By Pat Harty

IOWA CITY, Iowa – I could be wrong, but Kirk Ferentz appears to have sent offensive lineman Tristan Wirfs a motivational message on Tuesday, and Ferentz used the media to do it.

Ferentz held a press conference on Tuesday to mark the start of his 21st spring practice and he was asked about Wirfs’ potential. The person who asked the question also referred to an Iowa weight-lifting record that Wirfs had recently set.

Video of Wirfs breaking the record in the Iowa weight room and then being mobbed by his teammates was posted on Twitter by the Iowa football account, and to say that it created a huge buzz would be an understatement.

The Mount Vernon native is one of the most physically gifted players on the team, a 6-foot-5, 320-pound combination of power, size and finesse, and the weight-lifting  video, which has received over 1.3 million views, only enhanced that reputation.

Wirfs is also a talented offensive lineman with 20 starts already under his belt as a junior-to-be.

He was the first true freshman to start at tackle under Ferentz and has shown flashes of brilliance over the past two seasons.

But Wirfs still has plenty of room for improvement and that sure seemed to be the point that Ferentz wanted to get across to the media on Tuesday.

Lifting a massive amount of weight is one thing, but it’s not the same as dominating a defensive lineman, and Ferentz wants more of the latter from Wirfs.

“If he can move defensive guys around like he’s moving weights around,” Ferentz said Tuesday, “that’s the next challenge.”

Ferentz wants his talented right tackle to take the next step from a performance standpoint, with the next step being more consistency and more dominance.

Ferentz knows that he has a rare talent in Wirfs and Ferentz is determined to turn potential into high-level performance.

Ferentz also has a rare talent at the other offensive tackle position in 6-6, 320-pound fourth-year junior Alaric Jackson, who was named second-team All-Big Ten by the coaches last season.

Jackson has started 24 games and apparently has reached a level where he could leave early for the NFL as a fourth-year junior.

There is even talk that Wirfs might leave early for the NFL after this coming season as a third-year junior. I heard such talk at the press conference on Tuesday.

My hope is that Wirfs and Jackson both make the NFL if that is their ultimate goal. And why wouldn’t it be?

If they both decide to skip their senior seasons in 2020, then more power to them.

And the same with junior defensive end A.J. Epenesa, who already is being tabbed as a top-10 pick for the 2020 draft, and deservedly so, considering his rare talent and production.

But as far as the now, Iowa’s next wave of early entrees to the NFL have a lot of unfinished business.

There is a sense that Ferentz was being even more guarded than usual on Tuesday because he didn’t gush over his star players, or make Wirfs sound like the second coming based on the weight-lifting video.

Iowa just lost four players with eligibility to the NFL, so it’s a story that won’t go away, especially with more supposedly on the way next year.

But with Kirk Ferentz, the start of spring practice is all about the team, and his team is coming off a season in which it finished ninth in the Big Ten in rushing, averaging a mediocre 148.4 yards per game and just four yards per carry.

His teams are just 9-9 in the Big Ten over the past two seasons and have lost six of the last seven games against Wisconsin.

Senior quarterback Nate Stanley has started every game over the past two seasons and his 52 touchdown passes are the most by an Iowa quarterback in back-to-back seasons.

And that’s saying a lot, considering Iowa’s rich history at quarterback.

Stanley’s two-year totals also include 5,351 passing yards, but also a .500 record in conference play.

So while it’s true that Iowa has some immensely talented players with incredible stats and bright futures, individual greatness hasn’t led to greatness as a team.

Iowa is coming off a 9-4 season that was capped by a 27-22 victory over Mississippi State in the Outback Bowl.

So there was a positive vibe heading into the offseason that you would assume has carried into spring practice.

Iowa has momentum from winning a respectable bowl game, and from winning nine games as a team because winning nine games is never anything to dismiss.

But Iowa’s 9-4 record doesn’t look quite as impressive when you factor in its 5-4 mark in conference play and that it led in the fourth quarter in all four losses to Wisconsin, Penn State, Purdue and Northwestern.

Iowa also rushed for less than 150 yards in the four losses, including just 64 yards against Northwestern and 118 against Purdue.

The weightlifting stuff is all cool and building strength is certainly a key part of the developmental process.

One could argue that Iowa strength and conditioning coach Chris Doyle is the second most important person on the staff behind Kirk Ferentz.

Doyle has worked wonders with Iowa football players over the past two decades, and has no bigger fan than Kirk Ferentz.

But a weight-lifting record doesn’t guarantee a productive rushing attack against Big Ten opponents, and maybe that’s what Ferentz was indirectly pointing out on Tuesday with regard to the Wirfs video.

At least, that’s how I saw it.

 

You wanted video, so here it is! Tristan Wirfs making light work of 450 ????????‍?? | #BreaktheRock pic.twitter.com/gBonZQjc4B

— Hawkeye Football (@HawkeyeFootball) March 12, 2019