IOWA CITY, Iowa – The Iowa football team crushed Northern Iowa 55-0 on Saturday at Kinnick Stadium.

No. 18 Iowa improved to 3-0 and will begin Big Ten play next Saturday at Michigan.

Here is Kirk Ferentz’s post-game press conference transcript:

 

KIRK FERENTZ: Certainly, happy to get the win, and happier with our team’s efforts this week and their focus. That really started last Sunday. I thought they handled that well, looking at the tape from the day before. Day by day, they’ve done a good job preparing, so happy about that.

Hank had a really nice game out there. Tough to do much better than what he did. He was really productive. All three running backs, with Kamari out, all three of those guys, and LJ out. All three of them stepped up and really did well. It was good to see because they’re all young players that we haven’t seen a lot on the game field, or enough on the game field. Xavier’s been a little nicked up, so it was good to see him look like his old self again, too. So that’s positive.

And that doesn’t happen without the line doing a good job, tight ends doing a good job, and our receivers—you may or may not notice, but they’re doing a really good job getting in there and being effective. That’s how the big plays happen, and really happy about that.

Then, obviously, the second half, excellent to get a lot of guys out there playing on the field. Certainly, some penalty situations we’re going to have to get cleaned up. You can’t have those kinds of penalties, and we had a bunch of them. So that’s something we’ll have to work on.

Overall, we’re at the quarter mark now. I keep talking to our guys about how fast it goes. Once you get into the season, it goes quickly. Our non-conference portion of the schedule is over.

Bigger picture, pleased with the way the guys were in camp and then certainly pleased with the way they’ve operated the last three weeks. Now the whole idea is for us to keep growing, and hopefully we’re learning. I think they are but just learning every day and give ourselves a chance to have success as we move forward here. The bottom line is they’re playing with good effort and playing team football, which gives you an opportunity.

Happy with the start, and then I think everybody’s aware we’ve got a lot of work to do. We’ll reinforce that tomorrow, and they’ll see that on film. But that’s exciting. That’s what the season’s all about, so just happy with the start.

Q. Seeing Addison Ostrenga get into the end zone for the first time in about two years… You’ve had a lot of players in your career come back from injuries and have those moments, but what was it like for somebody like him who knew he wanted to come back after his injury and then to be able to get a score like that?

KIRK FERENTZ: Really good. His path here to start with five years ago or whenever it was—five years ago. He was coming here as a baseball guy, and then we jumped in and intercepted him, if you will.

He’s been nothing but just a great team member since, a tough one. For him to have that injury last year… I did have that thought before the game today. I said, “You know, we’ve got DJ out, but we got Addison back here with us.” It gave him a chance to be the primary guy.

Really happy for him on a personal note, because it’s no routine coming back from an Achilles. You talk to our training staff, the hours he put into it, and he went above and beyond. I think that’s something older players understand, too—they have to do that if they really want to get back to full speed. So, just happy for him on a personal note because he certainly has earned that and paid a price for it. Really happy to see him have success like that.

Q. Hank seems to have really grown the last three weeks. Where have you seen him grow the most, and is he your starting quarterback moving forward?

KIRK FERENTZ: Yeah, I guess I’d say he’s our starter. This will be the third time, or today was the third time. He’s helped himself with every opportunity.

We were just talking back in there a little bit about the whole thing. Again, it’s young players. He did not have a great day, I think most of the world noticed, on the open practice back in August. But that was not consistent with what we had seen the first eight or nine practices. Excuse me.

So, that’s why you kind of look at the big picture with people. It doesn’t mean we’re out of the woods right now either. We’re happy with Jeremy, too. I think both of these guys have improved a lot. They’ve worked hard, and they’re both diligent with their work habits and their studying.

Ultimately you have to get out there and do something on the field, too. I think he’s looked a little bit more comfortable with each outing. It wasn’t perfectly smooth last week, but he did some really good things there, too, and just kept us in there where we could win the game in the fourth quarter.

So yeah, it’s ongoing, but so far, so good. Really pleased with what he’s doing.

Q. First, do you have an update on Bryce Hawthorne, how he’s doing?

KIRK FERENTZ: You guys saw it on the board like I did, probably. He got caught there. Potentially scary, but it seems like he’s fine. He was good after coming off the field there, and then they looked deeper in the halftime locker room here. It seems like he’s doing fine. You never know, we’ll see on Tuesday for sure, but he seems like he’s great. He co-signed that one himself, so I feel good about that.

Q. And just Braden Jackson, in his first year-plus in the program… What has he kind of shown you leading up to today?

KIRK FERENTZ: I don’t want to pretend I’m an expert on his dad’s career, but I know a little bit about it and kind of heard the CliffNotes on it. It didn’t happen overnight for him. Boy, he paid a real price and had the connection with Marv Levy, played Arena Football, and all that kind of stuff before he hit it. Obviously, he was a really good football player in the NFL.

I think we felt in the recruiting process that Braden had the potential, but you never know. Kind of wild, I guess. Luckily Braden chose to come here, and for him to get out there today… We’ve seen marked improvement with each phase last year, then transitioning in the spring, and then this summer.

So, I’m not going to stand here and say I’m totally shocked or surprised. I think we all felt he was capable. But yeah, he looked really good out there today. It was fun to see him, and he’s got to feel good about himself, rightfully so.

Q. I realize you just said it’s the quarter mark, so a long way to go, but what do you feel like are the most one or two profound things you’ve learned about this team that maybe you didn’t know in these first three weeks of the season?

KIRK FERENTZ: I’ve said before we’re a little bit inexperienced right now and young, especially in comparison to last year. Veteran teams can go south, too. It’s a little tougher to predict sometimes with younger guys, like what they’re going to do and how they’re going to do things.

Outside of one little blip in the radar, these guys have been attentive to what we’re trying to get done. There are a lot of things you look at. We’re still a little bit behind in a couple areas, but they’re making the effort and trying to do things the way we want them to. When you do that, that’s how growth and improvement take place.

I think that’s kind of the overriding theme, and again, we’re only a quarter of the way. As easy as it sounds to get ready for three games and go, it’s not always easily done. So at least we’re off to a good start there. Then you hope having a little success, they figure out like, it actually works if we do things the way we’re supposed to do them. None of this stuff is rocket science, but hopefully that’s getting reinforced a little bit with them right now.

Q. A 300-yard classman for the running backs that had 100 yards, you have another underclassman get an interception… How encouraging is it to see on a day like this, playing an FCS school, to have guys take advantage of their opportunities?

KIRK FERENTZ: You hope every player does that if he’s in there. There’s no way you can control, especially, the interceptions, but it was actually two guys that got their first picks.

Wallace barely played last year until the end. Rashad was kind of the same way. They both got thrown in at Nebraska because we were out of guys, and both did a good job. Then that’s been spiraling since that time, at least from what we’re seeing them do in practice.

So, you know, it’s a good thing, because we graduated some good guys this past year, so you’re going to have to have somebody step up and do a good job. Having success on the game field is always good for everybody, as long as they keep it in perspective.

Q. Coach Ferentz, your defense is off to a great start this season. Three games, you’ve pitched two shutouts, and you’ve only allowed 13 points altogether in the first three games. I know there’s a long way to go in the season, but you have to be very happy about that so far.

KIRK FERENTZ: You’d rather have it that way. Nobody’s going to complain about that, and we haven’t—so far, at least, we haven’t given up too many easy plays or uncontested plays, and that’s something you’re always looking at.

When we have, it’s led to some points, too. We had that problem last week a little bit. Overall it’s like what I’ve talked about the team in general: guys are working hard. When you see them individually, sometimes you think, “Jeez, I don’t know if that’s going to be good enough,” but then collectively, if guys are really playing hard, a lot of times that’ll overcome some warts that you might have.

I am pleased with the start, getting good leadership. We talked about Buffington a week ago. Just a guy who hasn’t played who’s playing like a veteran guy right now, and that helps the cause a little bit, too.

Q. Hi Kirk. I wanted to ask you about… You had a lot of players play in the first series, and you just kind of throw them out there. When you look at a game like this, it can go one of two ways, and you’ve been in both of them, especially against these guys.

KIRK FERENTZ: Yes, I have.

Q. And I was just wondering, do you kind of have a plan like, hey, A, if it goes the way we want it to, we’re going to put these guys out there as often and try to mix them up as much as possible, and then B, if it doesn’t, we’re going to kind of narrow it and do it that way? Or how did you kind of approach this game to get as many players in as you wanted?

KIRK FERENTZ: Part of it was by necessity. One thing I want to point out about that ’09 game, which I’m trying to point out to the team… That to me was all about our mental attitude in that game, with all due respect to them. They came ready to play and we didn’t.

The more important point, talking about this whole theme, is that that was a good football team. We had a really good team, and we were coming off a good season where that ’08 season was all about having the right attitude.

So, a reminder that, like, good teams screw things up, too, or don’t have the right perspective. So, first of all, credit to our guys for doing that. Secondly, a lot of it was just out of necessity. Like, we knew Kamari wasn’t going to play—we figured that out by the end of the week, it was apparent he wasn’t going to make it. DJ wasn’t going to make it.

Who’s going to step in and do it? I wish I could tell you we would have predicted this. I don’t think any of us were counting on that for the three running backs to do that. And Addison, as I said earlier, we all felt pretty good about that room. We’re a better team with all those guys healthy—Kamari, Addison, LJ—and Brevin Doll, too, on special teams, he couldn’t go today.

We’ll be better when we get those guys back. But part of it’s by necessity, and then if you get a chance to rotate some guys through, that’s what we wanted. We wanted to get Heck in there, hopefully in the first half.

The way it played out, we wanted another series with Hank just because we don’t want to take a guy in and out and play yo-yo that way. We gave Hank one more series, and then went with Jeremy after that.

So part of it was strategized, but you just never know how the game’s going to go either. I can promise you I didn’t see this one coming into the stadium today. I didn’t know what to expect, quite frankly. Both ways—them or us.