Not a whole lot of new ground covered in today's teleconference, but here are the notes/rough quotes from KF during his 8 minutes with the national media.
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Opening Statement
We were thrilled to get the victory on Saturday. It was a game we were very concerned about because we had players injured going in and always have a lot of respect for Northwestern. Real happy to see Akrum get recognized for his efforts and that’s kind of representative of our team right now. Jordan Canzeri went down with an injury on Saturday and Akrum came in and did a great job. I can’t say enough about the effort and resiliency of our players.
Q: Coach, your team is one of six Big Ten teams in the top 20 defensively this year. What makes the league so strong defensively?
KF: We seem to have more schools in our conference that value that where other conferences scoring takes a premium. Historically, you’ve seen a lot of teams play great defense in the league.
Q: Have there been significant changes with that during your time at Iowa?
KF: I don’t think so. Certainly you have to adapt to what you play against. I remember in 1982, Illinois came into Kinnick Stadium and set a record for throwing the ball, something like 482 yards, but we found a way to keep them off the scoreboard for the most part and won the game. So it’s not like throwing the football all over the field is new. In college football, you face a lot of different offenses and different challenge every week.
Q: You changed your practice schedule up this year. Have you had a chance to assess that?
KF: So far, so good. We’ve really enjoyed it. About 3 or 4 weeks ago, I made a comment that I’m still waiting for the other shoe to drop. There’s still time, but so far it’s been good. We’re seven games into the season and I still have to look at my printed out schedule every day, but we’re enjoying it. Guys like working out in the morning.
Q: Did you get much comment from players when you announced it?
KF: No. We visited with them before we mandated it and they were enthused about it. It’s better academically too. It gives them more freedom academically with afternoon and night classes.
Q: Would the college game benefit by having an off the field official reviewing things?
KF: I don’t think it’s a bad proposal. I know Coach Belichick thought in the NFL all calls should be open to review. The whole idea behind replay is to get it right and I think we’d all agree with that. That being said, it’s a really tough job. It’s amazing how good of a job they do because there’s a lot of bang, bang calls. As far as standardizing it or ways to improve it, I think everybody would be open to it.
Q: Do you ever see the regular season schedule expanding to add another game?
KF: I think in a fantasy world, maybe it will go backwards. But revenue factors into everything. Just like I think we’ll never see the day again where we quit playing before Thanksgiving. It’s like NFL talking about playing 18 games. It’s easy to say that if you’re not the one playing. It’s a real toll on the players physically. We’re at a workable place right now, but to push it any further is probably not a good idea.
----
Opening Statement
We were thrilled to get the victory on Saturday. It was a game we were very concerned about because we had players injured going in and always have a lot of respect for Northwestern. Real happy to see Akrum get recognized for his efforts and that’s kind of representative of our team right now. Jordan Canzeri went down with an injury on Saturday and Akrum came in and did a great job. I can’t say enough about the effort and resiliency of our players.
Q: Coach, your team is one of six Big Ten teams in the top 20 defensively this year. What makes the league so strong defensively?
KF: We seem to have more schools in our conference that value that where other conferences scoring takes a premium. Historically, you’ve seen a lot of teams play great defense in the league.
Q: Have there been significant changes with that during your time at Iowa?
KF: I don’t think so. Certainly you have to adapt to what you play against. I remember in 1982, Illinois came into Kinnick Stadium and set a record for throwing the ball, something like 482 yards, but we found a way to keep them off the scoreboard for the most part and won the game. So it’s not like throwing the football all over the field is new. In college football, you face a lot of different offenses and different challenge every week.
Q: You changed your practice schedule up this year. Have you had a chance to assess that?
KF: So far, so good. We’ve really enjoyed it. About 3 or 4 weeks ago, I made a comment that I’m still waiting for the other shoe to drop. There’s still time, but so far it’s been good. We’re seven games into the season and I still have to look at my printed out schedule every day, but we’re enjoying it. Guys like working out in the morning.
Q: Did you get much comment from players when you announced it?
KF: No. We visited with them before we mandated it and they were enthused about it. It’s better academically too. It gives them more freedom academically with afternoon and night classes.
Q: Would the college game benefit by having an off the field official reviewing things?
KF: I don’t think it’s a bad proposal. I know Coach Belichick thought in the NFL all calls should be open to review. The whole idea behind replay is to get it right and I think we’d all agree with that. That being said, it’s a really tough job. It’s amazing how good of a job they do because there’s a lot of bang, bang calls. As far as standardizing it or ways to improve it, I think everybody would be open to it.
Q: Do you ever see the regular season schedule expanding to add another game?
KF: I think in a fantasy world, maybe it will go backwards. But revenue factors into everything. Just like I think we’ll never see the day again where we quit playing before Thanksgiving. It’s like NFL talking about playing 18 games. It’s easy to say that if you’re not the one playing. It’s a real toll on the players physically. We’re at a workable place right now, but to push it any further is probably not a good idea.
