Iowa coach Kirk Ferentz is not contemplating a change at quarterback as the Hawkeyes get ready for this week’s visit to Northwestern. Senior starter James Vandenberg struggled in Iowa’s blowout loss to Penn State.
“To evaluate what happened Saturday, any one player’s performance or job status, that would be tough to do, because there wasn’t much that went well,”Ferentz says.”To try to say that it was one person or one area I think would be missing the boat.
Ferentz says it would not be fair to put all of the blame on Vandenberg. “It was a thorough beating we experienced, and we played a team that really played well. We didn’t come close to matching their tempo or their execution. I’m sure we’ve had worse beatings, but I’d have to go back to ’04 to remember a game like that,” Ferentz says. “To be reactionary to that one game, I think would really be — at least based on what I saw — I think it would probably be a mistake.”
Ferentz was asked if he is concerned about Vandenberg’s confidence.”I worry about everybody’s confidence. I mean you know, we just got trashed, I mean we got nailed pretty good. Conversely, the week before we had a pretty big win, at least we thought it was a big win. And then you worry about overconfidence. So, you know, coaches worry about everything all the time,” Ferentz says.
Ferentz says Vandenberg still gives the Hawkeyes the best chance to win.
“Most of my decisions are made on what’s best for our football team. Be it the offense, defense, special teams, collectively…if it comes to a point where I change my mind, we’ll change whatever. Be it a position, the way we do things, whatever, but that’s what we do. We try to figure out what’s best for us at any given point and go from there. So that’s kind of where we’re at,” Ferentz says.
Northwestern is 6-2 on the season and in their losses to Nebraska and Penn State the Wildcats squandered two score leads in the fourth quarter.
Northwestern coach Pat Fitzgerald who says his team needs to do a better job of putting games away and they need to make some plays down the stretch.
Fitzgerald says moving the ball against Iowa begins with having success against their defensive line as they are sound and understand what they are trying to do.