OPENING STATEMENT
First of all, I appreciate, all of us appreciate your understanding about yesterday's postponement. Like all of us, I think our thoughts and prayers are certainly with the Sash family. A very difficult ordeal to deal with right now. I want to thank our fans, everybody involved, former players, everybody that's showing support to Tyler's family and the Hawkeye family, and that includes many people from Iowa State, as well, fans and athletes, coaches from there who have reached out through social media, and fully appreciate and understand that they've gone through some very difficult times, as well. Their support is very much appreciated and very, very special.
I want to thank you for your respect, also, just in dealing with this story. It's a tough story, certainly, and I know a lot of great things have been covered and written about Tyler and his career and just memories about him. He certainly was a special young man in our program, had a great career here, was extremely competitive, just a high-energy player and did a lot of great things, and you can talk about a lot of things that Tyler did here. Certainly the Indiana play in 2009 was a signature moment for him, and I'm still not sure how that all took place.
But it's kind of interesting, as I think about him, my first exposure to Tyler was actually at a little league basketball game, I think it was in Signary (phon), and I can't tell you what grade he was in, but it was a youth league basketball game. His team -- our son James was on the team opposite of him. On that team was Matt Gatens and John Gilmore, two pretty good athletes, and Tyler's team beat them 40-36 that day, and I remember coming home and telling our staff, I saw a kid that scored 36 of 40 points that day single-handedly beat James's team. That was my first exposure to him.
I remember calling him, he was on his way back from the state track meet his junior year, and that's when we offered him a scholarship, and we certainly had a great time with him after that. We're very appreciative of the opportunity we've had to have him in the program, and to lose one of our own, it's a tough thing as you may well imagine.
That being said, we'll transition forward, and just a couple words about last week again. We're pleased with our start. It was a good, positive start. Certainly our fans were fantastic and appreciate them weathering very tough circumstances weather-wise out there on the field.
It was a good start for us, but it was one game, so now we're onto to next chapter and we've got a big challenge as we look forward here, and we're working hard to get ready for that right now. Our captains are Drew Ott, Jordan Lomax on defense again, and then offensively the same two guys, Austin Blythe and CJ Beathard.
And like every week, I imagine, moving forward, we've got a couple guys that are nicked up right now. We'll wait and see how they look by Friday, Saturday and make a game-time decision on a couple guys. But overall I think we're in pretty good shape right now.
Yesterday morning it just kind of occurred to me, this is my 26th game involved in this series, and maybe somebody has got that one topped; I'm not sure. But I imagine that's pretty high on the list.
What I can tell you is I just fully understand and appreciate what this series is all about. It's been a great series through the years, certainly has since I've been back, and on top of that I think it's a very exciting football game for all of our players that grew up in the state of Iowa, grew up watching this series through the years, and for them to have an opportunity to play in this game, it's a really special thing certainly.
And then that's not to discount how important it is to everybody in our football team, and I'm sure it's the same way with them, as well. It's going to be an exciting environment for sure.
Last point I'd just make is that this is, I think, a really exceptional thing in that you don't see many rivalry games that involve two different conferences, major conferences like this one does, so it's really to me a spotlight game for the state of Iowa, a great thing for the state of Iowa, and we're looking forward to being involved in it.
With that, I'll throw it out it questions.
Q. You seem to have pretty good depth. Are you happy with the second and third teams?
KIRK FERENTZ: Just really happy they got a chance to go out and play, and probably like we might have guessed, some guys did a really good job and some other guys looked like it was their first time out there. But it's invaluable. It's different than practice, certainly anytime, and that goes for the guys who made their first-time appearance when the score was even. To get out there in front of the fans and be in a real game, a legitimate game, not a competitive scrimmage or practice, that's a big thing, so certainly anytime new players get a chance to play, that's a good thing, and especially guys on the second team.
Q. Being from a small state actually, and you mentioned two major conferences in a very small state, a game like this, does it kind of showcase that there is some talent here? Since '77 there's been a ton of guys who have started in this game from Iowa high schools?
KIRK FERENTZ: Yeah, there sure are, and that's something we're very proud of. We're had great success. During my time away from the program, the nine years I was gone, I thought long and hard a lot of times about just why did it all happen the way it did, and one thing I went back to, to me the core of our teams, and I think this has been historic, at least with my 26 years, be it in the '80s or now the last 16-plus years, the heart and soul of our team come from this state. Our great leaders tend to be the guys that played high school football in this state, and that's important in this game, but I think overall they just have an appreciation, and they're the guys that really share, I think do a great job of sharing it with other players that come from other places.
I've said it for a long time, it's amazing to me a state of this population, 3 million people, we've got two really good Division I programs. We've got an outstanding FCS program and a lot of good Division III and II football being played here, as well.
To me it's an amazing story and I think it all starts with the coaching and the playing that goes on in our high schools. It doesn't matter if it's a big town or a little town; you find great football and great coaching corner to corner in this state, which is an outstanding thing.
First of all, I appreciate, all of us appreciate your understanding about yesterday's postponement. Like all of us, I think our thoughts and prayers are certainly with the Sash family. A very difficult ordeal to deal with right now. I want to thank our fans, everybody involved, former players, everybody that's showing support to Tyler's family and the Hawkeye family, and that includes many people from Iowa State, as well, fans and athletes, coaches from there who have reached out through social media, and fully appreciate and understand that they've gone through some very difficult times, as well. Their support is very much appreciated and very, very special.
I want to thank you for your respect, also, just in dealing with this story. It's a tough story, certainly, and I know a lot of great things have been covered and written about Tyler and his career and just memories about him. He certainly was a special young man in our program, had a great career here, was extremely competitive, just a high-energy player and did a lot of great things, and you can talk about a lot of things that Tyler did here. Certainly the Indiana play in 2009 was a signature moment for him, and I'm still not sure how that all took place.
But it's kind of interesting, as I think about him, my first exposure to Tyler was actually at a little league basketball game, I think it was in Signary (phon), and I can't tell you what grade he was in, but it was a youth league basketball game. His team -- our son James was on the team opposite of him. On that team was Matt Gatens and John Gilmore, two pretty good athletes, and Tyler's team beat them 40-36 that day, and I remember coming home and telling our staff, I saw a kid that scored 36 of 40 points that day single-handedly beat James's team. That was my first exposure to him.
I remember calling him, he was on his way back from the state track meet his junior year, and that's when we offered him a scholarship, and we certainly had a great time with him after that. We're very appreciative of the opportunity we've had to have him in the program, and to lose one of our own, it's a tough thing as you may well imagine.
That being said, we'll transition forward, and just a couple words about last week again. We're pleased with our start. It was a good, positive start. Certainly our fans were fantastic and appreciate them weathering very tough circumstances weather-wise out there on the field.
It was a good start for us, but it was one game, so now we're onto to next chapter and we've got a big challenge as we look forward here, and we're working hard to get ready for that right now. Our captains are Drew Ott, Jordan Lomax on defense again, and then offensively the same two guys, Austin Blythe and CJ Beathard.
And like every week, I imagine, moving forward, we've got a couple guys that are nicked up right now. We'll wait and see how they look by Friday, Saturday and make a game-time decision on a couple guys. But overall I think we're in pretty good shape right now.
Yesterday morning it just kind of occurred to me, this is my 26th game involved in this series, and maybe somebody has got that one topped; I'm not sure. But I imagine that's pretty high on the list.
What I can tell you is I just fully understand and appreciate what this series is all about. It's been a great series through the years, certainly has since I've been back, and on top of that I think it's a very exciting football game for all of our players that grew up in the state of Iowa, grew up watching this series through the years, and for them to have an opportunity to play in this game, it's a really special thing certainly.
And then that's not to discount how important it is to everybody in our football team, and I'm sure it's the same way with them, as well. It's going to be an exciting environment for sure.
Last point I'd just make is that this is, I think, a really exceptional thing in that you don't see many rivalry games that involve two different conferences, major conferences like this one does, so it's really to me a spotlight game for the state of Iowa, a great thing for the state of Iowa, and we're looking forward to being involved in it.
With that, I'll throw it out it questions.
Q. You seem to have pretty good depth. Are you happy with the second and third teams?
KIRK FERENTZ: Just really happy they got a chance to go out and play, and probably like we might have guessed, some guys did a really good job and some other guys looked like it was their first time out there. But it's invaluable. It's different than practice, certainly anytime, and that goes for the guys who made their first-time appearance when the score was even. To get out there in front of the fans and be in a real game, a legitimate game, not a competitive scrimmage or practice, that's a big thing, so certainly anytime new players get a chance to play, that's a good thing, and especially guys on the second team.
Q. Being from a small state actually, and you mentioned two major conferences in a very small state, a game like this, does it kind of showcase that there is some talent here? Since '77 there's been a ton of guys who have started in this game from Iowa high schools?
KIRK FERENTZ: Yeah, there sure are, and that's something we're very proud of. We're had great success. During my time away from the program, the nine years I was gone, I thought long and hard a lot of times about just why did it all happen the way it did, and one thing I went back to, to me the core of our teams, and I think this has been historic, at least with my 26 years, be it in the '80s or now the last 16-plus years, the heart and soul of our team come from this state. Our great leaders tend to be the guys that played high school football in this state, and that's important in this game, but I think overall they just have an appreciation, and they're the guys that really share, I think do a great job of sharing it with other players that come from other places.
I've said it for a long time, it's amazing to me a state of this population, 3 million people, we've got two really good Division I programs. We've got an outstanding FCS program and a lot of good Division III and II football being played here, as well.
To me it's an amazing story and I think it all starts with the coaching and the playing that goes on in our high schools. It doesn't matter if it's a big town or a little town; you find great football and great coaching corner to corner in this state, which is an outstanding thing.
