IOWA CITY, Iowa – Here is Chris Polizzi’s press conference transcript from Tuesday:

CHRIS POLIZZI: Good afternoon, everyone. Good to see you.

First, thanks for being here. I appreciate what you do covering our program. I know our players appreciate it as well.

Back in April, I talked about the standard that’s established by first Coach Ferentz and then some of the other players and coaches that have come before us, our responsibility to continue to carry that forward through six games. We’ve had some exciting moments and some pretty good stories to tell.

Behind those plays really goes into the daily work, the blocking, the protection, covering of kicks, players earning their teammates’ trust. I think that’s a big one. I want to make sure that those guys get recognized. Also, the staff that I have is tremendous: Brock Sherman, Stetson McIlravy, Kevin Spencer do a tremendous job behind the scenes working with the players not only on the field in team capacities, but in the meeting room and one-on-one.

Proud of the accomplishments of the group, the specialists, and also special teams. Having said that, we have plenty of room for improvement. Our priorities remain the same: securing the football on the transition, scoring points when needed, executing the details and being ready when our numbers called, and just essentially the emphasis of this week as well is just growing daily.

Q. What have you seen from Boston Everitt through the first half of the year? I know he and Tanner were right next to each other throughout fall camp, but I think Coach Ferentz called him naive to football to some extent, and that’s probably helped him. But I think he said three straight games of pinning the opponent inside the 3-yard line. How have you seen him continue to ascend regardless of whether he’s in Kinnick Stadium or elsewhere?

CHRIS POLIZZI: Boston’s a great story. Somebody that is as green to the game of football, not only college football, not only Big Ten punting here at Iowa. But naive, I think, is an appropriate word, and he’d be the first one to admit that, “Hey, why are we — why is it called that? Why are we doing that? Why are we…”

But I think in the improvement that you see in Boston is just his willingness to learn. He is a sponge. He tries to soak it up as much as possible. I think he has great practice habits. I think he does a great job moving forward with a bad practice or a bad rep. He does as good a job of anybody of compartmentalizing it. What did I make the mistake on and how do I move forward with that? And just his overall maturity. He’s not a young kid that gets too down on himself. He’s not a guy that, you know, he’s hit like 17 of his 27 punts have been inside the 20, and I don’t even know how many landed at the one. And he kind of jogs off and he’s like, “Pretty good, right?” I’m like, “Yeah, that’s excellent. That’s really good.”

So, not a guy that gets too high and too low, and he’s enjoying it. He is someone you enjoy as a coach working with a guy that appreciates the simple zeal of excelling in football.

Q. Caden was a little quiet the first time we talked to him after the NIU game and then after the Iowa State game, maybe a little bit more open, a little bit more talkative with us. What’s he like off the field? And do you also call him the iceman now after the Iowa State kick?

CHRIS POLIZZI: I have never and will never call him the iceman (laughter). Caden’s a great kid, and I emphasize the kid. He is a young guy, and he wears his emotions on his sleeve. If it’s a good day and he’s hitting all his kicks, you know what I mean, he’s great, he’s talkative. If he’s struggling or it’s a wind day or something, he’s more reserved because he’s not necessarily down.

And he’s a big student of himself. He’s a big student of the game. He watches a lot of other kickers and, what’s their aiming? What’s their toe placement, you know what I mean? But he knows especially now what works for Caden.

So, as he hits more kicks and he gets more experience out there, another great story. A guy misses his first PAT, you know what I mean? And the world is falling, you know, to go out and — I think he’s eight of eight under 50 yards. And I think his first field goal was a 53-yarder missed, which is hard to do.

So then to see him come out in Washington, and hit a 51-yarder that he buried, was great. He’s one of the guys you can point to has growth, and he still has a long way to go, just like a lot of the guys in the locker room. Long way to go in their growth and development, but he’s one that you can point to as somebody that’s consistent in their work and their practice habits, which it shows up on the field.

Q. It was well-documented this offseason just how different the special teams, you know, just the nuts and bolts, the roster of it looked. So why do you think that the special teams unit has still had so much success so far this season despite all the changes?

CHRIS POLIZZI: I think with any person when you set a standard and you can show them, “This is the way we operate from the second you wake up to the second you go to sleep, in the meetings, in the weight room, in practice. These are your habits. These are how we take notes.”

And you have a guy like Coach Ferentz that can point to so many different individuals. You can bring individuals back, Drew Stevens, Ty Nissen’s back here with us. Nate Kaeding has come by, Jason Baker, Tory Taylor, all these guys that can help these guys out in the sense of, “Hey, I put on that helmet when I walked in that locker room.” That’s a tremendous resource for the players.

I still don’t think we’ve hit that era of a Tory Taylor, a Kaden Wetjen, a Nate Kaeding, a Drew Stevens, but I think these guys are working towards it. And again, I point to the culture that Coach Ferentz sets and, you know, between the strength staff and athletic training and the assistance that we have here, it’s everything’s simpler because they — they’ve walked that before.

Q. I wanted to ask a little bit about the return game, both punt and kick return. Braeden Jackson getting his opportunity, goes out against Michigan untouched, um, for the kickoff return for a touchdown. And then you have Evan James back there. We’ve seen Rian Wanjiku back there for punts. What have you made of how that trio and a few others maybe we haven’t seen get opportunities on the field in a game just yet and how they’re developing?

CHRIS POLIZZI: You know, it’s a fun group to work with. When Braeden broke that one, there was a lot of unsung heroes in there like Xavier Williams made an unbelievable block and, Chubs made a great double-team move there and, you could point to almost nine hats-on-hats of great blocking. So many guys that were working extra effort with trust in, Braeden he was going to get that thing done, and he made a great move on the kicker and then turned on the jets.

So those are exciting things that you can point to of a guy that just quietly has been working, you know what I mean? And — wasn’t anything anybody ever talked about previously, “Hey, how are you going to get, you know, B-Jack the ball and get him going on kickoff return?” But just continued to work at his craft, continued to catch off jugs, continuing when his opportunity came, made the most of it along with the opportunity from his teammates.

Reece Vander Zee’s done great job and is as reliable there is, and he’s had a ton of success. I don’t know that we win the Iowa State game if it’s not for his reliability in not only fielding the punts, but gaining extra yards. And then Evans’s another one you can point to is just, and I say a quiet guy, Evan’s very soft-spoken, but he has a confidence, especially with the ball in his hands. He’s going to go make a play.

That’s one of the things we can point to as something that we’ve made an emphasis on as a staff in the last two weeks. Boy, we have to get the return game going. There’s so much meat on the bone on that one. And you saw Evan kind of hit that 30-yarder where, boy, if he just keeps his feet a little bit, you know, we might split them. So, it’s not just Evan, it’s the guys that work around them, that are doing the blocking and, and we get a great look from our scouts, the young guys wearing beanies and stuff. They’re all trying to attack Evan James.

I’m happy with where we are up to this point, but I think there’s more there from both the return standpoint.

Q. I’m no Australian football expert, but I think it’s a little different punting the ball over there. Um, what about that experience for Boston has been translatable to American football and what has worked so well?

CHRIS POLIZZI: Sure. So, over there they call it “footy” and those kids just like how I think you can grab any young kid in Iowa and he’ll know how to shoot a basketball or swing a baseball bat… it’s just part of their culture. So for him, everything with them is passing the ball left and right, with their feet, with accuracy. With a ball that’s very similar to a football.

There’s a comfortability there with Boston. I think also you have to point a little bit to his upbringing and his dad’s a pretty famous, former player there. With that is great because there’s some notoriety there, but there’s also an extreme amount of pressure being the son of a pretty famous guy, hey, this guy should ascend.

So, he’s had to deal with some media. He’s had to deal with some pressure and some scrutiny and stuff like that. And he obviously has athletic ability. So, some of those things that translate there not only from playing the game of footy, but the environment that he grew up in.

And again, he’s a pretty even-keeled kid, which is great when you get six specialists in the room. They’re all different and they all feed off each other. I talk about with the guys, you’re the summation of the five people you hang around, and it’s a good group to hang around. They get along with each other. It’s fun.

Q. Kind of curious with the jersey stuff that you guys have to do all the time, who manages that? How do you manage that? I mean, I’m thinking about like — um, Van Kekerix — I’ve made Brevin Doll basically change his number and Weisskphf and Braeden Jackson, but also with the new rules, with you have to have certain numbers and everything, how have you managed that?

CHRIS POLIZZI: The jersey exception is something that we as coaches fought tooth and nail in the spring and there’s still some rudimentary things we’re working with there that don’t make a whole lot of sense for what we have to do.

But, essentially why we do the jersey swap is it allows us to be multiple in the formations that we want to use in punt. If you’re stationary, versus a defense, they’re going to find leaks and they’re going to send the house and I think you’ve seen in some of the games, blocks that, you can’t lengthen the edge, you can’t shift, you can’t, once you do that, you’re locked in.

So that’s the reason that we do that. Credit to K4 and his staff. Credit to Stetson McIIravey who is great reminding everyone, “Hey, we got to be in this jersey, we got to be in this jersey.” It’s something we have to spend extra time on. So, it’s not only in the punt, but also when we go on kickoff return. Weisskopf is 22 and B-Jack is 22. So, Weiskopf has to wear a different jersey. We have to communicate that to the refs or else it’s a penalty.

So, the kids have done a great job embracing it. It is a pain to take your helmet off in between series, put that thing on because as soon as our team goes on offense — what I call them, the law firm of Weisskopf, Van Kekerix, Ries, DeLong, and Delong, they all go and put the jersey swaps on.

So, even if they get called, when we have turnover, hey, we got to do something, or they got to rip the thing off, so it is a pain, but they handle it. They just know, “Hey, this is how we have to operate.” This allows us, this affords us the opportunity to be in multiple positions and really get great coverage down the field with a young punter, that’s not hitting Tory Taylor 60, 70-yard punts, well, we got to be great in coverage, and I think that leads to some of the other questions you got asked, like, how has this group been able to come together?

Q. Evan James, it seems like he’s got wonderful potential as Coach Ferentz has highlighted, but it does seem like he’s had a couple of instances where he’s maybe he took his eyes off the ball this past week with the muffed punt, and then a great recovery. He’s had some issues tracking the ball, it appears. Why have you guys stuck with him as opposed to maybe getting a more sure-fielder in like RVZ? And then second part of that is Lutmer — I know he’s been dinged up and that was kind of the reason early, is there any plans to get him involved in the return game at all this season?

CHRIS POLIZZI: So, with Evan, I think one of the things that you appreciate about him is when you see his practice habits, he’s one of the first guys out there to catch jugs. He stays late, he meets with our coaching staff here — on his own time to come watch not only his returns, but also, get some tips off the punter. Hey, this guy rolls out, hey, when he shifted this way, the ball’s going to go this way.

So, he’s working at it. And again, we’re still early in the season we feel our development and growth as a unit, and Evan has shown tremendous improvement from when he really started catching off the jugs to, to now. So it’s somebody that we trust as this guy’s got game-breaking ability, and you can see the way guys block for him, they trust him to go and make plays.

If we can get 10 more yards, boy, that’s a first down. To get a 30-yarder versus Washington that’s huge. The ability to get kind of those chunk plays. You like Reece in there with that, he doesn’t have quite the same wiggle, and you also worry sometimes, Reece took some shots. When you’re a punt returner, kickoff return’s a little different.

You can get a head start (in kickoff), you can kind of run away from some guys. Punt, as soon as you catch it, you’re getting live bullets. Reece took a couple shots there in Iowa State that you’re like, I don’t know if that’s good for the Hawkeyes.

With Evan right now, I just feel very comfortable and we’ve had packages where we put Lutmer and Evan back there at the same time. The situation just hasn’t kind of arisen for us to use that yet, but one of the things that we’re excited about Evan is his work ethic and his development, I think gives us the best opportunity to break a big one and also secure the ball.

Q. Two of the younger guys on special teams, Julian Manson, Darion Jones, what has allowed them to, to carve out that role on special teams and, and what have you just kind of seen from them so far?

CHRIS POLIZZI: Two great young men that were heavily recruited, and two guys that have come in here and — we almost have to kick Julian out sometimes of our one-on-one deals there, because he’s in there every day studying the tape. So he’s got a determination to be on special teams. He has the size, he has the speed. He’s learning how to move around in — in this big body that he has. But he’s somebody that when you tell him to do it once, he does it.

And he figures it out, and he’s one of those guys, like Tim alluded to, he knows the mistake, he can turn around and tell you, “Ah, I messed that up. I should have. I should have gone up and under there, I should have been long arm on that one.” But he does the things that you’re asking him to do.

Darion is a great kid. He is a live wire, he’s stopped the one punt in between his legs at the 1-yard line, not the technique that we teach, but he’ll regurgitate what you say back to him we use the term, pooches for playmakers.

That’s the first thing he said coming off, “Coach, pooches for playmakers.” I was like, “Not like that, but not at all like that.” But great job. And Brevin Doll, who kind of got dinged up and is a difference maker on our special teams because of the speed and the physicality that he brings on kickoff and on our coverage. He’s standing right down there. So even if Darion makes a hiccup of a mistake, Brevin’s able to secure it. So young guys, Julian and Darion, they have the athleticism and the speed and the work ethic that you trust them in those situations.