Kirk Ferentz Post Game Press Conference - 9/7/24

obviously just you know tough loss for our football team and um you know it's uh it kind of gets back to this rivalry it's basically what it's advertised you know tough hard fought games and uh you know they're unpredictable and certainly uh over the last x amount of years it's been been really close and uh they played a really good game credit to them you know compliments to them the way they competed did a great job and we came up short so uh you know most important thing you it's going to hurt for a while and we're going to have to move forward and see what we can do to um you know build off of this and I'll get to that in a second but um you know just a couple takeaways uh you know in the first half our defense played really well came up with two field goals uh one was off really good field position the other was after a really nice drive and uh had an opportunity you know at least on one of those maybe to get a touchdown and to come up with two field goals there it's a couple missed opportunities and you know came back and got us a little bit and then um you know we threw a pick in the first half or excuse me the start of the second half um you know which was not a total Calamity we you know gave them the ball in the plus or minus 25 they had 75 to go but uh really what happened there they had a couple possessions where they moved the ball and scored touchdowns to their credit uh was happy at the way the offense responded after their first touchdown we came back and drove it and answered with the touchdown so that was certainly encouraging um but you know just came up short here at the end they did a good job moving the ball and credit to their field goal kicker at 55 yard field goal is you know pretty impressive effort on his part so we played cleaner football uh you had the one turnover couple penalties but certainly cleaner two penalties I guess I thought our guys played hard thought they prepared hard and um you know so that's that's kind of it in a enough shell right now um You the biggest thing right now for our football team we still got 12 weeks in front of us 10 games and you you never want to lose a game certainly but the biggest thing is like any Time of the Season you know it's how you're going to respond to it and it's important for our guys to understand I think we have a good football team here we have good leadership good coaching staff and you know when loser draw you got to move forward in response so this one's going to hurt for a while but uh we'll move forward and learn from it tomorrow and go back to work on Monday I'll throw it out for questions start with Tom Tom ker Hawkeye Report Kirk can you um there's different philosophies on the going for two and when you go for it can you explain your decisions there yeah I mean it's I think maybe the debate would be you know is it too early that type of thing we that put us at 197 thought it gave us our best chance to win the football game and to me the bigger issue is us not at least getting one touchdown out of those two field goal opportunities and we had the ball down inside there close you know so that's obviously an era we're going to have to improve on Kirk Elliot K Hawkeye Beacon I think correct me if I'm wrong I think Cade went four of 20 for his last 20 passes um sure did something maybe go ay were they doing you know getting after him in the back like what what did you see there yeah I mean you know football is a game of momentum and swings and um you know they they've played good defense ever since you know Coach Campbell and Coach hok got there so they made it tough on us you know they made it tough and we we probably missed some plays maybe some misreads or miss some plays where we maybe could have averted that but that that's going to be part of football and we'll have to ride that ride that a little bit but as I said last week too I think you know I've been saying it for a while now you know he's working his way back he's still uh you know trying to get back in game shape if you will or game mode and uh he's working hard and I think you know confident he'll do just fine post game in the lock back here sorry postgame in the locker room describe to us what you said to the team yeah I mean there's not a lot you can't say so you know you can't make anybody feel any better and um you when you work hard and you know everybody's got a lot invested in this game it's a big game for everybody in the State certainly no bigger for anybody than the players on both sides and the coaches so uh after a loss like this it's tough and there's not much you can say to make anybody feel better that's the first thing you say and you know it's going to it's going to hurt for a while but at some point we've got to turn our attention to learning from it and then the most important thing again is going to be flipping the page and that's you know sometime tomorrow night or Monday morning for sure and move on to the next opponent John seie C Rapids cuzette um you've had now one game with Kade that went well another that hasn't gone so well where do you kind of see things standing at the quarterback position with him and Brandon moving forward probably the way I did coming into the stadium today you know I think uh you know we expect him to be our quarterback and expect some ups and downs I've been saying it pretty consistently you know he's still working his way back into to shape and um you know as as as our whole team with the offense and whatever but we we'll get better we'll improve our guys have a great attitude he's got a great attitude and you know we'll work through this Chris me the daily ien um Caleb Johnson obviously had a really good game around 200 total yards uh despite losing this game can you just talk about what he did for your team today yeah absolutely and that that's part of football you know he's played well for us the last two years but he's he's playing a much higher level right now part of his maturity you know his focus is better he's practicing better um you know I think he's it's experience maturity you know he's he's been here a couple years he's run the football worked hard uh to get better and it's it's showing out there in the field he made some really nice plays today and uh it's one thing to be encouraged about I think there's a lot to be encouraged about now we just got to pull it all together and and get it to mesh in Jael coach Dan Stacy Sports cast media do you make any major changes this week in practice or is it business as usual after after or this coming week do you make any do you make any main nothing no just do things a little bit better and uh it's like anytime you know I mean just the whole whether we win more lose the idea is to get a little bit better take the experiences that we've gained and you know you get talked about this last week you know game experience is different than practice so this is a whole another uh chapter here for us to learn from and the biggest thing is what can you take away from that you know what do you learn in the meetings tomorrow when we look at the tape and uh then you make your improvement in the during the week of preparation and then hope it shows up when you compete the next next opportunity Scott Doan the athletic I wanted to ask you about your two red zone opportunities inside the five that ended up with field goals seemed like I think both drives up until the final play of the second one you had either 23 Personnel 14 Personnel just depending on how you classify one of the players um was that the plan kind of all week when you got in that position you wanted to go with that kind of personnel grouping and uh and and kind of what's your ultimate thought about that going forward sure yeah in a general sense yeah uh that'd be the answer but then um you always have you know Plan B and C just in case and it depends how the game's going what those situations look like and uh you know I'll obviously be re-evaluating that again after tomorrow when we look at the film and see you know see what we need to do to do better but it's it's just an ongoing thing yeah but you want to have those things available certainly down in there things are pretty tight and um you know there a couple plays there that obviously we could have executed better that pushed us back set us back so um you know that's that's going to be part of the challenge as we go forward Chad Li to C Mo register um obviously every yard mattered at the end there um you took a delay of game instead of calling timeout right before your last punch was that something you thought about you what was your thought process I guess in letting the clock expire and then of course they get the ball you know yeah I mean we weren't going to go for it there I was just you know we're going to have to punt the football so yardage really wasn't oh we could have I didn't think yardage was very significant at that point in the field you where we're at we're in Midfield so six to one half doesn't really there's really no benefit unless I'm missing something I don't know maybe I'm missing missing your questionid 41 maybe something like that yeah I mean he he could punt the ball of the end zone you know it just it didn't matter the yardage really wasn't important but to your point we could have I mean we took a couple timeouts home with us so coach uh John Sears W TV uh every loss stings but when you have a game like this where you're up 13 and a half mentioned the two Red Zone opportunities final drive just needed a first down something like this sting a little more because it felt like you let it slip away when it was there to be had yeah I mean both yeah both teams had opportunities credit to them for fighting back the way they did but yeah I mean they all sting first of all and uh you know I guess given a choice between losing a game like this or just getting blown out I think I'd rather be in a competitive game but it it hurts regardless you know and the biggest thing again just it's going to circle back to what are we going to learn from this what we going to take away from this and how can we better in the be better in the next uh you know next time we're in a game like this cuz we'll we'll be in more of these you know it's just the way it goes take a couple more Kirk uh Tyler tashman with the de Mo register I can't imagine there's been too many halves that opposing teams have scored 20 on the defense is what I mean what did you maybe see Iowa State do to to kind of make that happen I mean basically uh those first two possessions um the first two touchdown drives you know one was a was a big play a single big play the second one I believe and the other one was two two plays that really hurt us you know we let the uh uh Wing back tight end out uh he made a big big conversion then we let 18 run down the seam too so those are two you know that that that's that's the part that's you know um just like you know not scoring when you got the ball inside the five scoring a touchdown conversely on defense you know we really try to defend against big plays and that that's good evidence of why you know you want to make the other team work and uh that to means a bigger story there just you know the inability to defend those on those two possessions uh of the game we were doing pretty well but it's you know it's a 60-minute game and it's just part of the learning curve for us uh Adam shobe hawkey beac and Kirk this this team has been historically pretty great especially when they've got an eight-point lead I think the stats something like 72 and two did anything sort of feel different about this game as you know that second half was going along did it or I don't know I guess what was sort of different this time around well I mean no not really it uh like I said they got their first touchdown I was really happy the way we responded we took it what it was 79 yards I guess for a touchdown drive so that that's what you're looking for you know things are going to happen I we're playing good teams so they're you know they're going to have plays too and make plays uh so that response was really good then we just we weren't good enough the rest of the way to respond or continue to respond the way you need to even our last possession you know if you can get one more first down uh now you know it's never an issue of putting down there so just little things like that there you know we'll see all those tomorrow and talk about those tomorrow and typically when you lose a game that's that's the way it goes there are certain things you can point to they're going to make a big difference and uh you know sometimes those things get disguised or you know mated a little bit when you win games you know but uh that that's really the difference in in a game you know making them making them chunk it instead of you know going 10 plays instead of you know one or two plays that type of thing last question Kirk uh both of these games uh game against Illinois state in this game both have been in Taylor two halves um is there anything that uh you guys could do to just finally put a whole game together consistent game together or is it just kind of believe me we're trying to do that each and every game and uh that's that's just how Football goes sometimes you know it's hard to predict how it's going to play out every every game's a little bit different every uh scenario can be different so you know the bottom line is you're just trying to do your absolute best in all circumstances to you know you're going to have to weather tough times and we're going to have more of those coming during the season and then you know when you do get an opportunity to to go and you know be opportunistic having the ball down inside the five you know we need to come away with touchdowns because it's it's like walking a guy in the ninth inning in baseball usually that comes back and gets you it's amazing how that goes and things like that early in the game especially can be you know be consequential consequential thank you coach okay thank you see you on Thursday yep for Tuesday thank you thanks guys thank you walks will haunt