-
Opening Statement
Welcome, everyone. Appreciate you being here as always.
A couple words about Minnesota and then we'll move on. As I said Saturday, thrilled to get the victory. Great to be able to bring Floyd back with us. That's always a good thing.
It got down to us playing good football in all three phases. Special teams really did a great job. A lot of good play by everybody.
Proud of the way the guys have hung in there, worked and shown improvement. We haven't had many easy games, that's for sure. Saturday was obviously an example of that. That really kind of transitions us into this week.
We got back fairly late, had some challenges at the airport, mechanical stuff, things like that. Ended up being a late arrival.
Went through the tape on Sunday, like always. Switch gears, our focus has strictly been on Nebraska since Sunday afternoon. Short week. A little tighter window for our preparation.
So far so good. I think our guys are focused right now, focused on the right things. A little adjustment to the schedule. Fortunately, we've had a lot of experience in these types of games, the short weeks. I don't think there's anything overly surprising.
Our opponent, they've been really I think impressive if you consider the changes that have been to the program. They've had a couple injuries, quarterback in and out. Just continue to play and compete and do really well.
Upgraded their roster over the course out of season. They got a lot of transfer guys in, a lot of guys that are dangerous, productive players.
But the biggest thing is they've continued to compete. All you got to do is look back at last week, they had a 14-3 lead on Wisconsin, who had to really work hard to pull that out at the end. We know firsthand how difficult it is to beat Wisconsin. It's never been easy.
They're playing well. They're competing hard. We expect a tough, tough ballgame here Friday needless to say.
Same four captains. Jack, Sam, Kaevon and Riley. All those guys have done a great job.
Injury-wise, don't expect Sam or Monte to play. Don't think that's realistic.
Positive news, Beau Stephens was back at practice today. He'll be available. I don't know how ready he'll be. He's missed some time here. He's a young player. Not like he's got a lot of experienced banked up.
We have a chance to honor 27 seniors as well as student-athlete managers, assistants in the office, all that type of thing. But 27 players that have just done a great job throughout their career. That's always a little bit of bittersweet thing. You see the players come out, meet their parents, kind of always an emotional deal for everybody involved. That starts there.
One of the cooler aspects, you have guys that are rather well-known, obviously household names if you will in our state. Got a lot of other guys, too, that maybe aren't as well-known, yet they're all very valuable.
Jack Campbell making a big play, a guy like Tom Hartleib who has done a great job for our years here on the scout team, helping us prepare. That's something we talk to our players about, everybody has a role. If you're a good football team, you have a role. I can say that about each and every one of the 27 guys we have walking on Saturday. That part is really good.
Beyond that, I say it every year, but just such tremendous respect for anybody that can run this entire race because it's not easy. It's not like playing football 40 years ago. Time commitment is a lot more extensive. It's year-round basically. We've had some guys with injuries, part of the game. Hard to get through a career without being injured. So many things just football-wise, not to mention working to get a degree, despite a big time commitment towards the sport.
The other part is all players, college athletes, are held to our level of scrutiny. I can't say enough about the respect I have for all 27 of them. It will be a special day from that standpoint. I want to compliment those guys.
One thing unique to this group, they all got here before COVID so they experienced the COVID years, playing in front of no people. Cardboard cutouts. Getting tested daily. All the crazy stuff that went on in that '20 season. These guys experienced that. They've seen the good and the bad.
Hopefully this Friday will be a full stadium instead of the cardboard cutouts like last time we played Nebraska in Kinnick. Looking forward to that.
Our kid captain is Dylan McGivern, a 10-year-old with muscular dystrophy. I understand he's a positive young guy, great attitude. Our cheering squad is going to get a little bit bigger because his brother Brady, his mom and dad will be here. I'm told 50 of his relatives are coming from all across the country. Really neat to have him with us.
Last but not least, I wish you a great Thanksgiving. If you're a football coach, cover football, your calendar gets screwed up when it comes to holidays, this time of year. I hope everybody has a chance to be with family and enjoy a good day. We'll do that Wednesday, then again Saturday. That's our schedule. Thursday will be business as normal.
I'll throw it out for questions.
Q. Kaleb Johnson going to be available? Is he fine?
KIRK FERENTZ: He's fine.
Q. What's the severity of the injuries to Sam and Monte? Do you expect them back for a potential game next week?
KIRK FERENTZ: Better news. It could have gone either way. You never know what to think coming off the field. They both got tested yesterday. I think things look about as good as they can. We'll just take it a day at a time. The door is open, but not this week.
Q. Terry Roberts?
KIRK FERENTZ: He's out.
Q. What has he meant to this team? One of the seniors you feel for...
KIRK FERENTZ: You do. I'm not sure he's ever gotten back to full strength whenever it was, late October. It's tough. He's tried, worked at it. He shut it down here a couple weeks ago, four, five weeks ago.
He's been such a spark player for us, did such a great job on special teams, a real catalyst. When he played in the defensive backfield, he's played well.
It's hard. I say it every time you talk about a major injury, it's harder on nobody more than the player, the individual, because all the investment they make. You only get 12 games guaranteed. Any time you lose one or half a one, that's important.
It's really tough here because it happened at the back end of his career. There's not next year. At least Jermari Harris has next year in front of him. It makes it that much harder. It's hard on our football team, but it's tough on the individual.
Q. Talking to the players today, the implications of this game, seems like they're dissociated from what this game could mean. Is it difficult to do that as a team? How have you seen them have a businesslike approach?
KIRK FERENTZ: I hope they can do it. I skipped over that point. These guys are all college students. They probably follow football more than I do quite frankly with the outside world.
I think we all know what's at stake. My encouragement has been to them we have to focus on this week purely, that's what it's all about. That's our attitude five weeks ago. That was the goal. We had five games, five weeks. One of the points I made to them, you can do anything for five weeks. Let's make sure we're really focused on what we need to be. Now we're down to four days. That's all that counts.
I do know this. Going back to the first one, after coming out of Columbus, if we hadn't won that one, being in this position right now wouldn't be possible. Just try to explain to them that game was really important, too, just like this one on Friday is important.
I don't think anything a is more important than the other in the big picture. If you take care of what you're supposed to take care of, you might be fortunate enough to be in a good position. We find ourselves there now.
The worst thing we can do right now is start thinking about things on the outside, other stuff. We have to worry about getting ready for a tough opponent.
Last edited:
