Tuesday talk -- Just say nyet

Just say nyet

Imagine Iowa players trying to get last Saturday's finish out of their heads that night.

Running back Adam Robinson went out to dinner with his mom, Sally. He had friends around who knew just not to bother him with the game. He lived it and it sucked, the way it finished for him and the Hawkeyes.

Quarterback Ricky Stanzi's way of putting a bad game out of his head is to simply put it out of his head. He possess incredible mental powers.

"You just do [stop thinking about it]," Stanzi said. "It's in your head, so you just stop doing it. It's all mental. It's like anything else. You just stop thinking about it and focus on the next thing and that's today's practice."

Music? Movie? Sleep? Quart of vodka?

Yes, I slid that last one in there to see if he was really paying attention. Of course, I was kidding. And of course, Stanzi was listening.

"That's Russian, I don't do that stuff," said the "Love it or leave it" quarterback.

Marvin's turn

Wide receiver Marvin McNutt talked about his transformation from wide receiver to quarterback on Tuesday.

"My 40 time went down. My vertical went up," McNutt said. "It took a lot more out of me."

McNutt's 40-yard dash went from the 4.7-second range to 4.5. His vertical went from 38 inches to 42. He said he already had abs, so we'll take his word on that. He made himself a more explosive athlete.

"It just took a lot of mental will, telling yourself you can do it," he said.

The junior from St. Louis is in the midst of topping a breakout sophomore season, when he caught 34 passes for 674 yards, eight TDs and 19.82 yards a catch.

This season, McNutt has 26 receptions for 423 yards and three TDs. Last week, he led the Hawkeyes with seven catches for 70 yards and a TD.

You know where this is going. McNutt will be a senior at Iowa next season. Maybe.

"I'm pretty sure I'm going to be here next year," McNutt said with a smile. "Pretty sure. Right now, my decision is to be in school."

He said he's starting to hear NFL talk from folks around him.

"It's like the loss last week," he said. "You try to tell people, let's move on because it's something that's not in front of me."

Iowa kin

Michigan State quarterback Kirk Cousins is from Holland, Mich., and has family in the Chicago area, but his family is dug in deep at the University of Iowa.

His grandfather played football for the Hawkeyes and graduated in 1950. He later went to medical school at the University of Iowa and lives on Lake Okoboji. His grandparents still have season tickets and have had them for years. They saw the Hawkeyes lose to Wisconsin last week.

Cousins' great uncle, his grandfather's brother, also played football for the Hawkeyes and in the NFL for a few seasons.

His mom, MaryAnn, went to Iowa and graduated with a nursing degree and was on the dance team.

"My mom's whole side of the family are all Iowa fans," Cousins said. "Her sister also went to Iowa and got a nursing degree. So, that whole side of the family is Iowa fans. I grew up a big Iowa fan, growing up in Chicago, and went to as many games as we could."

Cousins said his last game was in 2004, when the Hawkeyes shared the Big Ten title. He also saw Iowa's comebacker thriller against newly minted rival Purdue in 2002.

This Saturday, grandpa is definitely rooting for his grandson, Cousins said.

"They were driving back from last week's game and I called them while they were going through Fort Dodge," Cousins said. "They said they'll be wearing green and white and they don't care who gets mad at them. They'll be wearing green and white and that family blood runs much thicker than alumni blood.

"So, they're cheering on the Spartans this week."

Iowa was involved with Cousins recruiting, but never offered.

"You recruit players and go with the guys you think are best," Iowa coach Kirk Ferentz said. "Sometimes they're good players and sometimes they aren't. Stanzi has worked out. [James] Vandenberg has worked out. I think we have two good quarterbacks and they certainly have good quarterbacks. Can't get them all."

Chaos management

The end of the Wisconsin game was a case study in chaos management, which really is football boiled down. How well do you deal with someone after you've been punched in the nose?

Iowa didn't manage the chaos well enough, obviously. Outside of the military, there aren't a lot of concrete examples for this kind of pressurized situation. Air traffic control would work, OK.

So, I asked the smartest Iowa player I know, guard Julian Vandervelde. Well, it's probably pretty close between Vandervelde and senior linebacker Jeff Tarpinian. I'll ask Tarpinian tomorrow.

Here's what Vandervelde came up with:

"This isn't going to surprise anybody, but I guess I'd attribute it to a musical when someone forgets a line," Vandervelde said. "When you're on stage and everyone kind of looks at each other for a minute, ah what do we do now and someone is trying to figure out what to do. That's the closest parallel I could draw to it."

The emotional process

Iowa coach Kirk Ferentz said years ago he moved beyond anger when he's team loses a game. Still, it doesn't make it any easier.

"It just guts you," he said. "There's nothing good about losing.

"Unfortunately, that's kind of in some sick way, my wife says this all the time, in some sick way what we do is as simple as you feel good after a win and you feel lousy after you lose."

Ferentz said the NFL is good training for a thick skin. He spent six seasons as the O-line coach for the Baltimore Ravens/Cleveland Browns.

"Everything gets second guessed there," Ferentz said. "Players, agents, fans, media. That's how it is. That's the nature of the NFL. I'm still alive. I survived six years. As long as they don't kill you, we're fine."

DJK as coach?

I asked Ferentz if he could have a "regular person" conversation with Derrell Johnson-Koulianos, like two guys passing each other at Starbucks.

"I don't think we have a lot in common based on our previous conversations," Ferentz said. "But I think we both like football, so we could talk on that topic. Doesn't make him a bad guy. He's not a bad guy."

I asked if he can see eye-to-eye with DJK on things.

"Yeah," Ferentz said. "He likes the limelight more than I do. He'd be a great head coach. You guys would love him. The press conferences would go four hours a day.

"He'd be having fun and you guys would be having fun."

You know about the seasonlong ban from the media. Ferentz did say that he offered DJK a chance to speak to the media after DJK broke the receiving yards record at Michigan. And it wasn't tied to playing time, either, Ferentz said.

DJK declined.

"One thing I've always told him and have told everybody, the less said, the less you have to take back," Ferentz said. "Maybe he's caught on to that a little bit, but I'm sure he's going to tell all in January.

"He's got a good thing going. I think he's in a groove, he's in a mode. So, why screw that up? I didn't ask him, but I'm guessing that's what he's thinking. Plus, I just said a minute ago for him and I to think that we could think alike, there's probably not too many areas we'd agree on."