for me to go to Iowa City was a big deal. I was a big Nebraska fan growing up in Big 8/12 country, but my family was all Iowa fans from the 80’s, so this was a big deal.
Q: Did you really wear the cowboy boots so you would look taller when you met Kirk?
BLAZEK: Absolutely. He still jokes with me about it. He asks if I still have those boots. I tell him I have two pair now. He always tells the story about how I wore an Arizona hat too. I had no idea they played Arizona the year before. He busts my chops about both those things.
Q: Your offensive line coach at Iowa is a guy named Joe Philbin. He’s done pretty well in his career. What was it like playing for him?
BLAZEK: When I signed on and moved there in January, I had an uncle who lived in the Quad Cities. He was long time Iowa supporter. I had kind of grown up with that.
I came up about a week or so before classes started and stayed with my uncle and we had a great time and then I moved in.
The staff was still kind of getting fully put together at that point. I think some of the older guys were still around. The players were great and helped me out.
I’ll never forget when Joe Philbin was hired. We all met with him and in that first meeting I sit down. I was a knucklehead at the time. Dennis Rodman was cool at the time and the Boz was cool too. I had a bleach blond flat top and an earring. I thought I was pretty cool with all that and a national title ring from junior college.
Joe is really sharp, but he’s not going to beat around the bush. He looks at me and says, hey big man, why don’t you go get a haircut, lose the ring, and come back and see me. I’m a coaches kid, so I walk out and I go get a haircut, take all the junk off, and start over. (laugh)
I have learned so much from Joe. He’s been amazing to me and still calls to check on me to this day. Last year he was working with the NFL and now he’s down in Dallas. He was such a cerebral teacher. I came from high energy coaches, which is probably why I am the way I am, but he was a cerebral teacher. He was patient with me and I learned so much in the two years I played for him and from the year I was with him as a student assistant.
I think he learned a lot from Kirk and those two saw eye to eye. You see the body of work he put together in developing the Nelson’s, the Steinbach’s, the Lightfoot’s, and Dave Porter. Some were projects and some were studs. It takes all kinds, even the small centers from a junior college. The fun of coaching offensive line is putting all that together and I learned that from Joe Philbin.
Q: At the same time, Chis Doyle comes into your life. They were immediately going to build around what he does in strength and conditioning. What was it like in those early years with Coach Doyle?
BLAZEK: I was lucky. I had a great defensive line coach at Butler, Steve Brandt. He has put a lot guys into the NFL over the years and we have a lot of speed, so when I got to Iowa, I could run a little bit and I had some hips.
I was never the biggest guy in the world, but I like strength and conditioning. It was a place I had a lot of confidence in as well. What Coach Doyle was bringing in during the transition was fine for me because it wasn’t like it was new to me at Iowa. What I learned at Iowa probably helped me in terms of a transition when I have went to coach at different places because I got to see what that was like from the perspective of the players at Iowa.
It was a shock and it was tough on a lot of guys. For me, I knew I was going to transition because I was coming from junior college and I was all in. With Chris and James Dobson leading the way, they were the high energy guys. They gave us an attitude.
I wasn’t a Big Ten player when I showed up at Iowa, but I felt like I could hold my own in the weight room at Iowa. I took a lot from Chris in my time there. In fact at my first job at Ft. Hayes, I was the offensive line coach and the strength coach. Not only did I take a lot from him during my time at Iowa, but I called him all the time for ideas when I was there. Chris was so far ahead of the curve in terms of what he was doing with mobility, flexibility, nutrition, and hydration. There is a reason why he has been so successful at Iowa.
Q: So you came in the winter?
BLAZEK: Yeah, I was there when Chris showed up. There were guy showing up in tank tops. We went from the beach club type workouts to we are all going to be in the same shirts and shoes. He was setting a standard and for me, I didn’t know anything different.
Q: What was spring ball like that year? You were learning, but you didn’t have any of the memory type things that other guys would have of well this is how Coach Fry ran practice.
BLAZEK: It was learning something that was completely different for everyone. The whole playbook was new. The staff was new. Everything was new. Even the stretching program was different.
I think Kirk did an awesome job of transitioning some of the history and traditions, but there were some things he wanted to clean up and sharpen up and that’s why it was a change for everyone. It was really fun to be a part of that. Glen Giesen was my host when I visited and a fellow JUCO guy. He comes jogging out to practice and he was as big of a man as I have ever seen. Glen jogs out to stretch and his alarm didn’t go off so he’s two minutes late to stretch. You see him job over to coach and he jogs right back off the field and he’s gone for the day. That set the tone for everyone.
Q: When did you know you were going to have a role as a starter in your first year?
BLAZEK: Chad Deal was the starter. My heart goes out to him. I think he had something like a sports hernia like every other week in the groin just go to play. That might get him in one game, but then I would play two.
He wasn’t doing great in fall camp and I ended up starting against Nebraska. I will never forget it We were at home and we got our butt kicked. They had some great players. Great dudes who were national champs. But, I didn’t care. I was excited to play at this level. I think the next week he played and then two weeks off. I had no business being out there at that point, but hey, I got to play a little bit. I never saw myself as a real starter at that point, but that’s why you keep working and keep challenging yourself to get better.
We go into the winter that year and I’m there with Steinbach, Nelson, and Gallery. Those guys were basically coming from tight ends and could run and I’m sort of the black sheep of that group. In the spring, they moved me around to guard. Joe Philbin always liked to move guys around and I really grew to appreciate that about him more than others did. That really motivated me because I was kind of a backup guard all spring and into the summer. We were a week into fall camp and Steinbach rolls his ankle. He was at center and way more talented than me. That opened up the window for me and when he came back we moved him over to guard. I think maybe him and Alonzo Cunningham were the two guards at that point. Maybe it was Lightfoot.
I kind of ran with it from there and my attitude changed and I kind of ran with it from there. I never considered myself a real starter until the early part of my senior season.
Q: How tough was it that first year because there weren’t any crooked numbers going up on the left side of the win/loss column?
BLAZEK: There weren’t many points going up either. (laugh)
Q: Which one was tough that first year, the Nebraska game or the one that Ken O’Keefe always goes back to as the Jurrasic Park game against Michigan State?
BLAZEK: There are all kinds of stories that go into every week and now as a coach it helped me go into every situation that I have been put into.
With that Nebraska game, you go into that one thinking we are going to fight our tails off and we think we are going to win that game. You have to think that way. But, they were good and you move on.
With the Northern Illinois game, really that one saved the season because had we not gotten that one, I don’t know what happens. I think Scott Mullen might still have the all-time record for passing yards in a game and we still lost to Indiana and Randle-El.
The Michigan State game, yeah, that was another one. Trust me, after just being at Rutgers and having to do a turnaround, it’s the same thing. I think we had a Michigan State game there where we might have had 39 snaps in a game. I have been through it as a coach and a player and I think as a player you are kind of blind to some stuff and optimistic that we are going to get this thing turned. I think with some of the younger guys, you rally around a little bit and say it’s going to take a little bit, but we are brought into this.
Q: Maybe it wasn’t what I would call a turning point in the first year, but you guys really played Minnesota to the very end in a close game in the final game of the season. Did that kind of help you and was that important going into the off-season?
BLAZEK: I think it was. It was pretty clear for the seniors that the year was over. That’s where you see the seniors really stepping up. They were really optimistic towards the end of the year. You go into the off-season and you feel a little bit better and you feel better about training and thinking you can turn this in the next year.
Q: Next year is your senior year, there’s a guy named Bob Sanders that arrives on campus. How soon did you realize that was a different guy that just showed up in Iowa City?
BLAZEK: No doubt about it. He didn’t say anything. He shows up to practice and it’s just one speed. It’s always just one speed. He would knock your tail off in t-shirts and he would knock your tail off in pads. We don’t win a non-conference game and at least the year before we got one of those.
So we are playing Michigan State and I tell my guys this all the time about how things can change, when he knocked the helmet off the kick returner against Michigan State, I don’t care if it was Beutjer’s first game or not, that set the tempo for the football team. We win that game. That set the tempo and then guys like Colin Cole and Fred Barr, those guys defensively just started to rise up.
Q: I always point to that Michigan State game in year two as the point where everyone really started to believe a little bit more. Kirk got pretty emotional after that one and spoke about how special it was for the players and coaches who invested.
BLAZEK: It gave everyone hope that it was going in the right direction. We were on a four game skid, I think, to start the year and then we ended up that year winning two of the last three beating Penn State in double OT and Northwestern, which knocked them out of the Rose Bowl. Those are the ones that really launched that off-season and then it really took off from there.
Q: As you wrapped up your playing career, did you kind of sense big things were ahead for Iowa football?
BLAZEK: Did I think they would be in the Orange Bowl two years later? No. But, I stayed around and coached at Iowa for the next four years, so to be part of the transition was really neat. To be part of those first couple of years was really special.
People don’t realize how Kirk treats all of us, especially those guys that were there in the first couple of years. For five or six years we would get something in the mail from him with something that said you started this. You would get a little memento from Kirk as a thank you for getting this thing started. That’s why so many former players, even guys that didn’t play a lot, are so invested and care so much for the program.
Q: Coaching is in your blood. You dabbled in the Arena League in Chicago for a year, but Kirk puts you on as a student assistant and then graduate assistant. What was that transition like because some of those guys were your old teammates and now you are coaching them?
BLAZEK: The fun part for me is I’ve always thought that guys who are willing to do to junior college are willing to do anything to play the game. When I was done, I wasn’t ready to be done. I talked to Coach Ferentz and asked him if I had a shot and he said slim and none. I appreciated that honesty. I had six or seven games under my belt in the Arena League in Chicago before my class was drafted. I was still in college and making a $1,000 a week. I thought I was the richest guy in the world.
I came back as a student coach the next year to help with the offensive line with Joe Philbin and Jon McLaughlin, who was the GA. Jon married my wife and I. We are best of friends and lived together when we were GA’s. It was a fun transition for me and it was interesting. At that time, Brian Ferentz was a young guy coming up, so we were close. When I was a GA, it was me, him, and Elgin just about every day having lunch at Pancheros and then go watch tape.
I really enjoyed it because in that position I really got to help the younger guys. I still stay in touch with Mike Elgin and Brian and I text regularly. Kirk bringing me back and then my second year as a GA, Phil Parker and Norm took me as a secondary GA. I didn’t know what the routes were or anything and Phil took me in and I will tell you the six months of work in the secondary was the best six months of my last 25 years because I learned so much and it forced me out of my box.
Q: You brought up Norm. Everyone has a story…
BLAZEK: I have about a hundred of them. (laugh) He’s one of the best. There was nothing better than golfing with Norm.
Q: I still don’t think even as great as he was, sometimes that greatness gets washed away a little bit because he was also such a character.
BLAZEK: They see that because that’s what they see. You talk to Greenway, Hodge, and all those guys. You talk to our head coach here, Matt Entz. We were playing against the triple option when we were at Winona State and we had gone down to watch bowl prep the year before for the Orange Bowl against Georgia Tech.
We went down and he has his defensive guys playing the positions in the triple option and running those plays for two days. Basically, he taught them the offense so they could play defense against it. They put up huge numbers all year with that offense and we just stuffed them in that game. We watched that and said, I don’t know if they can play any defense, but they sure know how to run the triple option. (laugh)
I still use the notes from Norm. Those were hand written notes. He was never worried about the fluff. He was worried about the substance. I think that’s what players loved about him.
Q: You were working on the defensive side in '02, but how much satisfaction did you take from seeing the way that offensive line performed? Those were guys who were your teammates and you had coached them the year before.
BLAZEK: That junior year when I was playing and shouldn’t have been, neither was 247 pound Bruce Nelson at left tackle. That guy was out there against great players and you know why they turned out to be good? Because they learned under fire. Kirk took all the heat.
You think about the first staff. I remember reading all those articles. Ron Aiken is one the legendary defensive line coaches in all of college football. Norm Parker, a legend. Look at what Phil Parker has done. Joe Philbin went on to be a coordinator on a Super Bowl winning team and be a head coach in the NFL. We can look back on it now, but at the time, it wasn’t sexy, as Kirk would say. He didn’t hire guys to get recruits. He hires guys to win football games. They teach and develop and I think that gets lost in this business now. Too many people hire coaches to win recruits and guess what you might get the recruits, but if you can’t teach them then they can’t play. If you look at why some of the blue blood programs aren’t competing for national titles now, they have talent, but it’s because they aren’t there teaching year in and year out and keeping the same guys around. Guys will develop and learn, but if you give them a different guy every year for five years, they aren’t going to develop and learn. That the genius of what Kirk has done. He has hired guys that want to be at Iowa and fit Iowa. The guys that didn’t end up fitting weren’t around there very long. The one’s that did, boy those guys got better and developed. If Reese Morgan touched it, they got great. If Reese was an athletic trainer, we wouldn’t have an injured guy all year. He cared about the program and being at Iowa. He wasn’t worried about going somewhere else or finding the next job.
Q: Your last season at Iowa was 2004. That season was so crazy with all the injuries and then that team ends up winning a share of a Big Ten title and caps it off with the win on the Cap One Bowl. What was it like coaching that year?
BLAZEK: The last play I coached at Iowa was Tate to Holloway. I mean, that will never happen like that again.
You might coach one successful Hail Mary in your whole career and honestly, that one play was so symbolic of that team and that year. Holloway catches the only touchdown of his career. Drew Tate was too short and ends up being great. He was a coaches kid. Who else would you want in that situation? You want the backyard kid who can draw it up on the fly and be cool and calm.
Q: After that you hit Ft. Hayes and then Winona State. Did you feel like you were kind of ready to leave the nest and spread your wings a little bit?
BLAZEK: We are going down to Orlando for the bowl game and in prep for the game and I talked to Kirk and told him I had gotten a call from Ft. Hayes, which is a D2 school in Kansas. They had been down a bit and their AD was my AD at Butler in junior college. He said he was hiring a new coach and they called me and thought about maybe looking into the NFL on the personnel side and with Kirk’s connections I probably could get in the door. Then this pops up to coach the offensive line and his advice was, well you could go do the NFL because it looks cool to everyone else or you could get your own group, coach them and develop them. His word was like gold to me and I said, ok, I’m going to Ft. Hayes and coach kids.
We got back from the bowl game and then I think about four days later I loaded up the truck and was headed to Kansas.
Q: In 2016 you join the staff at Rutgers. How quickly did you look at the schedule and see Iowa was on there?
BLAZEK: First thing I did before I took the job. (laugh)
It had kind of come full circle for me. Thankfully for me that game was at Rutgers because had it have been at Iowa, I mean it would have been fun, but it would have been tougher for me to go back there and coach in a different color in Kinnick. It was fun. It was like being the little brother and you got to play in the big kids game that day. My big brother was across the way. The first thing I did after we showered up was to go find Kirk and Mary was on the trip too and then visited with Phil for about 30 minutes after the game. That was the fun part of the day. It was a fun game and close game. But, I couldn’t get big brother that day.
Q: You had some familiar faces on that staff with Lester Erb joining you at Rutgers and also Jay Niemann, even though he wasn’t at Iowa with you his son’s played for Iowa.
BLAZEK: We had some stories to swap. It was fun. Jay and I didn’t know each other until he got to Rutgers. You talk about a long time guy. He was at Simpson and Drake. He is all about the state of Iowa. It was fun to watch him because he was all about his boys. It’s telling that so many coaches kids end up at Iowa. You look at Greg Mattison, a great defensive coordinator, who does he send his son to? Norm, who he was a GA for back in the day. A lot of coaches kids end up at Iowa because of the consistency is going to be there. You see the same thing up here at NDSU, because you know the kids are going to get developed and treated well.
I got to watch Jay be a dad from a far and I know that’s coming for me as a dad because I won’t be able to watch my kids play every game. Jay handled that as well as anyone could have. We would be in the locker room at halftime and he would want to get a look at the BTN and see what the score was for the Iowa game. That’s the dad in him.
Q: In 2017 Iowa has an opening. You have talked about this a bit, but you might have had an opportunity to come back at that point. How tough was it weighing your love for Iowa with the idea that you have talked about, not wanting to be a job hopper type coach that bounces around.
BLAZEK: That’s the biggest thing. I have four younger kids. I have the best wife in the world who grew up in Tama. That was the hardest part of the whole deal was the opportunity to be back closer to grandma and grandpa. Then being at Iowa and being able to be back with Kirk. With every move I made, I always leaned on Kirk’s advice and took off.
We talked about it and talked with Brian, but I had been at Rutgers for about nine months. Had it been two or three years…timing is everything. There were other openings before that and it wasn’t the right fit for me to come back. We have always been able to keep that stuff professional and Kirk has always been ultra-supportive of me. It was a tough decision for me, but it just wasn’t the right time and had I done that I wouldn’t be where I am right now and this is really the right place for me and my family right now.
Q: You and Matt Entz go way back coaching together, so I’m guessing heading to NDSU was a pretty easy decision for you?
BLAZEK: For me the money is never the core of the decision. Being at Rutgers was hard. The first year was probably harder than the last two. For me it was just so different than any other place I had been as far as it was long way to go. It would have been easy to jump ship, but I really learned a lot. I learned a lot from Chris Ash as far as recruiting and football. The biggest thing I have learned is winning and losing isn’t just coaching. Sometimes it’s culture and administration and things like that. Everything has to be in the right order. Here at NDSU, our school president travels with us to games. I know him on a first name basis and when they know you on a first name basis, that’s a good sign. When the AD is really involved, that’s a good sign.
When you look at things here, yeah, they have had three different head coaches in the past few years, but half the staff has stayed the same. They are developing players here that play in the NFL. My son is on the sidelines with me and those type of things don’t happen at Rutgers. It’s really been a blessing and I will tell you the group of lineman that I have back has a chance to be special. We were talking about the 2002 season at Iowa and there’s that picture of the group of lineman running off the field together, I actually sent that picture to my six seniors on the offensive line. I’m really excited for the season and getting the chance to coach this group this year.
Q: How quickly do you check for the Iowa score every week?
BLAZEK: I check it. But, I probably check our league first and then I check in on Columbia where Jon McLaughlin is coaching and South Dakota for Abdul Hodge and Bob Nielsen. I check Winona State and also Iowa and Rutgers to keep track. Iowa is still home base for me. It’s where I started and the head man was there for me and he’s still the guy for me and Iowa is still close to my heart.
