Iowa football coach Kirk Ferentz believes the Hawkeyes have found the right formula for playing in a January bowl game. The Hawkeyes have won back-to-back games on New Years’ Day and will play Florida in the January second Outback Bowl in Tampa. Ferentz says the practice schedule will pick up once final exams are done later this week. He says they’ll finish finals and still have two full weeks to practice before the bowl game. Ferentz says this will allow them to not have to do anything during finals, and he says it will keep them from overpracticing the team. He says you can try to practice too much and the team can get bored with the game plan.
Ferentz says the current practice plan was developed after the Hawkeyes 38-17 loss to U-S-C in the Orange Bowl. He says the formula they have now makes them pretty comfortable and he thinks it will allow them to keep the team sharp. He says overpracticing can do more harm than good.
Ferentz says the key to getting ready for a bowl game is to mix fun activities with good workouts. He says the bottom line is you want to leave your last game believing you played your best game. He says the players felt they didn’t play that best game in the Orange Bowl and they are passing that on to the younger players.