COLLEGE PARK, MD – A golf cart. An ambulance. An entire marching band of Maryland students. The parade of distractions for the Iowa football team continued even after the final whistle of its victory over Maryland.
Standing in a concrete path behind the east end zone of SECU Stadium, Hawkeye left tackle Mason Richman, running back Kaleb Johnson, and linebacker Jay Higgins didn’t pay much attention to their surroundings during their respective postgame interviews. A step to the side to avoid the approaching obstacle – whether that be a front bumper or left rear view mirror – then back to the task at hand.
It’s easy to define Iowa by all it has dealt with this week – such as the news of top cornerback Jermari Harris reportedly opting out for the rest of the season – but the Hawkeyes don’t believe they should notice any additional burdens besides a football game on Saturday.
“Maryland doesn’t care who took the field for us,” Higgins said. “They weren’t going to move the game back. They weren’t going to cancel anything. They definitely weren’t going to feel bad about beating us. We did a great job keeping our eyes forward.”
Looking ahead, Iowa sees a rivalry game against Nebraska, but in the periphery, it might find the lingering notion that in this era of college football, the team-first principle has faded, and that pattern has caught up to a traditional program like Iowa, which Higgins boasted has one of the best locker rooms in the country, filled with loyal, dedicated players.
While players like Higgins are committed to playing out the rest of the season, Harris might not be. Judging by how head coach Kirk Ferentz acted in his postgame press conference, this contrast separates players in his eyes.
Just to be clear, it’s still not official from Harris or the team if he will opt out the rest of the season in preparation for the NFL Draft, but when asked if the cornerback would be available to return next week, Ferentz didn’t appear optimistic.
“I think I can let you know on Tuesday, but yeah, we’ll see,” he said.
Before launching into any criticism, it’s important to recognize Harris spent six years at Iowa. This was the school he set his sights on when he joined his high school team as a junior. It’s not like he never wanted to be in the Black and Gold, but at the tail end of his collegiate career, it appears like he’s willing to sacrifice his final games as a Hawkeye to prepare for a potential pro career.
In addition, Harris also isn’t healthy – Iowa football communications said he has a “medical issue” – but who is 100 percent in late November? Ferentz said Harris told him he couldn’t play on Saturday, meaning that despite clearance from the team medical staff, the cornerback thought it would be a bad idea for him to be on the field.
I’m not judging the morality of this choice, but it’s arguable that this is different from Higgins’ approach. The star linebacker and Big Ten’s leading tackler missed the second half of Iowa’s loss to UCLA two weeks ago with a hamstring injury.
“Not being able to help the team from a physical play standpoint, it just reminded me of how much football really means to me,” Higgins said of his absence against the Bruins. “I like to lie and tell myself that I got a life outside of football, like, I got hobbies and I’m a family guy, but in reality, football is a lot. It means a lot more to me than I thought. When you took those two quarters away from me, I was devastated.”
Higgins admitted that he wasn’t 100 percent during this week’s preparation for the Terrapins, adding that backup Jaden Harrell took most of the practice reps at linebacker.
“Everybody’s banged up,” he said. “I feel like I play with a special group out there that if I’m lacking in a certain area, I feel like the 10 other guys can help me. And they definitely did. Everybody is going through something, you just got to fight through it.”
Higgins wasn’t explicitly talking about Harris, but one can see how the cornerback might’ve diverged from this mindset. Granted, this could be to secure not just a dream, but a better future for him and his family – a respectable and valid pursuit.
In this college football climate, it’s hard to blame Harris for making that choice. There are more competing interests in the game than ever before, ranging from the transfer portal to NIL to, in just a matter of time, direct salaries from schools to athletes.
Economics and the power of the dollar have infiltrated what many heard as an amateur world, and to Ferentz, a player making a money-associated decision instead of physical sacrifice doesn’t sit right with how he runs his program.
When asked for his thoughts on how he handles distractions as a head coach, Ferentz launched into a more than two-minute-long rant and even muttered an expletive. He described how distractions have always existed – pointing to alcohol and drugs – but today have increased to include agents and other advisors who aim to do what’s best for the player and not necessarily the program.
“There’s going to have to be some structure because we all need structure. We all need to know what the rules are and then play within them.”
Most notably, he concluded his thoughts by shouting out players who played within those parameters – of laying down their bodies for the team. They were medically cleared to play, he quickly added as a postmortem, but none were 100 percent.
First up was former tight end Sam LaPorta, who played in Iowa’s 2022 bowl game against Kentucky despite tearing his meniscus that November.
“You couldn’t keep him out of the Music City Bowl, a meaningless bowl,” Ferentz said, making air quotes with his fingers for emphasis. “You think it’s a coincidence he got drafted by the Lions and went to a Pro Bowl in his first year?”
The list went on. Former standout linebacker Jack Campbell – a teammate of LaPorta in Detroit.
“Are you sh— me? Missing a game?” he said with an air of incredulity.
Last but not least, he wrapped up with Higgins, a likely NFL pick this spring.
“You better knock him down and keep him down if you’re gonna keep him off the field,” Ferentz said. “That’s what you love. I got a lot of guys like that.”
But is Harris, or any college football player who opts out of the season, one of those guys? Not in the slightest. Ferentz has always decried the changes to the game, and now that they are bearing fruit in his program – the Harris news, the midseason transfers of Leshon Williams and Kaleb Brown – he can’t help but get his frustrations off his chest.
At nearly 70 years old, Ferentz is the “dean of college football,” but it sounds like he wants to be the disciplinarian. If the distractions aren’t weighing down his players, then they definitely are for him. The 2024 season won’t achieve any significant goals, but it’s worth wondering if this season might break the longest-active tenured head coach in college football.
Players who make similar choices to Harris aren’t going away, and while new regulations might put an end to them, it’s worth wondering if Ferentz will still be on the sidelines to see it.