Iowa heads into its bye week on a two-game losing streak after stumbling on the road at Illinois, 9-6. Afterwards, Iowa head football coach Kirk Ferentz was asked to share his defense of current offensive coordinator Brian Ferentz.
“He’s a good football coach. I thought Greg Davis was good in ’14. He got killed and we ended up, you know, having a pretty good year the next year, so, you know, he’s a good football coach. We’ve had three good coordinators now in my opinion and we’ve got to play better. We have to do what we can to help our players. As coaches, we have to do better to try to help them and we’ll try to move forward. It’s easy to point fingers and just call people out. I don’t think I’ve ever operated that way in 23 years and don’t intend to right now,” Ferentz said.
Brian Ferentz and the Iowa offense’s performance has been a common critique of the Hawkeyes dating back to the end of last season. It intensified throughout the spring and offseason and it feels as if it’s at its boiling point within the fan base now.
The media and fan base wants answers for why the Hawkeyes have scored seven or fewer points on six different occasions within the past calendar year. Ultimately, the fan base wants change from an offense that currently ranks 127th out of 131 teams nationally in scoring offense and dead last in total offense.
Asked if he would reconsider an in-season coaching change as Iowa heads into the bye, Kirk Ferentz pointed to the Hawkeyes’ success from last season as one reason why it’s unnecessary.
“Making the change? No, no, no, no. I mean, we won 10 games last year. I don’t know if you’re aware of that, but…so, I look at that, and we’ve won a lot of games since 2015. So, you know, we’re not doing well enough right now. I think that’s fairly obvious and we’re going to work on solutions, figure out what we can do to get better,” Ferentz said.
It’s not as though Kirk doesn’t acknowledge Iowa’s offensive shortcomings, he’s just not going to be making any wholesale changes following the Illinois loss any time soon.
“I’ll just say like every season’s a new season. Every team’s a new team and these guys have a good football team. So, and we knew that coming in. We knew that. Got a lot of respect for them and so it’s a loss. It’s a tough loss, but, no, we are who we are right now and we can’t change dramatically but hopefully we can find some ways to be more effective. To the point earlier, I think you don’t have to be a rocket scientist to understand we need to score more points,” Ferentz said.
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