Those hoping for big changes in the offense of the Hawkeye football team will be disappointed after head coach Kirk Ferentz addressed the issue Thursday.
“As I stand here today I anticipate no changes in our staff moving forward, that’s my plan certainly. I think we do have a terrific staff and I thought they did a great job last year in tough circumstances and navigated us through some big challenges,” Ferentz says. The Iowa offense was one of the worst in the country last season, and relied heaving on the defense in its wins.
Ferentz’s son Brian — who is the offensive coordinator — has been a big focus of the criticism. But Ferentz says the program’s history has not been to fire coordinators, and that is not going to change. “I think we’ve taken steps already in terms of addressing it. It’s going to help us to be a more veteran line start right there. It will help us to be a little bit more veteran outside and having two tight ends that we think are pretty good football players will take some pressure off the guys outside,” he says. “And think we got a pretty good quarterback right now to help us so I think we’ve got the right coaches in place.”
Ferentz says the program has had some down times, but they always bounce back. And he says they had eight wins last year and 10 wins the year before despite the low scoring offense. “I’m more focused on the winning — me personally — until somebody tells me it’s not important, that’s where we’re looking,” Ferentz says.
Hawkeye Athletic Director, Gary Barta, also met with the media and backed up his coach. “The success that Kirk has had over 24 years — that’s a lot of data. You know, in most cases, you don’t have the opportunity to evaluate a coach and their system and their their approach over that many years. And as has been indicated over the last five years, there’s only two other schools that have won more games in the Big 10. And that’s Michigan and Ohio State,” Barta said.
Under the U-I system, Barta personally evaluates Brian Ferentz since he is Kirk’s son. “To indicate that Brian’s not qualified simply, that’s a bad narrative. I would indicate he’s he’s uniquely qualified. He grew up here around this program. He played offense in this offense. And over the past 10 years arguably one of our best decades in Hawkeye football has been an integral part of that staff,” he says.
Barta also indicated changes with the players will make a difference this coming season. (as said)”If you look at the returning group that we have with players on the offensive side, in particular, look at the offensive line that’s coming back, the running backs coming back, the wide receivers and this is a combination of people who decided to come back and are going to have more experience as well as some additions, you know, the quarterback position and new tight ends and wide receivers,” Barta says. “So, if you look at the prospects going forward, I you know, I think 2023 has has great opportunity.”
The Hawkeye offense finished 130 out of 131 F-B-S programs and had the worst average yardage per game since 1978.