IOWA CITY, Iowa — Iowa offensive coordinator Brian Ferentz met with the media on Wednesday for the first time since fall camp.
On Saturday, Iowa lost a close game to No. 24 Illinois 9-6. It was the second time this season that the Hawkeyes lost despite holding their opponent to 10 points or fewer.
One sequence from Saturday's defeat illustrates the dire offensive situation: In the second quarter, Iowa recovered a muffed Illinois punt at the Illini 41-yard line. The Iowa offense returned to the field, then punted after losing six yards. On the first play of Illinois' following offensive drive, linebacker Seth Benson recovered an Isaiah Williams fumble at the Illinois five-yard line. The offense lost four yards and was forced to kick a field goal.
The Iowa offense was blessed with two turnovers that moved the ball from their own 16-yard line to the Illini 5-yard line, and they came away with three points.
Ferentz's Iowa offense ranks last in numerous categories in the 131-team football bowl subdivision (FBS), including a yards-per-game average of 238.8 and a fourth-down conversion percentage of 0%.
The offense sits dead last in the Big Ten Conference in total yards, total rushing yards, total passing yards and total points scored.
After the 2021 season, in which the Iowa offense finished ranked 120th out of 130 teams in average yards, there was considerable optimism that the Hawkeyes could not get any worse, and could perhaps improve.
Instead, the offense has been an even greater eyesore.
For over a half hour, Ferentz faced considerable criticism surrounding his impotent offense but affirmed that he will not surrender his position of offensive coordinator.
Here is a selection of key moments from the press conference. A full-length transcript can be found here
Q. I could recite the stats and the rankings, but you probably already know them, and it doesn't really matter anyway. Is there a clear source of where the offensive issues start? Is it positional? Is it schematic? Is it you? Is it the play-calling? Is it your father? Is there one area you think you're looking at saying this is where the root of all this is?
FERENTZ: I think, unfortunately, we don't have a root cause. I think we have to look at everything. The reality is, as I just said, we all have ownership in it.
As simple as it sounds, the basic are the basics. If you just think about offensive football our job is to possess, advance, and score the football.
You have to start by possessing the football, so you look at turnovers to start. Certainly in the first two weeks those were huge problems in those games, right? We turned the ball over four times in two games. Every single one of those turnovers either took points off the board for us or put points on the board for our opponents.
I felt like we had addressed that, and I've seen marked improvement in that regard. The next thing you look at offensively is first down production. Are you staying on schedule? Are you staying ahead of the chains in those manageable situations? Are you being efficient on first down?
Right now, the reality is not consistently, which then leads to critical downs. So now you're going to need to stay on the field on third down or fourth down. Not doing that as well as we need to do and as consistently as we can.
Then on top of it, right, that's going to limit your ability to move the ball down the field. Are you creating those red-zone possessions? When you are, are you scoring touchdowns? Are you scoring points? That hasn't been consistent enough.
If you are not doing any of those things, then you better be banking on explosive plays. At times that's gotten us out of trouble. We've hit some big plays that have gotten us out of bad situations, but that's not the kind of world you want to be living in on a consistent basis.
I look at all 11 spots. I look at the coaching. I look at the scheme. I look at everything, and I say we have to do better in all regards. How do we put our players in better positions to be successful in those opportunities, right?
How do we execute better when we have those opportunities, and how do we make the makeable plays at the end of the day?
Q. You had nine months to try to improve this offense after not-so-good numbers last year. Why do you think it's since then regressed for all the ways that you have just pointed out?
FERENTZ: Sure. The hard part is, like I just told Scott, it's very difficult to pinpoint one issue. When we've been good in certain places, we haven't executed in other places. The reality of offensive football is it takes 11 guys. It takes 11 guys, and then it's more than that if you include the play caller, right?
We all have a hand in it. The clear explanation or clear issue, clear root, I wish I could give you one. The reality is we've got a lot of issues that we're working to address right now, and it starts up front, continues outside.
Really the tight end position I feel like the production has been good there. It's hard to point the finger at those guys.
There's plenty of examples where we can block better, we can run routes better, we can catch the ball better. Okay, we can run the football better at the running back position or we can throw the ball better at the quarterback position.
It's a culmination of all 11 things that lead to some of those issues. That's what we're working hard to address.
Q. How do you evaluate yourself as a play caller?
FERENTZ: How do I evaluate myself as a play caller? It's pretty simple. Are we doing the three things that I mentioned at the beginning. Are we possessing, advancing, and scoring the football?
I don't think we're doing any of those things very consistently right now, so how I would evaluate myself is I need to improve. I need to work on ways to get better. How do I help the guys do those things? How do I put us in positions to be successful and to advance the football without taking unnecessary risk, and then certainly we get down in the low red area, we need to score. We need to score touchdowns. We're looking to score touchdowns. Certainly, field goals are preferable to the alternative, but touchdowns are the goal.
My evaluation, I need to do better. How do I find ways to make us more successful and improve as we move into the next six games?
Q. When you evaluate quarterback Spencer Petras, nobody else has taken a snap. You have talked and Kirk has talked about a lot of confidence in Alex Padilla. Yet, when the offense continues to struggle week after week after week, why not make the change just to make a change, just to change something up?
FERENTZ: I don't disagree with the philosophy of changing for change's sake. I think it has been effective for people. I think it exists in the world. It's like any philosophy. You can point to times it's successful. You can point to times it's not successful.
Just like sticking with somebody, right? That's going to cut both ways at some point as well. It's not a philosophy that we adhere to.
Since I've been a part of this program -- so I have 16 years in this program as player or a coach. You know, our philosophy is we begin the season. We're in it together at that point. We can get to the end of the season and worry about making changes for change's sake, and we've done that from time to time. I think back to 2014, the 2014 season, got to the end of that season, and certainly made a change.
But right now the best way I can describe the quarterback position is this: It's like any position on our football team. We're evaluating everybody all the time on everything. The quarterback position is very simple. Who can do the job the absolute best?
What are we looking at? We're looking at metrics. Not just games. Practice. You're talking about decisions, reads, timing, location, all those things. The good news with the quarterback position it's very tangible. There's not a lot of gray area when you are grading those factors.
So the reality is we do like Alex. We would feel comfortable with Alex in the game. We feel like he is a good player, but the reason that Spencer is our quarterback is we feel like he gives us the best chance to win.
Q. When you look at the Big Ten, things have changed quite a bit where you have seen two assistant coaches fired this week, you've seen two head coaches fired, including one that was quite a shocker, or at least to me. Have you had any concern about your position and based on the success or lack thereof of the offense, and have you considered stepping down because of that lack of success?
FERENTZ: Okay, so I will start, number one, with the last part of the question. In my opinion, it doesn't make it right. There's two options in life in any situation. You can surrender, and if you surrender, then I think the results are pretty much guaranteed. Or you can dig in, you can continue to fight, and you can try to improve and do things better.
I will always choose option A. Done it in my personal life. Done it in my professional life. I wouldn't be able to go home and look my children in the eye if I wasn't an option B person. I think I said option A. I started with option surrender, right? That's not me. Let me be crystal clear about that. That's number one.
Number two, to the other question, you know, look, in this business, we all signed up for this. This is a results-driven business. It has been since the minute I entered it. None of this is a new phenomenon.
Things that go on outside of this program never surprise nor shock me. Ever. Because this is the world we live in. This is the life we chose. You have to get results. Otherwise, they will move on to people who will. That's the way it is.
You add onto it my emotional ties to this place. I already referenced it, player or coach, 16 years here. Was born in a hospital across the street, spent my entire childhood wanting to run out in that Swarm and got to do it, and now got to coach here. I love this place. There is a responsibility and a privilege that comes with being a coach here or being a player here. I feel that deeply.
There's another layer for me. My father is the head coach. I've been answering questions about nepotism my entire adult life. None of that is new to me either.
I would flip it and say if you think that I don't feel an added responsibility or added pressure to perform well for my father, you are crazy. Of course, I feel that. I'm a human being.
But at the end of the day, what you can't let happen is worrying about anything that's not going to help you do your job.
I learned that very early in my career: Keep your eyes on the road. Keep your eyes where they need to be. Keep your feet where you are and worry about doing your job as well as you possibly can regardless of circumstance, regardless of what's going on around you. Keep your focus there. Pour your effort into that. Whatever happens, happens. Do the best you can where you are at with what you got, and you won't have any regrets.
That's what I was taught at an early age. I continue to live by that. So I don't worry about what's going on other places.
Quite frankly, I don't worry about what's going on for my job status or anything like that. My focus is on the staff, the players, and doing my duty to the best of my ability to help them be successful.
Q. Along those lines, do you think that in terms of your job evaluation that that's been influenced by the fact that the head coach is your father?
FERENTZ: You would have to ask the head coach. I don't think anything. That would be a question for him. I don't want to speak for anyone else.
Q. I wanted to ask about the quarterback. What would be the downside of -- I know we've talked about this. What's the downside of going with Alex? You still have Spencer on the team. What would be the downside of giving him a shot?
FERENTZ: The downside of --
Q. Making a change at quarterback.
FERENTZ: What would be the upside?
Q. Making a change. I'm just asking.
FERENTZ: I'm not trying to be coy. What I'm saying is -- I think I addressed that, Scott, when you asked the question -- what's the downside? I'm not interested in making a change for change's sake. What I'm looking at is I'm saying what's the upside?
I don't know. There's unknown there. I know what Spencer has done. I know what Spencer can do, and I know what he does every day. That's the evaluation piece that we were talking about. That's what the decision is made on.
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