Yes, the Hawks head to the Big Ten Championship, but no, they’re not stressing.
By Ryan Rodriguez
Iowa head coach Kirk Ferentz and members of his team met with members of the media Tuesday afternoon to discuss the team’s upcoming trip to the Big Ten Championship on Saturday at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis.
Ferentz, the Big Ten Coach of the Year, and the No. 4 Hawkeyes will take on No. 5 Michigan State.
Saturday just another game for Ferentz
Iowa is in the midst of its most stunningly impressive season ever — a perfect 12-0 record including the program’s first-ever trip to the Big Ten title game.
You would never know that from listening to Ferentz talk, however. Unsurprisingly, this week has been business as usual for the Hawks.
“It’s important, but it’s another game,” Ferentz said. “We’re treating it like any other game, trying to put a good plan in place. The staff has done a great job of that all season long, and our players are doing a great job of absorbing it.”
With that in mind, Ferentz also knows that the Hawks’ hardest test lies in front of them with the Spartans.
“They went into Columbus two weeks ago without their starting quarterback, and the way they won that football game was impressive,” Ferentz said. “Then the way they came back last week [in a win over Penn State]; the quarterback [Connor Cook] was back and they looked like a well-rounded, dynamic football team.”
Similar styles
A frequent talking point among the Iowa players was the stunning similarities between the Hawks and Spartans in the way the two teams are built.
Both are physical, downhill teams that like to control the line of scrimmage and pound the ball on the ground before opening things up through the air.
In fact, Michigan State head coach Mark Dantonio said he used Iowa as a model for his program.
With that in mind, the Iowa defense is prepared for any tricks the Spartans might have up their sleeves.
“I don’t think it’s so much stuff we haven’t seen, but more of the fact that they like to use a bunch of different little shifts and formations and motions to kind to keep you guessing,” Iowa linebacker Cole Fisher said. “It’s definitely something we’re going to have to be aware of.”
Krieger Coble talks improvements
Perhaps one of the biggest surprises this season for the Hawks was the emergence of not one but two viable replacement options for senior tight end Jake Duzey.
Henry Krieger Coble and George Kittle have taken the lion’s share of tight end duties this year for Duzey, who has seen very limited action after off-season knee surgery.
Neither were expected to be the all-around package Duzey was, and yet both have been extremely important factors in Iowa’s offense, both from a blocking and pass-catching perspective.
For Krieger Coble, that meant accepting more responsibility in the Iowa offense.
“Both were adjustments, so I can’t really pick out one aspect of my game that was harder adjusting too,” Krieger Coble said. “I didn’t block very much in high school, so once I got here that was kind of something I completely had to learn.”