IOWA CITY, Iowa -Kirk Ferentz was giving his opening statement to the media following Saturday’s open practice at Kinnick Stadium, and he and had just congratulated former Iowa running back Kaleb Johnson for being selected in the 2025 NFL Draft when Ferentz shared his unsolicited opinion on the state of major college football.

And the head Hawk wasn’t happy.

“None of us still don’t know what the rules are moving forward,” Ferentz said. “I don’t want to say it’s frustrating. But it’s pretty indicative of the last couple years. And hopefully, semi-optimistic that all this stuff will get settled at some point.

“And hopefully, by July 1 we’ll know what the hell we’re doing here moving into this season. Just a little side commentary. But not much you can do about it. We’ll just see where this all goes.”

Iowa’s veteran head football coach was responding to the recent decision by a U.S. judge to decline for now final approval to a $2.8 billion settlement with the National Collegiate Athletic Association that would compensate student athletes for past and future commercial use of their names, images and likenesses.

U.S. District Judge Claudia Wilken in Oakland, California said a provision of the settlement that would immediately cap the number of students named to team rosters, including 105 for football, was unfair to some members of the class action.

Wilken said a significant number of students-athletes would lose their roster spots under the settlement terms. The judge also gave suggestions about how to resolve the issue to the benefit of the plaintiffs.

But that’s little consolation to Kirk Ferentz, who could actually suffer from having been transparent and honest with his players whose roster spots were believed to be in jeopardy because it was assumed that the settlement would be reached in April.

Iowa has had multiple players enter the transfer portal since the end of the 2024 season, including some walk-ons who were told there wouldn’t be a spot for them if rosters were capped at 105 players.

Kirk Ferentz was asked Saturday if it’s fair to him that he was so transparent with his players that it caused some to look elsewhere for rosters spot when maybe he didn’t have to go that far.

“I think we’ve had eight captains since I’ve been back that came here as walk-ons. That’s one of my first thoughts,” Kirk Ferentz said. “But we had some guys that were just good team guys that we didn’t have to tell apparently back in December. But I think we all felt it was the right thing to do if we’re not going to be able to guarantee a spot in the spring. I thought the right thing to do is tell the guys then. They were all welcome to stay through the bowl, take trips and come back and still go to the bowl.

“And a lot of guys found good homes. I don’t know how many of them would have been starters. You can’t predict that. But they’re all good team guys that helped us go and operate well.”

Kirk Ferentz has coached long enough to know that you deal with whatever obstacles might come your way.

But what he seems most upset about is that he was led to believe that the rosters would be capped at 105 by this summer, but now there is a chance that current players could be allowed to stay under a sort of grandfather clause.

“You deal with whatever comes you way because this is way out of my hands to get too worked up about it,” said Ferentz, who is entering his 27th seasons as the Iowa head coach. “But I will be a little bit upset if they say you can grandfather guys in. Our guys are gone. To me, it rewards the people in my opinion that maybe we’re thinking about what’s best for their players.”

Ferentz said Saturday that Iowa has “four or five players” players that chose to stay on the spring roster despite being told that they wouldn’t make the cut to 105.

“We just said, hey, you’re not on the 105, but you’re welcome to stay in the spring, too, and they’ve chosen to do that,” Ferentz said. “But we’ve been transparent with each and every guy. Just felt like that was the right thing to do. That’s how I would want to be treated. And that’s every player.

“I’ll be a little upset if that blows up in our face.”

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Florida pipeline: Iowa’s top two running backs on the spring depth chart – sophomore Kamari Moulton and junior Jaziun Patterson – are both from Florida, and now here comes another Florida running back in true freshman Nathan McNeil.

The Tampa native enrolled early for college and that has allowed him to participate in spring practice, and to make an impression on his head coach.

The 5-foot-11, 195-pound McNeil made some impressive plays as a runner and receiver in Saturday’s open practice, which marked the end of spring practice.

“He’s done a nice job,” Kirk Ferentz said. “He’s really poised. He’s an impressive young guy. He’s just kind of taking things in stride.”

And though Iowa has to replace 2024 Big Ten Running Back of the Year Kaleb Johnson, who has moved on to the NFL, Kirk Ferentz seems confident that there is enough talent and depth to fill the void.

“Obviously, Kaleb has moved on to the next step, but that whole room, there’s a lot of strengths in there and a lot of guys that are eager to play,” Kirk Ferentz said of the running backs. “You guys have seen Kamari out there and you’ve seen Jazz, and I think we know what to expect from both of those guys.

“So, that’s good.”

Moulton rushed for 473 yards and scored three touchdowns last season, averaging 5.6 yards per carry, while Patterson rushed for 309 yards, scored two touchdowns and averaged 4.9 yards per carry.

The two Florida natives handled the rushing load in the 2024 Music City Bowl after Kaleb Johnson had opted out of playing in the game.

Moulton led Iowa with 96 rushing yards on 14 carries in the 27-24 loss to Missouri, while Patterson carried nine times for 74 yards.

Ferentz said Saturday that sophomore Terrell Washington Jr. is now playing running back full time after having split time at running back and receiver.

Iowa also has two redshirt freshmen running backs on the roster in Brevin Doll and Xavier Williams.

“Xavier has had a good spring and he had a really good fall last year as a redshirt player,” Kirk Ferentz said of Schereville, Indiana native. “He’s another guy last year that was just impressive every day of the year. Very quiet, but very impressive. He doesn’t talk much and he’s not a look-at-me guy. But boy, he just does things that are impressive.

“So, I think that room has good balance and good depth. I’m not sure how we’ll go about playing, but we’ve got to time to figure that out and we’ll know more in August. But reason to be optimitsic about that group”

In addition to replacing Kaleb Johnson, Iowa also had to replace running back coach Ladell Betts, who resigned in February to accept the same position with the New York Giants.

Betts, a former Iowa and NFL running back, was largely responsible for recruiting the current Hawkeye running backs.

Omar Young has since been hired as the new Iowa running back coach.

The settlement would resolve three lawsuits that claimed NCAA rules barring payments to athletes violated U.S. antitrust law. The settlement includes past monetary damages, and would allow schools for the first time to directly pay student athletes