Five ways to make Brian Ferentz’s new job easier
By Pat Harty
IOWA CITY, Iowa – Brian Ferentz would be the first to say that he can’t do it alone.
He needs help from all sorts of different people in his new job as offensive coordinator for the Iowa football team.
And that’s why I wrote this column, to help Brian get off to a good start, so he can make his father even more proud of his accomplishments.
Here are five ways to improve the current situation on offense where Iowa’s quest to be balanced failed miserably this season, mostly because of an ineffective passing game.
1. Hire a quarterback coach: Brian Ferentz has built an impressive coaching portfolio in a short time, but there is one key thing missing from his experience.
He hasn’t coached quarterbacks, nor did he ever play the position. Brian was an offensive lineman in high school and in college and has focused mostly in that area as a coach. He also coached tight ends for the New England Patriots in 2011, but as far as coaching quarterbacks, Brian Ferentz has no experience and he acknowledged that on Monday while addressing the media.
That’s why Kirk Ferentz needs to create a new position for a quarterback coach who also would coordinate the passing game. It would remove some of the burden from Brian if he didn’t have to counsel and guide quarterbacks on a daily basis.
Brian Ferentz isn’t qualified to teach quarterbacks at this stage. He can lead and inspire the quarterbacks as a coach, but he doesn’t know the position well enough to make them better.
Greg Davis was the offensive coordinator and quarterback coach during his five years on the staff, which ended last Friday when Davis announced his retirement. Davis spent almost his 42-year career coaching quarterbacks. So it made sense for Davis to handle both responsibilities for Iowa, and yet, the offense sputtered under his watch, especially the passing attack.
So maybe it was too much responsibility for Davis because something, obviously, was wrong.
Quarterback is such an important position that having a full-time coach just for that position is now necessary.
All three of Iowa’s starting quarterbacks under Davis – James Vandenberg, Jake Rudock and C.J. Beathard – regressed under his watch.
Iowa needs somebody with new and fresh ideas on offense, somebody who could help the quarterbacks reach their potential, while helping Brian Ferentz do the same.
2. Address the problem at receiver: Of course, this is easier said than done. For as long as I’ve covered the team dating back to the early 1990s, Iowa has struggled to recruit and produce quality receivers.
Thanks goodness for high school quarterbacks and running backs because without them Iowa’s problems at receiver would be magnified.
Marvin McNutt, Derrell Johnson-Koulianos and Tim Dwight rank first, second and third in career receiving yards at Iowa, respectively. McNutt and Johnson-Koulianos both played quarterback in high school, while Dwight was a running back.
Receiver is the one position on the team where you can clearly see that an upgrade in talent is needed.
Current receivers coach Bobby Kennedy came to Iowa as sort of a package deal with Davis after they had worked together at Texas. To say that Kennedy’s contribution has been underwhelming would be putting it mildly. If anything, the position has gotten worse under Kennedy’s watch.
The hope was that Kennedy would use his connections in Texas to help recruit receivers. And it appeared to be working for a while when Texas natives Gavin Holmes and Beau Corrales both committed to Iowa’s 2017 recruiting class.
But they have since de-committed from Iowa, along with Texas running back Eno Benjamin and Texas cornerback Chevin Calloway. All four disagreed with Kirk Ferentz’s no-visit policy for committed players and chose to look elsewhere.
The Iowa coaches have to do a better job of recruiting speed and talent together. It seems that whenever Iowa lands a speedy receiver like Paul Chaney, or more recently, Emmanuel Ogwo, he has average to below average receiving skills.
Ogwo only played one season with the Iowa football team, redshirting in 2015, before switching to track where he is a potential star in the 400 meters.
It just comes down to the Iowa coaches have to recruit better receivers. It’s that simple. If schools like Illinois and Western Michigan can produce star receivers, there is no reason why Iowa shouldn’t do the same.
The Hawkeyes are considered one of the favorites to land Iowa City West four-star receiver Oliver Martin, but you would hope so, considering Martin lives just a few miles from the Iowa campus and grew up cheering for the Hawkeyes. He also likes Notre Dame, Michigan State and Auburn.
It would be a public relations disaster should Iowa fail to land Martin because in addition to being a hometown star, he plays a position of need where there is a serious shortage of talent.
Kirk Ferentz is reluctant to recruit junior college players, but he might have to soften that stand at receiver.
3. Recruit a dual-threat quarterback: Not since Brad Banks in 2002 has the Iowa offense been led by a true dual-threat quarterback. And how’d that work out?
Banks finished runner-up for the Heisman Trophy in his only season as a starter, while his team finished 11-2 overall and 8-0 in the Big Ten.
None of the quarterbacks on the current Iowa roster would be considered a true dual-threat, but sophomore-to-be Drew Cook moves exceptionally well for his size at 6-foot-5 and 230 pounds.
Fellow sophomore Ryan Boyle probably was the closest Iowa’s has had to a dual-threat quarterback since Drew Tate, but Boyle now plays receiver after switching from quarterback last spring.
A dual-threat quarterback would give Iowa a different look than the traditonal pro-style quarterback. One problem with having a pro-style quarterback is when a play breaks down, there is little hope, whereas a dual-threat quarterback has the ability to improvise on the ground.
4. Get more creative with Wadley: It would be easy to run Akrum Wadley between the tackles or around end 25 to 30 times per game next season because he is that talented.
That would just be asking for trouble, though, because Wadley isn’t built to take a pounding, weighing barely 190 pounds. The New Jersey native needs space to operate. He needs to play slot receiver in some formations and used to run reverses and bubble screens, anything to get Wadley in space.
Former Iowa running back Shonn Greene withstood the pounding of being the featured running back in 2008 while rushing for a school-record 1,850 yards. But Greene also weighed about 230 pounds and was built to run between the tackles 25 to 30 times per game.
Wadley isn’t built that way, so it’ll take a different approach.
5. More single-back sets and creativity at the goal line: This is meant as no disrespect to the Iowa fullbacks because they might be the toughest and most unselfish players on the team.
But their presence in the backfield also makes Iowa predictable at times, especially in goal-line situations. Removing the fullback would take away one defender from the box, creating more room for the running backs.
Oklahoma ran a play in its bowl game that started with the quarterback lined up behind center at the opponent’s 1-yard line. The quarterback then moved from behind center and lined up as a receiver. A running back then took the direct snap in a wildcat formation and scored easily.
Brian Ferentz needs to convince his father to think out of the box just a little bit and not be concerned about something going wrong just because it’s different.
Iowa’s goal-line display against Florida in the Outback Bowl was predictable and pathetic.
That has to change.