Ferentz on SXM College Sports Today

Iowa coach Kirk Ferentz talked to SXM College Sports Today and host Chris Childers on Thursday.

I'll transcribe that, but first some news.

The Iowa football program allowed students to tour the new facilities yesterday. Someone noticed that tight end Jake Duzey was at practice and wearing a significant knee brace.

HawkeyeReport.com is reporting that the senior suffered a partially torn patellar tendon and will have surgery on Monday. Now, no official word from Iowa and we will see the Hawkeyes scrimmage tomorrow 1 p.m. at Kinnick Stadium. The question will certainly come up. Nothing has been confirmed from official sources.

Obviously, this would be a dent.

Wide receiver Tevaun Smith, who led Iowa with 596 receiving yards last season, has 70 career receptions for 973 yards and is Iowa's leading returning receiver. Duzey is next with 58 career receptions for 678 yards. After those two, it's WR Matt VandeBerg with 22 catches for 315 yards.

Let's see what is said tomorrow.

Here's KF from the SiriusXM show:

- Satellite camps

are all the rage now, with Big Ten coaches making guest appearances at player camps in the south and all over the U.S. Penn State coach James Franklin got the ball rolling last year and UM's Jim Harbaugh has taken it to the 'extreme” level. SEC coaches, of course, don't like it and are up in arms. I think everyone else kind of giggles. Frankly, I haven't seen huge swaths of southeastern prospects running up north. I guess this is something that will be the thing that everyone is sort of angry about this offseason. What was it last year? Oh yeah, paying players.

Ferentz said Iowa will do four (kind of) satellite camps this year. (Last year, it did two - one in the Chicago area and one in St. Louis, which helped net a commit from DL Michael Slater.)

'We did two of them last year and we've actually got three on the schedule this year (recruiting coordinator Seth Wallace said in February that Iowa was thinking about adding one in the Indianapolis/Fort Wayne area), four if you include one that's more of a combine-type thing. So, we're doing them, but we're not broadcasting them or making a big deal of it.”

'. . . The first I heard of it [satellite camps] was a Big 12 school going down to Texas. It made a lot of sense. It's an area they recruit pretty extensively. I think there's some upside to it. Quite frankly, I think it's something that should probably be eliminated. That's just my opinion. That's the next thing that needs to be addressed. I've heard people say they ought to get rid of the satellite camps, which I don't disagree with, but they haven't said the rest of it. The other loophole that's opened up recently is these on-campus camps, where you bring in a lot of guest coaches to help you. To me, I think that's the next thing that gets addressed. In my opinion, if you have a camp on your campus, it ought to be coached by your coaches, only your staff. Leave it at that, that'd be my feeling on it.”

- General spring practice talk

: 'The guys have worked hard and that really started when they got back on campus in January. Like every spring and every team, when you lose some good players, there's focus on trying to replace those guys. That's your biggest challenge. I think we have guys moving around nicely. As is common for us, we're going to need every day between now and September to get ready to play. I like the group we have. We're seeing a lot of good things out there and good growth from guys who haven't played a lot. Hopefully when September rolls around, we'll be ready to play.”

- Doing away with the spring game and maybe scrimmaging an FCS school or shorten spring and set up a couple of mini-camps closer to the season? (Iowa doesn't do a 'game” per se, as you know):

'Woody Widenhofer proposed this when he was at Missouri back in the late ‘80s. Woody at that time had a background that was mostly in the NFL. His thought was just eliminate spring ball and have a longer preseason a la the NFL, go out and scrimmage a team or two outside of your schedule as a opposed to scrimmage yourselves. It's not a novel concept.”

'Personally, I love spring practice. It's a lot like bowl practice in December, when you have a chance to work guys who you really aren't seeing during the season. You're in the season and you're trying to focus on getting ready for Saturday. During bowl preparation, you get a chance to work with guys who you haven't seen in your scheme since maybe August. I think this is another checkpoint where you get to see guys and they look different. Players tend to look different in April than they did back in December. I like it the way it is. I wouldn't be opposed to going out and scrimmaging someone else. We did that when I was in high school in Pennsylvania. You had two scrimmages and started playing your games. The way it is is perfectly fine. I think we're right with the 15-day limit and the 12 days of contact. I think that's probably about the right thing. I like it the way it is, but I'd be open to some ideas, too.”

- On QB C.J. Beathard (and some on Jake Rudock's departure):

'It's a decision we decided to make in January. We felt like we needed to clear the air a little bit there and get things set and moving forward. CJ has really done a nice job. Jake did a nice good for us and we wish him the best. CJ, I think, just continues to grow, which he has been doing the last year and a half. He has been taken all the first-string reps this spring. I think that's given him some more ownership and a chance to grow as a leader. I think we've seen him do that. I think he's making really good progress and we're happy about that.

'The other obvious area of concentration is who's going to be our No. 2? We've had the luxury the last few years of having two guys we felt confident about putting in there. Now, we're back to business as usual, where our second-team guy hasn't played much. Tyler Wiegers is a tremendous young guy and he's made a ton of progress and good strides over the last 13 practices. Like a lot of our young guys, he's going to need every snap and every bit of experience between now and September.”

- Was it hard to let Jake Rudock transfer within the conference (you know he's at Michigan, or will be after graduation):

'No, not necessarily. The way I'm looking at it, if we end up playing each, that's a win-win for both programs. That means we're in Indianapolis in December. I'm not losing too much sleep over that. Jake is a guy who's done a great job here for close to four years. We have a tremendous amount of respect for him as an individual and as a player. I'm very appreciative of all the things he's done. We all get wrapped up about the stuff we get wrapped up in, but this game is still about the players who play it. I have nothing but respect for him. I just want to see him have a great finish to his career. We had a young guy, Cody Sokol, who left and had an outstanding year for Louisiana Tech. When it's a win-win situation, which I think this has an opportunity to be, I think it's a great thing.”

- Have you found some running backs this spring? (the eternal question):

'Usually, I'm not real optimistic, but I feel a lot better about that position, which was a big concern for us last year. Mark Weisman graduated, obviously, but both LeShun Daniels, who's a junior, and Jordan Canzeri, who's a senior, have had really good springs. Akrum Wadley is a guy I think who has some potential. He's still growing and has to [get rid of] some of the bad habits he had when he got here. He wasn't a great ball security guy, but he's learning that. We also moved a receiever, Derrick Mitchell, to the running back position. He did a wonderful job. It was a move the defensive coaches brought up. He played running back on our scout team last year. He imitated a couple of the running backs we had to face and did a really good job (Melvin Gordon, I know for sure was one of those RBs). Smooth transition to the position. He's obviously got ball skills as a receiver, but he's also a big, physical kid at 210, 215. It's gone really well, so I think we have an opportunity to maybe have a little depth, which is something we haven't had for a while.”

- On the competition at offensive tackle:

'It's been good. We went through this a little bit last year. We lost three linebackers off our ‘13 team who were seniors and all of whom went to the NFL. A lot of attention on that for obvious reasons. It's hard to replace NFL players. We were a little bit young at that position last year. It's come along and I think it has a chance to be a strength for our team this season. We have two guys in Boone Myers and Ike Boettger who did a good job last year. I talked about those bowl practices, both of those guys you could just see the growth in them in December and they've continued that into the spring. They're up against it in terms of being ready when the season starts, but they're going to make it. They have the attributes a lot of good players we've had in the past have had, at linemen and other positions as well. I really like what we see, but there's going to be inexperience. We just have to ride the train a little bit. A young guy, Cole Croston, is also in that mix as well. I think we'll be OK, but we're not there yet.”

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