Iowa football believes Brian Ferentz coaching quarterbacks makes ‘perfect sense.’ Just don’t ask him to throw passes

IOWA CITY — Brian Ferentz has thrown a football before, and it’s allegedly not a pretty sight.

The offensive coordinator “tried to throw a wheel route,” quarterback Spencer Petras said, in a practice when Petras was a freshman.

“It was horrible,” Petras said. “Geez, it was bad. It landed 6 yards short of the wheel, and it was not a good throw.”

“He’s lying,” Ferentz said in jest before fessing up.

But when Petras found out Ken O’Keefe was retiring from quarterbacks coach and assuming a smaller, off-the-field role, he quickly knew who he wanted for that role.

Brian Ferentz.

“My first thoughts were that I wanted Brian to take over with the quarterbacks,” Petras said.

Even as concerns from the fan base linger, there’s no shortage of optimism on Evashevski Drive about Ferentz switching from coaching tight ends to coaching quarterbacks.

Head coach Kirk Ferentz said the move makes “perfect sense” and believes his son is “more than capable of doing that job.”

“The guy calling the plays is coaching the quarterback directly,” Kirk Ferentz said. “He knows our offense better than anybody, quite frankly.”

Petras said when Brian Ferentz was coaching tight ends, they formally met twice per week during the season. O’Keefe, on the other hand, met twice per day with Petras.

“We’re going to be spending a lot more time with Brian this year,” Petras said.

Some of Iowa’s fan base might not be as optimistic as Kirk Ferentz and Petras, given recent results.

The Hawkeyes’ offense was 96th in offensive efficiency in 2021, per ESPN’s Football Power Index, and has not been better than 38th with Brian Ferentz leading the unit.

Brian Ferentz has experience coaching running backs, offensive linemen and tight ends, but quarterbacks will be a new adventure for him.

“Man, I got a lot to learn,” he said.

But the 39-year-old has “probably had one eye on that” position throughout his career.

“Certainly over the last five years, I’ve tried to keep a closer eye on that and prepare for that,” Brian Ferentz said. “Because I think if you’re going to do what I do and coordinate the offense, that’s inevitable.”

The younger Ferentz’s newness to coaching quarterbacks does not concern the older Ferentz.

“It's also learnable,” Kirk Ferentz said. “I certainly didn't play the offensive line. I'm not saying I wasn't a great line coach, but I got by for a while.”

“Got by” might be an understatement.

Kirk Ferentz spent nine years as an offensive line coach under Hayden Fry — a stretch that included two trips to the Rose Bowl and six other bowl games — and six years as an offensive line coach in the NFL.

“You learn things,” Kirk Ferentz said. “You study things. You visit with people who really are experts. And that's how you learn. That's how you grow.”

Brian Ferentz said coaching quarterbacks “got me more excited about football than I have been in a long time.”

“I’m awe-struck by what these guys are capable of doing,” Brian Ferentz said. “If you really put a clock on it, a lot of these guys are making decisions that are measured in tenths of a second, and I’m talking about big decisions that can change the outcome of a game, a season, a career. … That’s a lot of fun.”

His “greatest fear” as he makes this transition is, as he identifies problems, can he say yes to, “Can you tell me how to fix it?”

“If a player believes you can help him, then you are very valuable,” Brian Ferentz said. “He will listen to anything you say. I don’t care if he’s an NFL player or pee-wee player. … You can violate the coach-player relationship very quickly.”

Considering he’s far from an expert in many of the fundamentals, that involves leaning “on people that are experts,” including his predecessor O’Keefe and new analyst Jon Budmayr.

As Iowa hopes to see growth from Brian Ferentz in his new role, it’ll also need growth from the players he’ll be coaching.

The Hawkeyes’ completion percentages in the last two seasons — 55 percent in 2021 and 57 percent — were among the lowest in the Big Ten.

“To think that we're going to live in the world of success if we're completing 52 percent of our passes is probably not realistic,” Kirk Ferentz said. “It's cutting it close. We definitely would like to be up over the 60s.”

Thankfully for the Hawkeyes, making that change doesn’t require Brian Ferentz to throw the ball.

“These guys that are out on the field before the game playing catch — coaches,” Brian Ferentz said while gesturing to the floor-to-ceiling windows in the football facility that have a clear view of Kinnick Stadium. “You’ll never see that from me. I’m just waiting to be an internet meme if I do that.”

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