Hawkeye Football: Kirk Ferentz updates Iowa’s QB situation vs. Nebraska

Another perfectly normal, drama-free week has come and gone in Hawkeye football land.

NOT!

It was about as drama filled a week as I can recall in recent memory and yet we came back from College Park with a win lol. This team makes no sense.

Now the regular season is coming to an end, so we can determine which SEC team of second-stringers absolutely must handle us. But until then, we have to beat Nebraska on Black Friday. Very important, because fuck those guys and fuck that mode. Does Kirk Ferentz agree? Let’s find out!

Let’s start with injury news:

KIRK FERENTZ: Reece Vander Zee is definitely out. Still some distance away. Hopefully we’ll get him back for the bowl game. Starting to turn the corner a little bit there.

Jemari Harris will not be able to go. Dunker, pretty sure he won’t be able to walk either. He’s on the mend, but I don’t think he’ll make it.

Hmmm, maybe Cade’s grammatically awful instagram post was correct?

Q. I would like to ask about damages. What is the nature of Gennings’ injury?

KIRK FERENTZ: He’ll be fine, yes. He is recovering. I don’t think he’ll make it on Friday. It’s too bad. He has worked so hard. He has done a good job.

He comes back to the bowl. I imagine if we played next week he would probably be ready for it.

Too bad about this one, he’s had a good season. Glad he’s at least coming back to the bowl.

Q. From a quarterback standpoint, how is Brendan recovering?

KIRK FERENTZ: Looks like feast or famine. We had all three guys out there the last two days. They both look good. The guys who haven’t been in there, Cade and Brendan, are both practicing. An interesting dynamic.

Went from Max White is no. 2 to the fact that he has been pushed out to no. 4. He’s not really happy right now. He has done a good job. Real credit to him. He has been a fantastic team player for us.

God, such a strange year at QB.

Q. Do you know who your backup quarterback is at this point? How much can Brendan do now?

KIRK FERENTZ: So far so good. There is clearly some skepticism yesterday from me going to training. But he does everything well. He looks good. We’ll see how it goes this week. It’s a tight week. We don’t have much training time on the pitch. Cade looks fine. Fingers crossed they’re both ready to go, we’ll figure out the batting order from there.

Q. Likewise, is Jackson your starter right now?

KIRK FERENTZ: Yes.

I think it’s the right decision, especially when it comes to Sullivan. I think the absolute earliest he should play again is the bowl game, but I’d also be fine if Stratton is our guy for the rest of the season. There’s legitimately no reason I can think of at this point to play Cade under any circumstances that aren’t injury related, so just let the young guy go and get some tape.

Q. Mason Richman said throughout camp, (Jackson Strattons) was able to make some really nice throws. What have you seen from him leading up to this point?

KIRK FERENTZ: Yeah, when Tim saw him out in California, whenever it was, he was impressed with his feet, the way he threw the football.

It’s always interesting with the quarterback thing. I always laugh at the NFL. When guys have their practice, there’s no pass rush, there’s no one playing defense on other receivers. If a guy can’t throw, that’s probably a bad sign. You never quite know.

He has done a good job. The most amazing thing from my point of view is that he has been a scout team player until a few weeks ago. It’s a lot to have thrown at you. Not that he does everything. He has really done well.

As I mentioned on Saturday, the fact that he had a week plus to think about it, one more hurdle to clear. Sometimes you start thinking how did I get here? What am I doing here? It can also work a little against you.

He seems to be really stable. Unflappable is probably a strong word at this point because we don’t know him that well. Gets things done really smoothly. It has been impressive so far.

He didn’t play perfectly the other day, but he did a lot of really good things. I was really impressed with his poise, being the ability to not get into trouble, which is easier said than done sometimes, especially at that position because you’re involved in every snap, the ball is in your hand every snap. Many things can go wrong.

I agree with Kirk’s assessment here, and I also agree with Tim Lester’s initial assessment here. I think it’s going to pay dividends for this team to have a guy with actual QB experience, you know…recruiting QBs. Stratton isn’t perfect by any means, and he wasn’t asked to do much by any means, but in both games I’ve seen him play, I’ve been decently impressed with what he’s been able to do. I will reiterate here that I think he should get the majority, if not all, of the snaps on Friday.

Q. Not to reveal state secrets or anything, there is a possibility that we could see two to three quarterbacks on Friday or…

KIRK FERENTZ: I hope it’s a start to finish and that everything goes really well. I mean, but sometimes it’s wishful thinking.

We do not plan any rotation. It’s only Tuesday right now. We have something to talk about as staff. I don’t foresee that right now. I think we will try to go from start to finish.

We end up doing what we think is best for the team, what will give us the best chance to win here.

Well it is. I appreciate Kirk not trying to be nice here. I would love if he was like, Shaggy is our guy for the rest of the season, but I’ll take it here. I don’t think anyone in the fandom wants to see Cade play another snap. Let’s go with the slightly better option and beat Nebraska and deal with the fresh hell the bowl game brings later.

Let’s end with this:

Q. On any team, the backbone of it is many times the walk-ons who may not even play. Next year, many of these numbers will disappear. Have you had to have any conversations with any of the players that you know you won’t be able to make? Probably 25 or 30 players over at this point, bringing in another 25.

KIRK FERENTZ: Of all the things that have gone on, there are a lot of unintended consequences, as we all know. We’ve already found that out with the transfer portal, NIL, which I think at least hopefully is starting to get a bit more structured instead of this crazy chaos we’re living with right now. So there is optimism.

I think one of the most regrettable things is the 105s. When we left the Big Ten meetings back in May, I wouldn’t say confident, but I was optimistic that the number would be 120. I think as a group we had a consensus. It seemed like there was good support for it. But things happen.

So anyway here we are with the reality of 105 with still a lot of questions to be answered. The details are not… I don’t think there is anything in black and white yet. We’re getting to the end of the season, like two days, three days here.

To answer your question, we have not had these discussions. That’s something we’ll have to do in December, to be honest, with our players, let them know you might not have a spot, just so they can… If they want to pursue other options, they’ll have that opportunity.

I think it’s a real shame. For me it was a missed opportunity. Seems like it would have been more logical to step down, 115, 105, whatever. It wasn’t part of the discussion, at least it didn’t come to us.

We will have to deal with it and try to be just as humane about it. The other flip side is that I think 10 of the 23 guys got a role on our team. They wouldn’t be here if they didn’t. They are part of our team, valued, important. We cut down on the options.

The other component, Dallas made the cut. Just from a football standpoint, Dallas Clark made the cut after year one here. Third or fourth team outside linebacker when I got here in the spring of ’99. Wonder how many of those stories will never happen that maybe could have or would have.

At a school like Iowa, that’s important. Maybe not so much at other schools. For us, you know our stories more than anyone else. We have many of them. That’s another unfortunate byproduct. We’re figuring it out and just trying to be smart about how we operate.

The most important thing, of course, is to try to be really transparent with our players, do it in a way where they have an idea of ​​what’s going on there. This means we need to clarify our thinking here next week. Right now it’s all on hold until we play on Friday.

Really interesting insight here from Kirk on the future of walk-ons and college football rosters. It’s going to be a really interesting offseason in so many ways for this program. Again, I’m confused by the fact that Kirk continues to deal with all these big, big changes, but I guess when you’re going to die midway through coaching during a 3-2 win over Illinois, you’re going to take those changes , that will come as long as you are still on the field on Saturdays.

Enjoy your turkey, everyone. Go Hawks and fuck Nebraska. It’s been a fun, weird, frustrating season here and I appreciate you all taking the time to read and comment and make me feel justified in complaining about Iowa football.