Kirk Ferentz
Iowa Head Coach

Opening statement
“Very very proud of our football team, everybody involved, support staff, staff and most of all players. It’s just been a great group and kind of represented that last 46 seconds or 45 seconds. These guys just don’t give up. They have a lot of resiliency, they just keep fighting and I can’t say enough about them so it’s been a lot of fun to be with these guys on a daily basis. I got an email last week, it was a positive email from someone who likes us and he described last week’s win as an ugly win and I got a chuckle out of that because Big Ten football, November football, that’s kind of the way it works. The bottom line is football isn’t a beauty contest, it’s not like gymnastics where you get style points, it’s about finding a way to be successful and finding a way to win the football game. Our guys have really done a good job of that so extremely proud of them, happy for them to get 10 wins, especially in a season it’s hard to do and to walk out of here with our seventh win in the conference and to come back with a trophy. Those things are all really good and just extremely happy for everyone involved. That’s the best part of what we do. Just a really good locker room, just happy for the guys, like a lot of our games, just a lot of good stories today. You think about (Ethan) Hurkett and (Marshall) Meeder coming up big there in the last, whatever it was there, 30 seconds. It’s just kind of the way it’s gone this year. Somebody steps up and does a great thing and just really proud of the guys so happy for them, we’re all going to enjoy this one tonight, going to enjoy it tomorrow and then we’ll get back to work on Sunday, plenty of things to clean up, obviously a lot of work to do between now and next Saturday but it’s going to be nice to enjoy this thing a little bit. One nice thing about playing Friday is there’s a little buffer there where you can actually maybe enjoy things a little bit so I plan on doing that and then we’ll get back to work here Sunday so I’ll throw it out for questions.”

On Marshall Meeder being sent out and stepping up
“Not overly surprised, you never take anything for granted, first of all, but not overly surprised. Drew (Stevens) had a tough, tough day, he’s been a really good, good performer for us, and just so consistent. The fact that two kickoffs go out of bounds is uncharacteristic. It just felt like maybe it’s best to let him sit a little bit and then the other component there was Marshall (Meeder), since he’s shown up, he’s a delightful young guy, he’s just a really good, good young guy. He’s had a great attitude since he joined us and then he’s really performed really consistently, both of those guys. I felt like we had a pretty good backup plan there. He doesn’t quite have the range that Drew has, but what you see him do every day in practice makes you feel confident. And that’s how players earn confidence, not only from coaches, but from their teammates. So, I think everybody felt good and it wasn’t exactly the cleanest field goal I’ve ever seen. It looked like the snap might have been a little low, Tory (Taylor) does a great job getting it down, but it made it through the uprights and that’s all that counts. When he came in the locker room you just kind of see how the players feel about him, it was a pretty good ovation, kind of like the way they respond to Deacon (Hill). You can just tell they like him. But I think the reason they like him is they watch him perform in practice. He’s a serious guy that cares, so that’s kind of how football works. If a guy’s got the right attributes and demonstrates that then people tend to have confidence in him.”

On finding a way to win
“We didn’t have a lot going at all the second half. A lot of struggles, a couple three and outs or three of them I guess. I guess four in a row, had the ball on the one yard line the one time so it was kind of opposite in the first half that way and sometimes football swings that way but as long as you’re still playing, you figure you have a chance and then we throw the pick, I think that was our first turnover so that was a little concerning but we come back and get the pick and take it from there. Maybe it’s the prettiest play of the day in my mind was when we hit that last run, it was like 12, 14 yards but it looked like 70 to me. What was it? 22, so I mean that was a pivotal play just because of the range and a little bit windy and all those kinds of things so we knew the run game we’d be looking at today, these guys have done a great job so we knew there was going to be a lot of ugly runs and that is the proper term for that. But if you stay with it, hopefully you’ll pop a couple too. Leshon (Williams), another guy that’s kind of a representative of our team, he had one of the worst plays of the season against Michigan State and since that time, he’s just played great so really proud of the way he’s bounced back and just have a lot of confidence in him.”