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KIRK FERENTZ OPENING STATEMENT
Appreciate everybody jumping on. Appreciate your time and your interest.
Just want to talk about a couple things today. Obviously this is the conventional signing day, the old February national signing day, which was a little bit more anti-climatic over the recent years but still want to comment about our two prospects that signed today, and just look back on last season briefly and transition into this year and be happy to answer questions afterwards.
Regarding signing day, as you know we signed two young guys today, Deavin Hilson from Des Moines and Mike Myslinski from Jacksonville, Florida, and both are guys that we've been watching closely. It's a little bit of a challenge with Deavin since they played only two games last season that, made our evaluation a little bit more challenging and then Mike is someone we have known about for quite some time and have been recruiting hard for quite some time.
We are pleased to have both those guys join the class; that brings us to a class of 19. We think they are both excellent prospects and will bring something to this class, needless to say. We are excited to have them join what we think is already a strong class. We think they pushed it even higher.
And we are really excited about that and also Xavior Williams has joined us as a grad transfer. He began here last week. Glad to have him. Good to welcome him to our team, as well.
Couple words about 2020, certainly it was an historic year, on all levels, basically for everybody, certainly in our country. And it's interesting because we try to build our program on consistency and the only consistency last year was the inconsistency we faced basically at every turn.
So it was an unusual year, a lot of unknowns, a lot of things to work through and it's just the way it was and again, it's not unique to a football program. I think all of us have been faced with a lot of interesting challenges.
But back closer to home, we're proud of everyone's efforts, the way everybody was able to adjust and adapt to things and I thought our players did an unbelievably good job.
First item of business on that front is thank our medical staff, Dr. Peterson right on down. It was truly a team effort to go through, and the work that our medical staff does, especially our trainers, I think a lot of times is underappreciated. Unless you know somebody personally that's been injured and has to go through a long rehab, a lot of lonely hours and they spend those hours with those trainers.
This year, the trainers ended up doing a lot of things they never signed up for or even dreamed of obviously with the testing, all those kinds of things, running guys that were sick to the hotel and helping them with their quarantine situations, all those kinds of things. I can't even imagine how many hours they spent above and beyond.
It really was an amazing effort. It's a team effort, and I know this about their efforts; we never would have had a chance to even begin a season, let alone play a season. Special thanks to everybody involved, Dr. Peterson, all the people that contributed conference-wise, etc., but especially our trainers on campus, Kammy and her staff.
For our players, if I was going to characterize last year in one word, they were "resilient." They seemed to handle whatever came their way with real adeptness. Whatever the challenge might have been, they answered it in a positive way.
I think back to March 13, none of us had any idea when we left campus. We knew something was going on. We had no idea what we were about to face over the next, six, seven, eight months. And there's no reason anybody could even envision what was about to take place.
So we went from thinking it might be a couple weeks, couple months, that type of thing, to a long, prolonged period. In a nutshell, you think about us having a chance to play eight straight games in eight straight weeks; that indicates the level of commitment our players had. They had great support, certainly from the medical staff as I mentioned, but really a level of commitment from everybody involved.
Everybody is on the same page and everybody is pushing to get ourselves a chance to at least get out there and play those eight games, and we were prepared to play our ninth and our tenth. Unfortunately that didn't materialize.
But again, the credit goes to our players for taking the attitude they took, and more importantly, taking the steps they took to give us a chance.
Involving our other seniors, we have great leadership. Hard to have a good football team, which we had; it's hard to have that without a really strong senior class, and those guys showed great leadership I think throughout this entire period. You can't have a successful team if you don't have good leadership, and you've got to have good chemistry, and that was on exhibit with our team all season. Starts with the seniors. I want to wish them all the best.
We have guys that have left the program now and a couple underclassmen have, too. Just very appreciative of all their efforts, their contributions, and certainly wish everybody the best as they move into their next phase of life and that's what college is all about, and certainly college football. Just a special group of guys and a special football team. So, happy about that.
And just one other quick side-bar, side note. The other obvious change that has affecting everybody in college football is just the portal and what whole phenomena. I know you probably have more stats than I do on that. I was on a conference call about a month ago a national coaches call and they referenced how many people are in the portal now. I heard a stat this morning that apparently more players have entered the portal since December 1 last year till now, basically two months-plus, than the entire year last year.
It just indicates a real trend, and one that's certainly concerning. I think it's going to be interesting to watch how it goes. There are going to be a lot of new things coming to college football certainly in the years ahead. We'll see where all that goes.
Turning the page to 2021, that's exactly what we started last week. We had our first team meeting and it was in-person. Believe me, special appreciation for being able to meet with our players, although we had to do it in a different room and get everybody spread out or socially distanced. Don't take that for granted anymore.
But it's good to have those guys back in the building. It was the longest break that we've ever had, at least in my 23-plus-nine years, we've never had a break that long. I think everybody was especially eager to get back here. A lot of energy in the room, certainly, and it's just good to get the guys back in the bidding training again.
Like we do every year, we conveyed to the players that this is a new team and this is 2021. So it's the first time the team as it exists right now is able to be together in one location. Certainly we'll add to that team as more and more newcomers come in during the course of the year.
But it was a first stop for the group and just good to visit with the guys, and I think the biggest message, same as every year, it's a new calendar and new team and certainly a new season with a lot of new challenges, and that's the way it always has been. We're looking forward to the work that's ahead. Certainly our seniors left a great legacy, and now it's up to everybody else, this year's seniors and everybody else in the room, to grab the ball, help advance it and move it forward. That's what it's all about.
As a staff, we're excited. As a team, we're excited. Biggest thing is we know we have opportunity and we also know we've got a lot of work to do, and it happens in stages. There's a process to everything we do.
One change we have already made to spring ball. We are going to push spring ball back a week considering the recruiting calendar. As it stands right now, we are going to be in a quiet period starting April 15. We realistically don't envision our coaches being on the road this spring. So it allows us a little bit more time to train between now and then.
We'll slide the calendar back a week and still have some wiggle room in case there's pauses along the way, like we have been doing, like all of us have been doing, we'll remain flexible in that and kind of go from there. The biggest focus right now is on our winter program, strength and conditioning, and some of the things we do team wise during this period. That's where our focus is right now.
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