TIM POLASEK OPEN STATEMENT
I'm super excited, it's a word you'll hear me use quite often. To be bringing my wife, Jill, to Iowa City. This was something that came up on the radar here early January. To coach in the Big Ten is one thing, it's a phenomenal conference, but to be at a place with the people that are here at Iowa, always striving to do it the right way all the time is a heck of an honor, and I'm super excited to be here. I do want to give special thanks to former players at North Dakota State who laid on the line every day and did everything we ever asked of them. Without their effort level and the things that they executed on the field over the last 11 years or 10, 11 years, I wouldn't be here, and I really want to thank them.
Q. You have to be a secure person to come here and coach offensive line when you have Kirk and Brian and their legacy. What made you want to do that and come here and coach that position?
TIM POLASEK: Why wouldn't you want to is the better question. I mean, an opportunity to grow, an opportunity to be uncomfortable for a couple of weeks here. And, quite frankly, when you talk about the top offensive lines of the country, an award doesn't give you that status. This is a reputation thing that's been here for a long time. So I see it as an opportunity to learn and grow from several guys upstairs that really understand the position. I've always been of the mindset that I'm going to try to create uncomfortable situations for the players, so why would that be any different for a coach that's trying to move forward and do great things. So super excited about the offensive line. I know I haven't coached it before. But three years ago I wasn't an offensive coordinator either. So we'll just keep meeting these challenges head on. You know, with an extremely good work ethic, a passion, and the want-to, I think anything is attainable. And I really am encountering a challenge just knowing that I have a good teaching background, and I think we can get those five, six, seven, eight guys to come together to play hard and do what they're supposed to do.
Q. What about Chris Doyle, have you met him yet? And how important is it to have a strength and conditioning coach like that specially on the offense and defensive line?
TIM POLASEK: You can't say enough about the job any strength coach does in the upper midwest. Especially when you're valuing education and all those things that go into recruiting, it's huge. Because we're always going to be a developmental program here the way I understand it. At North Dakota State, they will always be a developmental program. So when you bring a six foot kid, and he's 242 pounds and you ask that strength coach, we need this guy to be 290 by the time we get to spring ball, is it doable? Heck, yeah, it is. The kid's got to eat, and we've got to be in the weight room and all those things. Coach Doyle has been phenomenal. One of my most memorable moments about the interview process was sitting across from him and saying, okay, this is the top guy in the country. And to be in that same room amongst the coaches that were in there, and for him to enter the interview for two or three hours was really neat. I have the utmost respect. I know that Iowa has been founded on that idea of recruiting some kids that have some length. The ability to grow and function alley move better by the time they get through the program, just, my hat's off to him. He's done a great job, and we won't devalue his importance. He's huge. I mean it. As important a person in the program as anybody.
Q. You've had quite a journey in your coaching career getting here. Including, did you really sell a Golf Club to pay for gas to get from North Dakota?
TIM POLASEK: Yeah, one of my old bosses is in the back here, Mr. Taylor. He's probably hoping you don't get into a bunch of the stories. But, I did. Quite frankly, I got a call from Coach Craig Bohl who has been a major mentor of mine along with Chris Klieman through this whole thing. It was so interesting, because when I got the phone call to come interview at North Dakota State I was just getting out of the woods in Central Wisconsin from a day of logging. About 12° or so, and he had, you know, "Is this Tim Polasek the football coach?" And I said, 'It's Tim Polasek the football coach and logger." So at that time I was three days a week I was recruiting for a Division III school, UW Stephens Point, and three days a week I was logging. I mean, cutting timber down and doing it all. Actually, something that's really helped me in my career, just work ethic, and, man, those people have earned, women and men across the world in the midwest that are out there working and don't get to coach football. I mean, man they do it. So Coach says when can you come over here? I said how long is it? How far is it? I don't know where Fargo is. He said, eight hours. I said, I can be there in eight-and-a-half. So two days later I drove out there, and when I came back I didn't really have the means to get back out to Fargo. So I had the means to get a really good driver the summer before, and so I sold it to get enough gas to come back. The really cool part of that story -- and it just comes back to people -- Iowa, Wisconsin, a guy purchased that driver and he mailed it right back to me right away. So it was kind of a running joke that he would have given me the money regardless. But that's a true story.
Q. Do you have a say in how the running game looks or have you gotten to that point yet?
TIM POLASEK: I know how it looks. We're going to kind of do what we do. We're going to have an uncommon in finish about what we're doing. Schematically, schematics are schematics. It really comes down to hitting people, moving the point of attack. We definitely want to displace the line of scrimmage. Whether it's the inside zone or outside zone, a little bit of pin and pull and some power is neither here nor there. But, yeah, I'm well aware. I've really been impressed about how Iowa stays true to who they are in the run game, and are still able to be super productive most days out there.