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So . . . 'That's football'
Marc Morehouse
Sep. 3, 2015 6:35 pm
IOWA CITY — You will read Dallas Clark references in the following. You've had your fill of those from Kirk Ferentz, but really break it down.
Why does the Iowa football coach say what he says?
Ferentz has a degree in English education and started his adult life as a teacher. That training sends him reaching for examples when he makes his points. That's part of the 'Dallas Clark' reference mechanism.
The other half is what Clark and his story means to Iowa football. He was a walk-on, third-string linebacker whose summer job was mowing Kinnick Stadium grass. Then, he listened to coaches, moved to tight end and won the John Mackey Award as the nation's top TE in 2002. He won a Super Bowl with the Colts and recently retired as one of the greatest tight ends in Iowa history.
Ferentz coaches Iowa football, so, yes, he's going to pull the positives from his pool of examples. That's how that works. You're allowed to be angry — and we'll get to that, too — when the Hawkeyes cough up a second-half lead and fall into the abyss at home against Nebraska.
Ferentz also is allowed to be angry, and don't be an innocent. You know he gets angry and loses sleep over this stuff, right? When he answers the questions, he is, however, going to pull for the best possible examples he can find.
And that's why we start with Dallas Clark and 'That's football.'
You remember 'That's football.' Ferentz said it after that 37-34 overtime loss to Nebraska. Media ran with it. An Iowa City bookstore made a T-shirt.
'I don't regret saying, 'That's football,'' Ferentz said in a recent one-on-one interview with The Gazette. 'What I should've done, if I could go back, and I know you can't, was explain exactly what I meant by that.
'An example of that would be how do you explain Dallas Clark being a walk-on third-team linebacker to one of the best tight ends to ever play at the University of Iowa or college football?
'There are certain things that are hard to explain or give concrete answers for, but they happen. The things we came up short in in that game — particularly after we played a heckuva a lot cleaner the week before, we were a lot more representative of what we'd like to be even though we lost that game — to me, I don't regret that answer as much as I regret not elaborating what I meant by that. That's something I need to do a better job of, quite frankly.'
Coming off the Hawkeyes' 7-6 2014 campaign, which ended in disarray on the field and questions off it, Ferentz reached out to a lot of the state's media for interviews this summer.
'That's football' seemed like a logical icebreaker. Could he understand the reaction?
'Yes and no, but I blame myself. I left the door open for people to be upset by that,' Ferentz said. 'Again, I think what I should've done was explain exactly why that is football. When I said 'That's football,' well, what does that mean? I left the door open. I don't want to say I got what I deserved, but I got what I got. In retrospect, what I should've done is elaborate. Here's what I mean by 'That's football,' things like Dallas Clark, things that are hard to explain.'
There have been a few departures for Ferentz with media engagement, starting with an unprecedented January news conference during which Ferentz announced a change at starting quarterback and then the July/August one-on-ones. This was a conscious effort.
'I don't want to say I've turned over a new leaf, but I've really tried to revisit everything I try to do with the program and what my role is and then just try to do a more quality job with it,' Ferentz said, 'whether it's my relationship with the media, which, quite frankly . . .
'I looked at the tapes of the last two press conferences I did (Nebraska and TaxSlayer Bowl), those are not things I'm proud of. So, that's part of my job and I need to do a better job with that, just like I need to do a better job in some areas of coaching. That's what's motivating me right now.
' . . . Quite frankly, my demeanor in those last two press conferences that's not what I want to be, how I want to be or how I want to appear. They're both coming after bad losses, but that's part of the job. It's like if you're coaching. If we're having a bad experience or bad day, we have to work through that and I better set the tempo.'
Q&A: The entire Gazette interview with Kirk Ferentz
When this conversation happened, the UI was in the middle of a search for a new president. Thursday, Bruce Harreld was chosen as the 21st UI president.
Harreld will be the fourth president Ferentz, who enters his 17th season as Iowa's head coach, will have worked under. Incidentally, when Ferentz was hired in December 1998 to take over for the retiring Hayden Fry, the only person he didn't have a sitdown with was then-president Mary Sue Coleman.
Harreld was reportedly headed to football practice Friday morning.
'When I got hired, the only person I didn't talk to was the president. I didn't talk to her until after I got hired, so there was a little leap of faith there,' Ferentz said. 'I really didn't know Bob (Bowlsby). I met him once in my life. . . .
'There was a leap of faith when I came here. When I was an assistant coach in the '80s (as O-line coach at Iowa), you never met the president. I might've met one or two in passing. You deal in the institution. You have faith in the fact that Iowa is never going to hire a bad person as president. I've had great relationships with the presidents I've worked with so far and I anticipate the same thing coming forward.'
Along those same lines, Ferentz has a close working relationship with Bruce Rastetter, the president of the Board of Regents, the governing body of Iowa's public universities, which selected Harreld. In 2008, Rastetter donated $5 million to Iowa football for new facilities. Ferentz said Rastetter was instrumental in raising $55 million for Iowa's indoor practice facility and operations building, from which this interview took place.
'As you might imagine, I feel very favorably toward Bruce, and not only because of the donation he made, but he was extremely helpful in getting other people on board, he really advocated for this (the new facility),' Ferentz said. 'He was very, very helpful from that regard. I'm extremely appreciative of that. He's been a great supporter, and we've had so many people here, you go right down the list of the people involved, with the Hansen's name front and center, so many people have been supportive of the program.'
One more 'along those lines,' Ferentz and Iowa athletics director Gary Barta are still simpatico. But yes, Ferentz has noticed a heightened scrutiny in regard to the AD position.
'The role of an AD has changed a great deal now as you know,' Ferentz said. 'They're out there being scrutinized a little bit more. People want answers from them as well. He's been nothing but supportive and I'm very appreciative of that.'
Ferentz conducted the interview in his new office — he has windows for the first time in 25-plus years of working for the UI — in Stew and LeNore Hansen Football Performance Center that was built with his blueprints. Ferentz and staff were consulted in every step and it's everything Iowa football needs now and for probably a long time into the future.
Photos: Hansen Football Performance Center
Yet . . . this is the first season in Ferentz's tenure where the term 'hot seat' carries credibility. Whether or not he gives it credence, doesn't matter. You know he feels it. The 7-6 season in 2014 and the sloppy, staggering finish still burn in him. He knows the temperature outside of the climate-controlled and soundproof complex. He doesn't show much of the internal storm, with a renewed focus on comportment and all.
Asked about dealing with this dichotomy, Ferentz talked about his contract history. He actually had a buyout when he was head coach at Maine in 1990. Ferentz also reminisced on simpler days as an assistant at Iowa.
'I lived right over here and came to work every day like this and went home,' he said pointing toward Melrose Avenue. 'It was a great life. I took the kids (he and wife, Mary, have five children) to get a doughnut at the corner and then to the athletic club to go swimming. It was simple. You just learn a little bit about the topography out there and try to protect your backside a little bit.'
Times have changed, contracts certainly have changed. Ferentz has five more years on a deal that will pay him $4 million a year through the 2019 season. At Maine, he was asked to take a buyout. Ferentz didn't know what it was and didn't care.
You can recite his Iowa buyout (it's just more than $9 million after this season).
'There's nothing guaranteed in sports and nobody owes you anything, other than what's agreed upon,' he said. 'That's the way I've always looked at it and that's why having a contract . . . I did learn in the National Football League, it's probably good to have one. It's probably good to make sure you know what's in it. Outside of that, you know ups and downs are going to come. There are going to be highs and lows. It could be a change of leadership.
'. . . There's no guarantees, and nobody owes me anything, certainly.'
It seems to be an unbalanced notion. But here's 'hot seat' talk in a football building that Ferentz managed the construction of and that will help launch Iowa football into the facilities age.
Ferentz looked around and joked.
'Whoever gets my office is probably going to be upset,' he said. 'Whoever ends up in there next . . . [They'll think] What was he doing? They'll knock the wall out and make it just one big palace.'
It's already a palace. Sometimes palaces get stormed. Ferentz seems to have reconciled that just fine.
l Comments: (319) 398-8256; marc.morehouse@thegazette.com
Iowa football head coach Kirk Ferentz speaks in the multi-purpose room at the University of Iowa football team's Stew and Lenore Hansen Football Performance Center in Iowa City, Iowa, on Tuesday, August 25, 2015. (Jim Slosiarek/The Gazette)