Meet the Iowa football voices bringing you Hawkeyeland digitally

IOWA CITY — One worldly element that touches all of our lives daily was essentially born during Kirk Ferentz's run as Iowa's head football coach.

When Ferentz was hired in December 1998, the internet certainly was established. How it could be used as a tool for a college football team was uncharted, and that's something you could argue is constantly evolving.

Ferentz is decidedly old school and it took some push-and-pull from younger members of Iowa's coaching staff, but in 2013 Iowa made a pair of hires who shape how you view the program today in the precocious world of digital and social media.

Ferentz recounted the interview process when he hired Max Allen, the program's director of new media, in the summer of 2013. Previously, this position was in football quality control doing football quality things.

'We interviewed a guy who was more football-oriented and then Max was a more out-of-the-box type of candidate,' Ferentz said. 'We liked both guys and then we talked as a staff. We felt at that time the way things are changing now, we had to go down the path of technology, all the internet stuff and what have you. The propaganda pieces.'

That's what we know now as 'digital.'

'It wasn't back then,' Ferentz countered.

Touche.

Later in 2013, Iowa's longtime video coordinator Matt Engelbert was hired away by Arkansas. His assistant at Iowa, Bob Rahfeldt, was promoted to director of video operations for the Hawkeyes. So, the video staff had an opening. Rahfeldt heard from the Iowa staff and noticed that other schools were making cinematic style videos and why wasn't Iowa doing that?

This is where Chris Ruth enters the picture (pun kind of intended).

'We started the search for his (Rahfeldt's) position and it was the same thing,' Ferentz said. 'We had a lot of good candidates. Chris' strength was in production, doing those things. We all agreed that this is the right guy. It's worked out beautifully.'

The way the Iowa program communicates digitally now compared to the way it did in the mid-2000s is like going from 'The Bubble,' Iowa's old indoor facility that was more tennis dome than football practice space, to the new Hansen Performance Center.

Allen, 29, works with the Iowa football staff on design and production of print and electronic recruiting materials. He also manages Iowa's football specific social media.

Ruth, 27, has traditional football video duties (shooting, editing game/practice video and scouting), but you know him for the Hawkeyes movies.

In bio-speak, Ruth produces 'highlight videos for social media, Kinnick Stadium video board features and motivational hit films that the football team views before each game.'

You know these as 'the really cool Hawkeye movies,' aka 'hit films,' duties that Ruth and Rahfeldt split throughout the season.

'All of this stuff is geared toward recruiting, but my brother in Pittsburgh is looking at all of this stuff, too,' Ferentz said. 'It's also for anyone in our fan base. Our primary concern is the recruiting base, but also I think a lot of people enjoy Max's and Chris' work. It all kind of spills into the same pool.'

These jobs are very different, but Allen and Ruth work together, bounce ideas off each other and have become, for a lot of digitally oriented Iowa fans, central voices for the Iowa football program.

'We get to bounce ideas off each other all of the time,' Ruth said.

'That's the best part, working together,' Allen said.

As far as social media goes, Allen said there's a cyclical schedule he follows. For example, when lots of Hawkeyes go in the NFL draft, he's putting those graphics together and flying it on Iowa football's social media accounts. There's also the season and signing day for other examples. It's year-round.

You've seen the evolution in Allen and Ruth's four years at Iowa. Did you ever think you'd see running back Akrum Wadley mic'd up during fall camp?

'One thing that Chris and I have tried to do recently is really humanize our players,' Allen said. 'Along with the strength workouts and the highlight videos — which are great and get a lot of play and people love them and we love them, too — but some of the stuff we've tried to do, like with the 'Between the TigerHawks' (web series, with the first episode featuring magic tricks by linebacker Aaron Mends) and some of the fall camp videos, we're doing a lot more mic-ing up and sitting down with our players.

'Everyone sees these guys as these big, strong football players. It's a big part of what they do, but it's not necessarily who they are. We're trying to steer more in that direction to show that side of it.'

There are some strong interpersonal muscles being flexed here. Allen is from Durango, Colo. Ruth is from Clermont, Fla., and came to Iowa after five seasons with Florida State's Seminole Productions.

They had to plug into Iowa football with super-keen eyes to be able to tell the story the way they wanted to and in a way in which you, the fan base, would see as authentic.

'Our fans obviously love Iowa football and so do we, but we didn't grow up Iowa football fans,' Ruth said. 'We love Iowa football because we do know these guys. We wanted to give a little bit of that to our recruits and our fans, let them see that. I think it's worked out really well and I think the guys have really liked it.'

Allen chimed in here with an extremely important point.

'It starts with Coach Ferentz being willing to let us do that, too,' he said.

Truth. To be able to tell a program's story, the program has to be open to it.

'Chris and I really understand the culture of Iowa football now,' Allen said. 'We can present things in a way — there might be some questions on what we're going to do and how's this going to make our program look — but we can present it in a way now that will fit our culture while also giving a little bit of a different and new look to the program.'

Ruth agreed. The videos he makes resonate with you because — well, because football is an incredibly beautiful visual sport, it just is — he includes scenes that you can relate to.

'Coming in 2013, I knew I could make a good video,' Ruth said. 'To make a great video, I think you have to understand the culture and make sure it fits. A lot of schools hire out a lot of work to production companies. I think it's kind of cool and special to us that since 2013, our stuff has gotten a lot better because Max and I know the Iowa culture and what the coaches are trying to sell.

'The culture we're selling, we can show that through our social media and our videos now.'

For example, the season hype video ('This is Iowa,' released last month with nearly 45,000 views on Iowa's YouTube channel — GoHawksTV) includes shots of the Pentacrest, Iowa memorabilia you would recognize, fans getting Iowa logo tattoos. Images you immediately recognize as 'Iowa.'

'I'm not from here, so when my family comes up what things do I like to show them? What things am I constantly running my mouth about?' Ruth said. 'I took those things and just went out and got them. It was pretty fun to do.'

You know that true freshmen are off limits to outside media. That's mostly held true for Iowa's content staffers, but it has been relaxed throughout the years. How relaxed? This fall, Ruth was able to mic-up some true freshmen for a 17-minute practice video.

'That was a push,' Allen said.

'Max has got to go to Coach and kind of sell that,' Ruth said. 'But we've had a few years here now and Coach (Ferentz) knows we're not going to just put stuff out there.'

There are football things that Ruth knows he needs to be careful to capture on video.

'(For the freshman video) We make sure coaches watch it,' Ruth said. 'We're not coaches. Sometimes there might be something in the background you might hear that we have to be careful that it doesn't get put out there publicly.'

Allen's job is a little more wavy. Social media has its own ideas of what it thinks is important and/or cool. What works one day might not the next. How does that shape Allen's job?

'I rely on other people in the office for ideas. Did you see this? Do we need to highlight this?' Allen said. 'It's a group effort. I'm always ears open to new ideas and what people think. I'm a one-man show running our social. The great thing is I have sports information writing stories for us. There's a lot of content.'

This brings us to last season's Michigan game. The Hawkeyes pulled off one of the major upsets of 2016 during a night game at Kinnick Stadium.

First, there's a Big Ten rule that says only one videographer is allowed in the bench area. And, yes, Ruth is extremely conscious of the flow of the game and when it's a good or bad idea to have a camera in a coach or player's general vicinity.

'It's kind of knowing your place,' Ruth said. 'At halftime, even if we are losing, if there's a good feeling, sometimes I'll go film in the locker room. If there's a bad feeling, I'm not going to take the camera to the locker room.'

But the Michigan game was as pure of an explosion of joy in Kinnick Stadium since the Hawkeyes claimed a share of the Big Ten title there in 2004.

Allen credited Iowa sports staff photographers Brian Ray and Darren Miller and the UI's staff photographers for corralling that moment and capturing images that spilled out of Iowa's social accounts for weeks after. (They did, however, save the crowdsourced highlight video of Keith Duncan's 33-yard game-winner as time expired that week because the Hawkeyes did have a game at Illinois and that needed to be job 1.)

'It's not all on me, I have a great team I work with,' Allen said. 'And we all get to use that content.'

Remember the Hawkeyes' victory pile?

'After Keith's field goal, I sprinted out there,' Ruth said. 'I wanted to be the first one at the pile. I realized a few minutes later that was a mistake. There was nowhere to put the camera. I rested it on someone's head for 10 minutes before we were able to get off the field.

'I found myself clicking on all the videos. I had a great angle and I have a really nice camera (Red Digital), but I wanted to see the emotions from everyone around the stadium. We tried to find people celebrating in bars (for the compilation crowdsourced video Iowa released around Christmas). Everyone's seen those like after a World Series win, I thought let's do that for this. It's so hilarious seeing fans' reactions.'

It was important to Ruth to include everyone's Twitter handles and names of fans who submitted video.

'We wanted to give them the credit, so they could go in and see their video as part of this,' he said.

'Social really being social,' Allen said.

December 22, 2016

#tbt to a gift that keeps on giving #HappyHolidaysHawkeyes https://t.co/eByGL7YZ5k

— Hawkeye Football (@HawkeyeFootball)

This sounds a lot like Iowa is trying to build its connections with, yes, recruits, but also with you. An internet community that recognizes and, sometimes, interacts with you.

Kirk Ferentz is 62. He graduated from UConn with an English education degree in 1978. He's not closed to new ideas. The example he grabbed was from the book 'When Pride Still Mattered,' the biography on Green Bay Packers coach Vince Lombardi. One of the stories in the book is Lombardi setting up a barbershop in the team facilities for African-American players. This was, after all, Green Bay, Wis., in the 1960s.

'He was smart enough to know that in Green Bay, he had to make it a better world for the guys on his team,' Ferentz said.

Of course, Ferentz isn't a digital storyteller.

'The way you fix things is you hire guys who are really good at it,' Ferentz said. 'Both those guys have a knack for it and they love it. They're both very passionate about this.'

l Comments: (319) 398-8256; marc.morehouse@thegazette.com