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.

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Iowa’s 21 seniors will be recognized before the game against Purdue, the Hawkeyes urge you to get there early. Just over 62,200 have been sold for Saturday.

• First words: OK, hello.
• Ferentz said he’s not sure if Iowa’s had a better environment than there was on Nov. 14 at Kinnick Stadium. Could be the best of his tenure.
• Captains are the same — Ott, Lomax, Blythe, Beathard.
• Injury wise, Ike Boettger and Akrum Wadley were cleared to play, but “they should be in good shape to play if they’re called upon.”
• Ferentz said he expects Purdue’s best effort.
• Ferentz mentions going 7-0 in the Big Ten is important, and says only one other team has gone 7-0 in Kinnick.
• Ferentz praised Beathard’s ability to check into and out of plays at the line of scrimmage. The head coach said his quarterback has matured in that sense.
• Says all you need to know about Josey Jewell’s character is how he played in the second half of the TaxSlayer Bowl in January. Iowa had nothing to play for but pride, and Jewell was flying around the field.
• On Jordan Canzeri: “He had a major knee injury and he came back like a champ from that back in 2012.”
• On the seniors: “It ends too quickly with all of them.”
• “The best kind of leadership is driven from within,” Ferentz said in regard to his seniors getting together during the week and planning how to go about things at a given point.
• “Great players, they don’t have to say much.” Ferentz says actions are louder than words when talking about his program’s success.
• Ferentz thinks Henry Krieger Coble’s favorite sport is baseball. Says he’s not sure if he’s had anyone run routes as well as Krieger Coble does from the tight end position. “He’s playing his best football.”
• Ferentz said parents specializing their kids in one sport is “so unfortunate.”
• Ferentz said LeShun and James Daniels are “everything you want in a student-athlete.”
• Boettger isn’t quite there, according to Ferentz, but when he is, Ferentz said he’s not afraid to rotate his offensive line.
• On defensive substitutions: “Suck it up, we’ll rest later on … I don’t believe in pitch counts, I think that’s all bull crap.”
• On Beathard: “You can’t beat his record.”
• On Purdue: “These guys are playing hard.” Says he’s only talking to his team about Purdue, and none of the other fanfare.
• On Jake Duzey: “He’s still recovering.” Says it’s about confidence with Duzey and knowing he’s able to make the plays he made pre-injury.