Iowa head football coach Kirk Ferentz speaks with the media each Tuesday during the football season. Every week, The Daily Iowan‘s Pregame Staff will post highlights and interesting quotes and lines from Ferentz’s press conference.

…

• First words: “OK, so welcome everybody.”
• “If we want to be competing in games in November, we’re going to have to be competing in tough games.”
• Ferentz praises special teams — says Desmond King gives his team “octane” in the return game.
• Captains are the same — Lomax, Ott, Beathard, Blythe.
• Don’t expect Tevaun Smith back this week due to a knee injury. Boone Myers and Derrick Mitchell, Jr. are day-to-day. None of those three made the trip to Wisconsin over the weekend.
• Ferentz says Illinois isn’t much different offensively, but is different defensively. Says offensive line looks very different from a year ago. On defense, look good “from front to back.”
• Ferentz said the first time he met linebackers coach Jim Reid was in spring ball in 1978 (he thinks) at UMass. Ferentz also wishes he had half of Reid’s energy.
• Ferentz brought up Matt Roth’s name in a comparison to Nate Meier.
• On Ike Boettger: Says his introduction to the game was not great last season at tight end, says he’s happy with his progress so far this season.
• “This new me stuff has really taken legs. I got asked on the teleconference, it’s interesting stuff.”
• Ferentz says the new building is “uplifting” and has pumped some juice into everyone in the program.
• Ferentz joked he has the same demeanor, “same bad jokes, when I can think of them.”
• On Brian Ferentz: “He’s very opinionated, in case you haven’t noticed. He gets that from his mother … I wanted to call his boss in New England and ask him if he was doing any work up there. He just seemed to have all these opinions about our program.”
• On Illinois: “When you watch them on film, they’re a better football game in every regard. They’re playing tighter, cleaner.”
• On James Daniels, who was playing right tackle in warmups against Wisconsin: “We’ll just keep trying different combinations and hopefully we don’t have to use them.” Cites injuries at tackle with Boone Myers out.
• On Smith’s injury: Happened in North Texas
• Ferentz says he’ll think about social media ban in the offseason. Wants players to “swim on their own,” but wants to protect them from heat, too.
• “Once they graduate, they can have at it, go be a social media star. It’s a great life, I’ve heard.”
• Derrick Mitchell has an upper body injury.
• Ticket sales for Saturday are roughly 65,000 as of Tuesday morning.