Spring Q&A: Iowa's Kirk Ferentz

[OSU8085]

Kirk Ferentz's calm and controlled demeanor is his hallmark, but the Iowa head coach has run through the full gamut of emotions in the last two years. His team endured three mediocre seasons from 2005-07 and stumbled off the field with a wave of player arrests in 2007 and the first half of 2008. With some suggesting Ferentz was on the hot seat, Iowa rebounded last fall to go 9-4 and became the lone Big Ten team to win its bowl game (Outback). The Hawkeyes regained their swagger on defense and punished teams with Doak Walker Award winner Shonn Greene. Ferentz restored his reputation as one of the league's top coaches, but he came under fire recently after several more player arrests, including his son, James, an offensive lineman for the Hawkeyes.

Ferentz is hoping for continued improvement on the field and much better conduct off of it in 2009. Iowa likely enters the fall as a top-20 team but must fill several holes on both sides of the ball. Here's an excerpt from our conversation last week in Iowa City (get Ferentz's thoughts on the recent arrests here).

Spring Q&A: Iowa's Kirk Ferentz - Big Ten - ESPN (http://myespn.go.com/blogs/bigten/0-3-239/Spring-Q-A--Iowa-s-Kirk-Ferentz.html)

Off topic: why haven't I heard more draft hype about shonn greene?

[Hawkeye]

Greene hasn't gotten the hype because he doesn't have that eye-popping speed that the draftniks like. He's deceptively quick though. He wasn't asked to catch the ball out of the backfield the way Albert Young was, so they are skittish of whether he can do it or not.

They like to say he can be caught from behind, but only by the fastest LBs and any DBs......and it's going to take two or three of the latter to bring him down.