Brian Ferentz wishes the focus was on Iowa's players, not him

well I I think the answer is very simple right I made a commitment um to this football team to this football program and like I said in my statement I I intended to honor that commitment feel like I've done that uh and fully anticipate doing that for the next three four days whatever it is and then you know cross the other bridge when I get there but you know this this place is important to me the University of Iowa is important to me the football program is important to me um and it so important that I you know I finished the right way and did my job right hi Brian hope you're doing well um going back to October was it something that you were anticipating was their dialogue leading what was kind of dialogue leading up to the decision that Beth made I'm I'm not sure I understand that question John in terms of where their conversations ahead of time how did you find out what was kind of the process of that kind I would direct those questions to Beth um you know like I said my my focus has been on our football team and our players and and doing my job and getting them ready to play football games and trying to help them be in position to be successful and win games so that's where I kept my focus uh during the season that's where I've kept my focus since October that's where I intend to keep my focus for the coming days any questions for hey Brian um Kirk uh talked to yesterday about how he just appreciated you know everything you put into the program um what uh you know what does it mean for you to finish it out with him here in Orlando um I know it was emot it seemed to be emotional too at the Illinois game um walking out of kenck with a win and I just wondered how special that was to you and what do it mean to win this game uh well you know I think the the emotion of the Illinois game was quite simply that uh you know These Guys these players they set a goal at the beginning of the season and that was to win the Big 10 you know un fortunately we came up short in that regard uh but but the best we could do at the time was win the Big 10 West and give ourselves a chance to do that uh in order to to do that we need to beat Illinois when we won that game um I think the emotion that you saw with everyone on the sideline was you saw a bunch of players that have worked really hard and accomplished their goals and you know quite frankly um probably what I resent the most about this situation is that the focus has come off of our football players who have really accomplished some tremendous things this year um and it's gone on to things that just quite simply don't matter they're trivial and silly um in my opinion and you know for whatever reason the focus has gone there instead on of on a bunch of players who worked really hard overcome a lot of adversity and dealt with a lot of nonsense to win 10 football games and put themselves into position to win the 11th which I think would be the fourth time in the history of the school that that's happened so um yeah I quite frankly I think that's where the focus should be that's where I'd like it to be um I can't control what what you guys guys do or what other people say um but but I think we're really missing something it's it's pretty special that's going on the right here Weir to the left Logan I'll ask you a question is there a sense on the team to is there a sense among the guys on especially on the offensive side to win one for Brian fence um I wouldn't say our goal is to win for Brian I think it's just to winner for our team you know that's what we came here to do we have a great opportunity to do that against a good Tennessee team you know obviously it's going to be emotional you know you get to play for a guy like coach Brian it means a lot I mean you got a coach who who who stop by and say hi to your mom you know have a conversation with her you know she'll come to me after the game and say how much that means to her so you know you have a guy like coach Brian who gets to come in and do that and just the type of man he is that means a lot to me I know it means a lot to my mom too I bet he does it with every you know player on the offensive side defensive side of the ball it just says a lot about him so yeah I think it's going to be very very emotional game for us and you know we're going to go out there and try and play our best football this is for both you all um when you look at Tennessee specifically James Pierce what what stands out about what he gets done Logan start yeah I mean you look at these guys they're they're in the SEC you know they got a lot of talent you know they're a talented group and you know we're going to do our best to go out there and try and play our best football cuz we have yet to do so and you know that's our goal um they're big strong talented guys probably five star guys right you know we don't have guys like that so it's just a great opportunity for our guys up front you know our offense to go out there and you know like I said just try and play our best football I'll piggy back that just talk about their their whole defense right I think you know everything for them starts with their front they get those big guys right and um you know I think our leads changed a little bit we've seen some more defenses like that as time gone on right with some of the bigger guys up front uh especially in the interior but I think what makes these guys interesting is you know they get the big guys up front they get the the the two backers they're really pretty good players and then they're playing with those DBS they can be a little bit fluid uh with what they're showing you and I think a Real Testament to them you know just structurally um and I mean this as a as a huge compliment they they change week to week they can present different looks uh based on the game based on the team they're playing you know they can choose to play a couple different ways they can change the they can change the coverage structure they're really fluid in those things and they do a nice job of it uh they can really create some challenges with you for the pictures you're seeing up front um or in the back end with the coverage so I think one of the big challenges for us this week is going to be trying to identify very early on you know what their game plan is against us uh because I think it'll look different than maybe what we've seen on tape week to week there's obviously going to be elements of it uh but this has been a tough preparation because you can't just say hey uh it's not like playing our defense where it's like hey this is what they're going to do we know that they're going to match it up against what we are but it's going to look like this on game day now we got to beat it um there's an omen these guys have some really good players but then there's a structural component that's a little bit of a question mark right now um and we probably won't know until about 8 n 10 plays into that first quarter exactly what it's going to look like and then make sure we're dialed in and seeing those pictures clearly and attacking them the way that we want to attack them back to