By Todd Brommelkamp/1600 ESPN
Stop calling for Brian Ferentz to be fired.
Stop demanding the coaching staff give Joe Labas or any other backup quarterback the chance to resurrect Iowa’s offense.
There is nothing that can be done in 2023 to save the Iowa Hawkeyes. You’re just screaming into the void at this point. Iowa should find a corporate sponsor for The Void. The Void is getting some serious run this season.
Now that we’ve tackled that, what about the future?
This is going to be difficult for some of you to read. It was difficult for some to hear Monday morning on 1600 ESPN. Difficult isn’t fun. Difficult isn’t easy. Difficult is difficult.
Kirk Ferentz is the only person who can change Iowa Football.
Kirk Ferentz is Iowa Football’s biggest problem.
Kirk Ferentz needs to retire at the end of the season.
I said it so you don’t have to.
Until Kirk Ferentz is no longer Iowa’s football coach, nothing will change. Coordinators and assistants will come and go, players will graduate and transfer, and the Hawkeyes will do what the Hawkeyes do, which is win games in as agonizingly unenjoyable ways as possible and lose them in the same manner.
I once made the decision to have wisdom teeth extracted without going under. I know a thing or two about agony. You hear those sounds, you can’t unhear them.
For 24 years Kirk Ferentz has guided Iowa to 19 winning seasons. The current season isn’t over yet but it will make an even 20 barring an epic meltdown.
Kirk Ferentz has, for the most part, represented his employer and this state well. There have been some minor blemishes, none of which are worth readdressing here.
The Ferentz family has donated millions of dollars to the UI Stead Family Children’s Hospital. When a statue of Ferentz is unveiled in Iowa City it should be across the street from Kinnick Stadium, not next to it.
Kirk Ferentz has earned the right to go out on his own terms, hasn’t he? What gives some fat, motor-mouthed small market sports talk radio host the right to make the call that it’s time?
I said it so you don’t have to.
College football is changing rapidly. Conferences are expanding. The transfer portal and Name-Image-Likeness opportunities have ushered in the era of college free agency. Everyone (okay, mostly everyone) has more money than they know what to do with thanks to enormous television rights deals.
Maybe this is a classic overreaction. We’ve been here before, after all. The 2014 season seemed like a crossroad. Kirk Ferentz called an unheard of news conference days after losing the TaxSlayer Bowl to Tennessee where he addressed the C-word fans have become obsessed with: change.
“What’s important is to make sure we cover the territory we need to cover, to come up with a good game plan, and again, not just change things to change things,” he said then. “I think that’s really a waste of time and effort. But the big thing is to really look and find out what we need to tinker with and what we need to adjust and then go about it in a smart, logical way and make sure we do that right.”
Ferentz and staff made a difficult decision that offseason, very publicly choosing quarterback C. J. Beathard over Jake Rudock.
That’s tinkering and adjusting.
What Iowa needs now is well beyond another tune-up.
The offensive numbers have been so inept they don’t merit a mention here, though it should be noted there are somehow three Big Ten teams averaging less points per game than Iowa’s 19.5.
Last Saturday, Minnesota beat Iowa in Kinnick Stadium without scoring a touchdown. Fans will debate Cooper DeJean’s ill-fated non-punt return non-touchdown for years to come. It’ll be “Greenway wasn’t offsides” on steroids.
The ensuing outrage over DeJean’s “illegal fair catch” provided a lot of cover for Kirk Ferentz, who spent the majority of his postgame news conference discussing officiating and not how the Hawkeyes managed just two total yards of offense in the second half.
“We’re going to have to find answers moving forward,” Ferentz said.
Geraldo Rivera was certain something was buried in Al Capone’s vault, too.
There are no answers for Iowa at this point. Fans have called for Deacon Hill to be replaced at quarterback by Joe Labas, who led the Hawkeyes to a 21-0 victory over Kentucky in the Music City Bowl last December. Two of the three touchdowns Iowa scored in that game came via the defense and Ferentz has been adamant Iowa’s best option is under center on Saturdays.
“I don’t think we’re insane,” Ferentz said Saturday night. “You go with what you see in practice, and you know, try to make the best decisions at all positions, not just quarterback. Obviously, quarterback is the one that attracts the attention.”
Albert Einstein once addressed the definition of insanity. He was a brilliant man. He’d be flummoxed by Iowa Football. Maybe he could fix Iowa’s offense if he weren’t, you know, dead.
That brings us to the other Ferentz.
Brian Ferentz’s tenure as the team’s offensive coordinator is coming to an unceremonious end one way or another. He has served his father in that position to varying degrees of success since 2017 but the last two seasons have been particularly troubling.
Following the 2022 season, then-Athletics Director Gary Barta “solved” the issue of Brian Ferentz’s employment by amending his two-year rolling contract to add to stipulations. One, Iowa needed to win at least seven games in 2023 for the deal to automatically renew. Given that if you throw out Kirk Ferentz’s first two seasons (which featured a combined four wins) the Hawks have failed to meet that threshold only four times – including a 6-2 Covid-shortened 2020 campaign – the odds were good that wouldn’t be an issue.
That second amendment has been slightly more problematic for the Ferentz family. Barta grabbed an average of 25 points per game out of thin air, which is comically funny in hindsight given the last game he witnessed as Iowa’s AD featured 21 total points and just seven scored by the offense. Why 25? Like getting to the center of a Tootsie Pop, we’ll never know.
Of course, a few months after addressing Brian Ferentz’s future in the weakest way possible he addressed his own. Gary Barta skipped town ahead of his contract’s expiration date, choosing to retire and leaving the Hawkeyes and their inept offensive philosophy as a national punchline for interim AD Beth Goetz to deal with.
What’s an interim AD going to do that a full-time boss wouldn’t?
The hope of many Iowa fans is Goetz gets the gig full-time. Can you imagine your first official day on the job going to the man who has coached your school’s football program for 24 seasons and telling him you’re firing his son whether he likes it or not?
Kirk Ferentz and Barta insisted for years that Barta, not Kirk Ferentz, was Brian’s boss. There’s a flow chart, so they had to be telling the truth!
Sorry, the only person who can change the Iowa offense at this point isn’t Beth Goetz. It’s Kirk Ferentz.
Iowa’s offense isn’t changing unless the head coach changes.
“We’re just trying to win games,” Kirk Ferentz said after failing to do just that against Minnesota. “That’s all we’re trying to do. We’ve been doing a pretty good job up until today. That’s what we’re trying to do. You know, if we’d gotten a little different interpretation on (DeJean’s punt return) we would have won today.”
Does that sound like a man who thinks his program needs an overhaul?
Remember, I said it so you don’t have to.
Todd Brommelkamp is the host of “The Todd Brommelkamp Show” and can be heard weekday mornings on 1600 ESPN from 6:30-9:00 AM. He has covered Iowa football in various forms since 2000.
