Copyright The Oregonian
IOWA CITY, Iowa — No. 20 Iowa lost to No. 9 Oregon 18-16 Saturday afternoon at Kinnick Stadium. Kirk Ferentz recapped the third loss for the Hawkeyes (6-3, 4-2 Big Ten), who travel to USC next week. Below is a transcript of Ferentz’s postgame press conference. Latest Ducks news Dan Lanning updates status of Oregon receiver Dakorien Moore, other injured players Oregon starts fast, rolls Montana in women’s basketball win No. 9 Oregon outlasts No. 20 Iowa in thrilling road victory KIRK FERENTZ It really hurts to lose the game, but really these kinds of games that are emblematic of November football, especially in our conference where you get two teams getting after it pretty good. So, all those things that we thought coming into the game really certainly panned out to be true. I have a lot of respect for Oregon’s talent and they’re a very well-coached team. Have been all year. We knew we had a big challenge on our hands there. Then all those cliches you hear forever in football, they stay around because they mean something. It is a game of inches. Details do matter. I think that’s really what it came down to in a lot of ways tonight. So we came up a little short, but proud of our team’s effort and the way competed certainly. Tough loss. A lot of little things that we’re going to have to figure out, do a little bit better at, but the most important thing for our team is they understand there’s a lot to be proud of. They’re going to see a lot of really good efforts on film, a lot of things they did during the course of the game that were really impressive. I think all the coaches are really proud of the effort that everybody put into it and the way we responded several times in the football game. We still have a good team, and we got plenty of football in front of us. We’ll go back, critique this thing, do what we can to see what we can improve on next week, and that will be the biggest challenge is getting everybody back on their feet here after we get through tomorrow. Losing is tough. Never has been fun, and that’s certainly the case here. Again, credit to our opponents. A really good football team, and they played well tonight. Last few things. I want to also thank our fans. You guys were all in the stadium, and that’s typical of November football here. Our fans were outstanding. The weather could have been a challenge, and you would never know it with them. Didn’t dampen their enthusiasm. They certainly were good start to finish, and we appreciate that. It’s a big edge for us. Then John Campbell is around here somewhere. I was told this is your last. I thought you already said that once, but anyway. I want to take a minute and applaud John and the job he’s done for a lot of years. (Applause) I ran into Curt Menefee. How many years ago did he speak at the Coe graduation? Getting a cup of coffee, and we bumped into each other. He told me just what a role John had played. Curt is from Atlanta, if I remember correctly. Came to Coe College to get in broadcasting. John mentored him over his career. Curt was already on FOX, and he just told me what a role John had played and how he had gone out of his way to really when he was here take good care of him. Then they’ve retained their relationship. John is first-class. Let me know how it feels, will you? Talk about it someday. Thanks, John. Q. I wanted to ask about the special teams errors, the snaps. Was that just wet ball? Was it anything else? KIRK FERENTZ: I assume it had to be. I didn’t ask, but we haven’t had that issue really in a long, long time. The first one the ball took off on him, and then didn’t have a great punt after as a result. Then obviously the ball went in the end zone there on the second. It had to be that, but fortunately, we settled down and did better after that, but it was certainly a factor. Q. In terms of the run defense, it seemed like they really were able to build momentum in the running game. What did you just see from what they were doing and maybe what you guys weren’t able to do in terms of stopping the run? KIRK FERENTZ: I would give them the credit. We’ve been pretty consistent for a long time stopping the run, and that’s a key thing in football. It was a factor tonight certainly, because it’s tough to play good defense if you’re not controlling the run or at least minimizing some of the bigger plays and that type of thing. Those guys, you saw them out there. They’re a big, physical group up front. We knew that was going to be a challenge. Then their backs are really good. They’ve got really three really good backs back there. The freshman kid is really giving them a good -- they’re starting to lean on him a little bit more. He’s doing a great job, as well. It wasn’t like we were terrible. They were good, and we’re going to have to obviously try to minimize that moving forward. I don’t think it’s going to become a problem for us, but we’ll address it and see what we can do to do better. Q. You honored the ’15 team here in this game. Brings back memories of the Big Ten title game a little bit. You know, you get that euphoric score on one end and then give up a crushing loss on the other by two. Just kind of curious how you as a coach process this, that crushing defeat and trying to pick your team back up with a lot of dreams now gone. KIRK FERENTZ: I’m not big on the dream thing, but it’s really the second loss like this to his year in my opinion where two teams are just going back and forth and competing really hard. Coincidentally, both those teams we lost to were really good, and I think we might be in that category, too. We’re not far off. So the trick is, how do we get up there one more notch? How do we get to close that thing out a little bit better? It’s not one player. It’s not one possession necessarily. Everything kind of goes together that really matters at the end. We’ll just go back to work, and the good news is that these guys we get to work with every day are just extremely resilient. They’ve been that way since we got started, and I can’t imagine -- they’re going to feel bad tomorrow. We all do. A lot invested here. But, again, there’s a lot forward. I mean, we’re not going to be undefeated this year, but there’s a lot of great things that can still happen. To me, at the end of the year you evaluate how you feel about yourself. What did you do? What did you invest? How did you compete? That’s what this game is supposed to teach us. Q. In that same vein, scoring late, I mean, haven’t had a ton of those types of things happen in the last, I don’t know, few years. To get the ball and have your defense be called to make a stop, I guess maybe what didn’t work on that last drive? Was it the same thing that you were seeing throughout the game? What didn’t work for the defense? KIRK FERENTZ: I mentioned rebounding or bouncing back, and our first TD drive, that was critical. We were down 9-0, and we had to do something before the half, and I thought that was an outstanding drive. Another good drive there in the second half where we turned it over, unfortunately, and that cost us points, which obviously factors in at the end. Then, you know, that last drive was outstanding, and it was do-or-die. We had basically four plays down there from the 10 to either score or not, or score or go home basically. Sometimes that’s going to happen. Then the last throw, they made throw and catch, you talk about a matter of inches. It was a great throw. The guy did a good job bringing it in. TJ had great coverage, and he’s been playing his ass off all year. Sometimes that’s football. When you play a team like Oregon, you have to be right there. There’s nothing easy. This is the kind of game we were hoping it would be. We just couldn’t quite get it done. Q. Is there a reason why your defense didn’t take a time-out on Oregon’s last drive, considering you had two time-outs left? In hindsight, when you go back over it now, would you have taken a time-out to give your defense the regroup on Oregon’s final drive? KIRK FERENTZ: No, not really. We were all aware of what the situation was. Basically, in that kind of a series, you know, they started the series, I told Phil how many we had, and if you guys need one, but I don’t think we felt like we needed to regroup. We may have used it if there was something that we didn’t anticipate, if they jumped in a formation or we ended up in a bad matchup, something like that. But no, we felt good about that. We just didn’t get it done. Q. Went pretty aggressive in the play-calling throughout the game. Those fourth downs, that long field goal attempt. Did you have a feeling before this game that it was just going to come down to the narrowest margins and maybe you had to be a little bit more aggressive? KIRK FERENTZ: Yeah, in a game like this you expect -- well, if you play well, you expect it to be tight. They’ve done a good job of running away from people, too. That was the goal, to make it a tight, sticky game. Then all that stuff ends up being situational... the first fourth downs, the sneak on our side of the field, I believe right around midfield, but on our side. Just felt like we needed to get something going here, so we took a shot at that. It’s a double-edged sword. It could have been backfired the other way, too. Field goal kind of the same way. It wasn’t an ideal situation to kick a field goal, but at that point I thought that was a better risk than whatever it was, fourth and six or fourth and eight. So we went with it and Drew delivered, and that was a huge play in the game, and that allowed us at least to have that opportunity to have one last drive where we could maybe get ahead, and the guys did a great job on those conversions, as well. Q. Kind of a short week this week in a way, because you have a long road trip to L.A. for next Saturday. You’re playing in a famous sports venue next Saturday. Have you ever coached at the L.A. Coliseum before, and are you looking forward to that? It’s a famous place. KIRK FERENTZ: Yeah, funny you should ask that. I have one time, 1993. We ran a little toss double crack on a third or fourth down. We had the ball like on the 4, and they were in man coverage and scored. Probably the most interesting thing -- well, two most interesting things was after the game, I remember calling my wife. I think it was on a pay phone out in the -- whatever you call those things -- the hallways outside. There’s a better name for it in the stadium. I also remember the Raiderettes as you come out. We were playing the Raiders. That was distracting, intentionally. They line up right by the visitor’s locker room. I doubt we’ll see that this week, but it’s going to be a big challenge. I know that. Q. Adding to this, what you are facing in the next week, I would imagine, is about as difficult a challenge as it gets for a coaching staff. What are the most important things about getting off the carpet? KIRK FERENTZ: I’m going to backtrack for one second. I think probably anybody that follows football at all would have said, this is going to be a tough stretch in the bye week, looking at our schedule back in the offseason. You have a team like Oregon, you expect is going to be really good. USC has always been good. You come back, and you are playing at home, Michigan State and all the conference games are tough. You have a road trip, but the biggest thing is just how we choose to handle it. We’ll look at it tomorrow. I don’t think anybody has a false expectation that anybody is going to be feeling great tomorrow. That’s the way it is when you lose. It’s never fun. That’s where the 24-hour rule comes into effect. We’ll be on the field Monday morning, and we have to move on. You have to move on physically. That’s easy. But the mental part, you just can’t let it linger, because there’s still a lot of football ahead. I’ve been through a lot of seasons like this where things turn out really good at the end, but it only happens if -- I’m sitting here thing about ’08, I guess. We’re 3-3 at one point, 6-4 or whatever it was, and then just -- we won five out of the last six, I remember that. I feel as good about that season as any season we’ve had. That was a top-20 team. I think we ended up 20th in the country. So you can’t look behind. We’ll look behind tomorrow, and then we’re moving forward, and you got to do it. If you can’t, you probably shouldn’t be doing this. That’s just the way it is.
