IOWA CITY, Iowa — Kirk Ferentz is entering his 22nd season as the head coach for the Iowa Hawkeyes. He’s the longest tenured coach in college football. He isn’t one to make drastic changes. That’s been evident in his systems and how he operates the program, but right now change is exactly what Kirk Ferentz is calling for.
"I just you know I think all of us would have hoped. We've come a little further than maybe what we've witnessed and been exposed to so that's certainly disappointing. And, you know, it's really just a illustration of how far we have to go as a country there's still a lot of work to be done. Football is important to us but what's going on in real life certainly impacts all of us and. And this, this particular instance right now. I think the important thing is that everybody in our program. Every one of our coaches, our support staff, our players, even our fans realize that change is really really needed right now, and it's in our hands to try to do something with it.”
Now we are still dealing with Covid-19 and as his players make their return to team activities, Ferentz says his focus is on making sure the student athletes are being smart and healthy outside of the Hawkeyes’ facility.
“One of my concerns is probably my biggest concern but this way every day that you're in any normal year. You know what happens when the players leave, and I had this slot weeks ago I know we talked about our coaching meetings too you know one thing we can do a pretty good job of is controlling the controllables so when they are there in our facility at least we know there's going to be good hygiene practices there's going to be thorough cleaning. And we can kind of instruct them on terms of you know distancing all those types of things. So you really minimize the risk a little bit at least you have an opportunity to do that. But it is those other you know 22 hours a day or 21 hours a day that I'm concerned about.”