The Iowa Men’s basketball team had to deal with something today that it has not experienced in Big Ten play for some time.

How to continue to play aggressive on both ends when you have built up a huge lead against a conference opponent.

Iowa raced out to a 23-5 lead to start the game and would push that lead to 26 with over 17:39 left in the game. Penn State would trail by 13 with 5:51 to go in the game before Iowa wound up winning the game 77-64.

There were times where Iowa appeared to be going through the motions on both ends of the court, but that will be a teaching lesson for this inexperienced team. Veteran teams know how to keep teams down once they have them down. This year’s team has struggled with that, evidenced by their double-digit first half leads against Nebraska and Minnesota over the past nine days; Iowa fell at home to Nebraska but scored the last nine points of the game on Wednesday night to beat Minnesota by four.

But in the end, a double-digit win in Big Ten play is a good win for the Hawkeyes. It was also nice to do that in front of the 1986-1987 Iowa basketball team and their coach Dr. Tom Davis, who was honored before the game. That team won 30 games, 19 of them by double-digits.

Four Hawkeyes scored in double-figures, led by Matt Gatens with 18. Gatens was 10-11 from the line for Iowa, who shot 29-34 from the line as a team. Aaron White and Bryce Carwright scored 17 points, with White collecting nine rebounds and Cartwright dishing out five assists. Zach McCabe added 10 points and five rebounds. Devyn Marble scored five points to go along with eight boards.

For the game, Iowa shot 46% to 40% for Penn State. The Nittany Lions shot the lights out in the second half just to get to 40%, as they were below 25% shooting in the first half. The Nits attempted 29 three-point shots and made 10 of them. Iowa was 4-13 from long range, with White hitting two of them.

Iowa won the battle of the boards 38-31 and also had a 16-10 advantage in second chance points. There were just six fast break points scored in this game, as Penn State wanted to keep the score as low as possible, but the Hawkeyes took things inside, recording a 30-22 points in the paint advantage.

With the win, Iowa moved to 5-6 in Big Ten play, their most wins in a conference season since the 2006-2007 won nine. They are presently tied for 7th place in the league with Indiana.

Iowa’s next game is Thursday night in Evanston, Illinois against Northwestern. They will then have seven days off before returning to the court February 16th at Penn State

Carver-Hawkeye Arena will be filled with Hawkeye legends, future Hawkeye stars, and hopefully a capacity Hawkeye crowd.  While Iowa entertains Penn State in men’s basketball today, other events will be just as exciting for some old school fans.  A large number of players from the 1987 Elite Eight team will be in attendance, and Dr. Tom and Bruce Pearl will be there as well.  Additionally, Iowa will wear throwback gold jerseys for this game.  For anyone growing up with Hawkeye Basketball in the 80′s, this will be a dream day instead Carver.

Game Info

Iowa Hawkeyes (12-11; 4-6) vs Penn State (10-13; 2-8)
POMEROY RATINGS: Iowa – 100, Penn State – 128
REALTIMERPI: Iowa – 121, Penn State – 143
CBS RPI: Iowa – 119, Penn State – 132
MASSEY RANKING: Iowa – 109, Penn State – 135
Tip Off: Saturday, February 4th, 2012; 2:05 PM CST
Iowa City, IA; Carver-Hawkeye Arena, 15,400
TV:  ESPNU, ESPN3.com
Radio: AM 600, 1040, and 800. Sirius: 92 | XM: 191
Iowa leads 22-12 in the all-time series.

LINE: Iowa is a 6.5 point favorite at home. Pomeroy predicts a 7 point Iowa win.

LIVE CHAT: Click HERE for the Link

Projected Starters

IOWA

G – Devyn Marble, 6’6”, 194 lb, SO

G – Matt Gatens, 6’5”, 212 lb, SR

G – Bryce Cartwright, 6’1”, 188 lb, SR

F – Aaron White, 6’8”, 225 lb, FR

F – Zach McCabe, 6’7”, 232 lb, SO

** Eric May is dressed and should be available per Rick Brown.

PENN STATE

G – Tim Frazier, 6’1″,170 lb, JR

G – Matt Glover, 6’4″, 210 lb, SO

G – Jermaine Marshall, 6’4″, 200 lb, SO

G – Cammeron Woodyard, 6’5″, 210 lb, SR

F – Jon Graham, 6’8″, 240 lb, FR

STATS COMPARISON:

• Points Per Game – Iowa 74, PSU 61.7
• FG % – Iowa 45.2, PSU 38.2
• Points per Poss: – Iowa, 1.06, PSU 0.96
• eFG% – Iowa 48.8, PSU 43.9
• Opp eFG% – Iowa 49.5, PSU 50.8
• 2 pt% – Iowa 48.7, PSU 42.7
• 3 pt% – Iowa 34.8, PSU 30.6
• Opp 2 pt %: Iowa 51.6, PSU 47.5
• Opp 3 pt% – Iowa 34.6, PSU 36.6
• FT% – Iowa 71.5, PSU 66.8
• Offensive Turnover% – Iowa 17.7, PSU 19.6
• Defensive Turnover% – Iowa 20.9, PSU 22.2
• Offensive Reb% – Iowa 33.0, PSU 36.2
• Offensive Steal% – Iowa 7.6, PSU 8.5

Here’s a look at a graphical comparison of the teams from statsheet.com

Iowa has 10 games with 10 steals or more, that’s best in the B1G and 5th best in the nation.

Penn State has yet to win on the road in conference, and has just one win on the road this year.

In conf play only – Iowa is the worst in the B1G in defensive efficiency, allowing offensive rebounds, and giving up 2 point FGs.    The Hawkeyes are in the middle of the B1G in nearly every offensive category. Penn State is the worst in the B1G in eFG%, 3 pt%, 2 pt%, and offensive block%.   They are also have the worst defensive eFG% in B1G play, as well.

Dev Marble sporting the throwback jerseys the Hawkeyes will be wearing today. Photo courtesy of Hawkeyesports.com

KEYS TO GAME FOR IOWA:

- Wear Out Tim Frazier.  When a guy leads your team in points, rebounds, assists, everything… there’s a good chance he’s the reason you win/lose basketball games.  Frazier is a guy that does a fantastic job of setting up his teammates, while getting his points when he can.  Iowa will likely switch up on Frazier when they are in man to man.  Tim is a smart guy, both academically and on the court, so he won’t be confused by much of what the Hawks throw at him.

- Rebound.  Iowa averages 3.5 more boards in their 4 B1G wins and have been on the bad side of the boards (7.7 on average) in their losses.  The Hawkeyes haven’t been the greatest rebounding team this year, esp considering Melsahn Basabe is leading the team with just 5.2 rebounds a game.  Iowa will have a considerable height advantage in this one and should win the board battle by 8+ today.  PSU got 12 offensive rebounds vs Wisconsin last time out – they’ll likely get that many this game.

- Mix up the D/Press.  Penn State is not a very good offensive team.  They have a low PPP and a poor eFG%.  Glover, specifically has not been very effective from the floor – so with that in mind, expect him to go 6-8 from 3 pt land against Iowa.  It just happens, right?  But in all seriousness, the Nittany Lions aren’t going to beat the Hawkeyes by putting up huge offensive numbers, they aren’t very capable of doing that.  Iowa will come out in M2M D and then sprinkle in the zone to make PSU hit a few shots from the outside.  Coach McCaffery will throw in the occasional press to keep them honest.

PREDICTION:  Remember the feelings going into the Nebraska game?  A bad shooting, low scoring team coming into C-HA. It feels the same, except I think the results end up different.  The signs all point to an Iowa victory.  The Nittany Lions have lost 6 out of 7 games, I see that trend continuing.  Iowa wins bigger than expected.  FINAL SCORE: Iowa 77, Penn State 62

That’s the day Kirk Ferentz is expected to announce a new Defensive Coordinator and Defensive Line coach. If Phil Parker is named as the DC, then Iowa will likely also announce a new defensive backs coach. There could be other position coach changes, too.

Then came Friday’s bombshell; Ken O’Keefe is leaving the Iowa program to pursue another coaching opportunity.

One quick tour of our message boards as well as a spin around twitter tells me more than a few Iowa fans were not saddened by that news. Heck, I didn’t need to look at such things to know this, as the most consistent theme on Soundoff during my eight-year stint as co-host has been ‘KOK has to go.’

Those people got their wish on Friday. Perhaps it worked out well for Ferentz, too; he didn’t have to one day be faced with firing a friend.

My opinion of the Iowa offense under Ken O’Keefe is, in a word, ‘meh’. OK, that’s not a real word, but it hit’s close to the mark.

In my ‘Hawk Stock’ series from December, I wrote about Iowa’s offensive production since 2002…or lack thereof.

Here was a graphic I used in that item:

Here is something I wrote in that item:

Some of those stats are just ho-hum and some are shockingly poor. Some of them are also ancient history when it comes to today’s college football environment.

However, the five-year trend is downright scary, and I don’t mean in an Oregon offense sort of way.

Over the past few years, I had reached this conclusion…there has been more than enough evidence to warrant a change at Offensive Coordinator, yet it never happened. Lacking a change, I viewed that as an endorsement of O’Keefe by Ferentz. Or rather, Ferentz was comfortable with the job that O’Keefe was doing.

O’Keefe ran the kind of offense that Kirk Ferentz wanted to run, yet I am not sold and never have been that it was the kind of offense that O’Keefe would have chosen to run.

That’s not to say that O’Keefe would have favored an Oregon Ducks style spread, but I know that in the first ever spring practice season of the Ferentz era, Iowa attempted to install an offense that was not set in Power-I principles. Let me amend that a little bit; I was not at those practices, but I have spoken to numerous people who were at those practices and things were more open. After the spring drills came to an end, Ferentz chose to go the route we have seen for the past 13 years.

There were rumors in December of 2010 that O’Keefe and Ferentz had butted heads during the 2010 season, as well as rumors of O’Keefe having interest in the Indiana head coaching job that was available. I don’t know either were true, but it was certainly a hot topic amongst the Iowa media 14 months ago. If there was a disagreement (and those things happen in life), I doubt it was because O’Keefe wanted to run more Power-I sets or that Ferentz wanted to open things up more often.

When Iowa’s brand of offense is working, it’s a thing of beauty. When the Hawkeyes get little to nothing on first down, they appear to be in far more trouble than most teams. I think their margin for error on third and long is smaller that their contemporaries based upon the bread and butter aspects of their offense, which does not go through a lot of four and five wide receiver reps in practice.

I don’t want to get bogged down in this debate again, because we have all been there and done that. My hunch is whomever Ferentz hires to be the new offensive coordinator is going to run an offense similar to the one we have seen the past 13 seasons.

One of the big changes will be in the play calling, as Ferentz did not micromanage O’Keefe on that front. Ken still called the game for the most part, with Ferentz occasionally calling a timeout to get out of a play call he didn’t like or chiming in during timeout situations. But the majority of the play calls were left up to Ken O’Keefe. It only makes sense that a coach would fall into some tendencies during 13 years in the same system, so a new play caller will have a new rhythm.

I also believe Iowa’s offensive system is such that it will be ‘easier’ for a new coordinator to pick up and become familiar with. I don’t think Iowa’s offense is as ‘simple’ as many people like to believe, as certain plays have two or three (or more) counters where the formation is the same, the flow is the same but the ball goes to different areas. These are aspects that really affect with a defense, and former Iowa defensive players have explained this to me.

On the whole, the amount of change Iowa’s program will have this off season is pretty amazing, considering how little change they have had the previous 13 years.

Norm Parker, Ken O’Keefe and Phil Parker had been full time assistants for the entire 13-year Ferentz era. Lester Erb was hired to replace Chuck Long after one year and Reese Morgan was hired to replace Pat Flaherty after one year. Darrell Wilson joined the Iowa staff in 2001, replacing Bret Bielema. Eric Johnson was promoted from a GA position to replace Joe Philbin in 2002. All of the coaches in bold were on Iowa’s staff to start this season. Erik Campbell was the ‘newbie’ on staff and this was his 5th year at Iowa.

Now, Ferentz will have to replace both coordinators and a defensive line coach, at the least; I think there will be more change than just these positions. This program has had just two head coaches since 1979 and only a handful of offensive and defensive coordinators during that time.

This coming Wednesday will be a remarkable and noteworthy day in the annals of Iowa football history, as the winds of change are blowing.

Either way, this one’s for you, Ken.

Ken O’Keefe, offensive coordinator at the University of Iowa for the past 13 seasons, has resigned from the Hawkeye coaching staff to accept another coaching opportunity. The announcement came Friday from head coach Kirk Ferentz.

“Ken O’Keefe has decided to leave our Iowa staff for another coaching opportunity,” said Ferentz. “Ken’s work contributed greatly to our program’s success during the past 13 years, and more impressively to the growth and development of the young men in our program. We wish Ken and Joanne the most success in this new chapter of his career.”

O’Keefe has been Iowa’s quarterbacks coach for 12 seasons after coaching Hawkeye wide receivers in 1999. Iowa has been bowl eligible the past 11 seasons and has participated in 10 bowl games since 2001. The Hawkeyes won bowl games following the 2008, 2009 and 2010 seasons, defeating ranked opponents in both 2009 and 2010. Iowa ranked in the final top 10 of both major polls four times in the past 10 seasons.

Iowa has won 85 games over the past 10 seasons, including 50 Big Ten games. The Hawkeyes earned a share of the Big Ten title in both 2002 and 2004 and tied for second in 2009. Iowa has finished in the Big Ten’s first division in 10 of the past 11 years.

Under O’Keefe’s direction, junior QB James Vandenberg passed for over 3,000 yards and had 25 touchdown passes in his first year as a starter in 2011. Vandenberg’s favorite target, WR Marvin McNutt, Jr., established Iowa single season and career records for receiving yards and touchdown receptions. McNutt was named the top wide receiver in the Big Ten Conference.

I was reading a few comments from one of the items I wrote on HawkeyeNation.com yesterday, some fans voicing their displeasure with Iowa’s recruiting class and recent on field efforts.  I will come back around to that at the bottom of this piece, but I want to first take a look at Big Ten recruiting in general and juxtapose historical recruiting class rankings against actual on field performance.

THE BIG TEN

I ran two sets of numbers for this ‘study’.  One raw set of data took Scout.com’s Big Ten recruiting class rankings dating back to 2002.  I assigned a numerical value to each school for each year.  For instance, in 2002, Ohio State had the top rated class among Big Ten schools and Indiana’s class ranked 11th among 11 Big Ten schools.  Ohio State therefore received a numerical value of 1 and Indiana received an 11, with the other schools falling where they ranked.  I did this for each recruiting class 2002-2012.

I then juxtaposed those numbers with the actual on field conference winning percentage numbers for the same time period.  These are conference games only and I did not add in this year’s Big Ten title game victory for Wisconsin, as I used regular season results only.

One flaw with this 11 year aggregate is the fact that 2002 on field results were influenced by recruiting classes from 1999-2001.  However, the numbers are still interesting to look at.

The second set of data took the same recruiting class ranking analysis but from the 2007-2010 and then juxtaposed those results against on field conference wins for 2008-2011.  Most Big Ten football players redshirt their freshman year, so the class of 2007 would have been true freshmen in 2007.  This is why I began the on field comparison with 2008 season through 2011, because several 2007 recruiting class alums would have been fifth year seniors in 2011.

This second data set is a more realistic reflection of how the programs have been evaluating and developing talent these paste five years and illustrates the correlation between recruiting class rankings and on field production, or lack there of.

I will display the graphic now, and you can also access a larger version of the data with more detailed data field descriptions at this shared google doc I have created by clicking on this link.

In the raw 11 year raw data set, you will not be surprised to see that Ohio State, Michigan and Penn State are 1-2-3 in the combined recruiting class rankings. Iowa sits at #4 over that time span, which may be a bit of a surprise to some of you. Wisconsin sits at #7, a little lower than I would have pegged.

Wisconsin’s on field conference ranking is well ahead of their recruiting class combined ranking; they are 2nd in Big Ten wins during this time frame while their recruiting class ranking was 7th. Iowa and Northwestern are two positions higher than you would have predicted based upon recruiting class rankings with Purdue one position better. Ohio State and Michigan are right on target, first and second in both wins and recruiting class ranking. Unfortunately for Indiana and Minnesota, their win totals are also on target with their recruiting performance.

Some may also argue that if a team is Plus One or Minus One, you could say they are on target for meeting recruiting class ranking expectations on the field.

Penn State finished Minus two in wins compared to where their talent might suggest they should have finished, while Illinois was the worst in the league at Minus Four.

The second data set is the more refined set that I spoke of earlier. It saw Ohio State and Indiana on target from where the recruiting class ranking data would have predicted they would be on the field. Michigan State (+5) and Northwestern (+4) lead the way in the overachiever department. Wisconsin was just +1 even after receiving a nice little bump this past season due to the fifth year transfer of quarterback Russell Wilson. The Badgers were probably an eight-win team at best in 2011 before Wilson fell into their lap, mostly due to their favorable schedule.

Illinois is once again on the wrong side of the on field performance at Minus Five. It’s not surprising they have made a coaching change just this past season. The same can be said for Michigan’s disappointing Minus Four departure and they fired Rich Rodriguez after the 2010 season.

The biggest surprise in this four year data set was that Michigan State and Ohio State have the same number of conference wins over the course of the last four seasons.

For the rest of this item, I will focus more on how the data relates to Iowa. For fans from other Big Ten schools who are looking at this, feel free to take the data to share with your fellow fans and let me know what kind of discussions come about. Email me links to these discussions at jdmiller71@gmail.com and I will come back in a month or so and put together a mashup of the opinions.

IOWA-CENTRIC

It’s going to be interesting to see the opinions people form from reviewing this data. Here is my take away; Iowa is doing just fine.

Sure, the 2010 7-5 regular season is going to be a wound that likely won’t heal for some time as it was a big time missed opportunity. I still believe that much of the fan base angst in 2011 was a hangover from 2010, as the 2011 Hawkeyes were the least experienced team in the Big Ten to start the season.

I hate to say this, but expect more of the same in 2012. I will write more on that in a few minutes.

When you consider Iowa’s low population and the low number of BCS caliber football players the state produces each year, I think Iowa has probably outperformed expectations in the aggregate recruiting class rankings in both the 12 and four year snapshots. Their conference on field winning numbers are higher than the average ranking of their recruiting classes. When Iowa goes 6-2 in league play, like they did in 2009, they are outperforming their mean expectations in a big way. The 4-4 record in 2010 was on par with a 7th ranking in the conference recruiting standings, but below the recruiting average expectation as well as the eyeball expectation.

So on the whole, or the mean, the Iowa football program is performing to what you would expect in Big Ten conference play on an 11 year look and slightly above what the recruiting rankings suggest on the four year look.

WHAT DOES THE FUTURE HOLD?

In looking at the first data set from above, you see Iowa’s 2008-2009 recruiting classes ranked 7th and 11th in the Big Ten. Only Northwestern and Indiana had a lower two year aggregate ranking during that span.

To make matters worse, 19 of the players Iowa signed in those two classes are no long in the program. So not only were these two classes lightly regarded by the recruiting services, the 2008-2009 classes will comprise most of the leadership in Big Ten teams this year in the form of fourth and fifth years players. In other words, Iowa gets the double whammy.

I think Iowa is in for a 2012 season that will be similar to what we saw in 2011; inconsistent due to a high number of inexperienced players being on the field. This will be most glaring at defensive line, running back and wide receiver.

However, I do think there is hope for better on field production down the line.

Take a look at the first data set one more time, and focus on the recruiting class rankings for 2010 through 2012.

As it compares to their conference foes, Iowa’s last three classes will average out to fourth, without factoring in Nebraska. This is three slots better than their 2007-2011 four year average.

That being said, when you look at the 12 year data set, you will not find any better three-year consecutive recruiting stretch than what Iowa has just accomplished. Again, I do not include Nebraska in this numbers because they have not been in the Big Ten for the entire time frame.

I think even pessimistic Iowa fans would admit the Hawkeye coaching staff has an excellent track record of developing players. Given the amount of talent they have pulled in these past three years, as long as they can do a better job of player retention than we have seen in the past two years, the Hawkeye football program has a bright future.

Perhaps there is something to be said of the ‘Ferentz Oscilation’, something a HawkeyeNation.com message board user brought up a while back.

Here is the Ferentz Era in three-year windows, from a total wins perspective:

1999-2001: 11
2002-2004: 31
2005-2007: 19
2008-2010: 28
2011-2013?

With seven wins in 2011 and I think around that number in 2012, the ‘dip’ in this three year set won’t be as ‘deep’ as the two that came before it. The first ‘dip’ was when Ferentz was taking over a program that had sort of run off the rails.

The quarterback question will loom for the 2013 campaign, but there are a lot of young playmakers on this team, players with a great deal of speed on defense and some highly touted defensive line prospects who will be on the verge of coming into their own by that time.

At least the data thinks that will be the case.

Iowa led 18-8 with 8:56 to play before Minnesota went on a 19-6 run to end the half with the lead.  The Gophers extended that lead to 45-35 with under 12 minutes to play in the game.  The Hawks missed numerous free throws in the second half and were just 17-26 for the game, while Minnesota was hitting all sorts of three point shots in the second half and was 10-19 from long distance in the game.

These are not the kind of statistics that typically lead to wins, but somehow this Iowa team regained its early game focus, picked up their aggressiveness and found a way to win.

Minnesota had just made a three-point shot with 3:54 to play to lead 59-54.  That’s when sophomore Devyn Marble stepped it up and took over.  He hit a three-point shot with 2:29 to play to pull Iowa to within two.   He followed that up with a drive down the lane that ended with the highlight dunk of the season, with a defender on his him, to tie the game with 1:43 to play.

Bryce Cartwright would hit two free throws with 1:05 to play to give Iowa a two-point lead, this after he had just clanked two free throws in a recent trip to the foul stripe.  Minnesota missed a jumper with :43 to play and Gophers head coach Tubby Smith did not instruct his team to foul.

This was a key moment in the game, as Iowa let the air out of the ball and placed it in the hands of Marble with six seconds left on the shot clock.  Marble was 30 feet from the rim, top of the key when he put his head down and charged towards the rim.  That’s when he found Matt Gatens wide open under the basket and Gatens scored from point-blank range to give Iowa a four-point lead with :08 left in the game to give Iowa a thrilling victory.  It was an Iowa 9-0 run to end the game.

Gatens led Iowa with 18 points on the night, including several critical buckets in the second half to help Iowa to crawl back into the game.  Marble scored 12 for Iowa to go along with five rebounds and two assists, but his play in the last three minutes was the difference in the game.

Melsahn Basabe came off the bench to score seven points and he also pulled down eight rebounds.  Aaron White had nine points with seven rebounds and Zach McCabe scored eight bound and pulled down 10 rebounds.

Iowa started this game tough on the defensive end.  They finished tough on both ends.  In the middle, they lost players while on defense and had a very tough time doing much in their half court offensively.  But when it mattered the most, they showed a great deal heart against a Minnesota team that came into Carver playing as good as any team in the league.

Minnesota had won at Indiana and Penn State in back to back games, then buried Northwestern at home 75-52 to string together three in a row.  They lost at Michigan State then came back to beat Illinois in The Barn.  That’s a four wins in five game stretch against some salty competition, so I don’t mind telling you that I was not overly optimistic about Iowa’s chances before tip, primarily due to Iowa’s three-game losing streak and how they had been losing.

Inexperienced teams can make you pull your hair out at times, but younger players can toss those cares aside and be a different team from game to game.  Add in a player like Matt Gatens, who is desperate for some kind of post season and the Hawks put together a recipe for a gutty win at home in front of over 11,000 fans and more than 1,000 students who were very loud at times.

Iowa moves to 12-11 on the season, 4-6 in Big Ten play with the Big Ten’s worst team coming to town on Saturday in the form of 10-13 (2-8) Penn State.

The game will tip off at 2pm and the 1986-1987 Iowa basketball team will be honored.  Iowa will wear throwback jerseys for that game as well.

NOTES:  Iowa outscored Minnesota 30-10 in the paint, which is a shocker.  Minnesota is one of the bigger teams in the league and very athletic on the inside…Iowa was +6 on the offensive glass and +4 on the boards overall for the game…Iowa was +8 in points off turnovers, committing 10 to Minnesota’s 16….Iowa scored 15 fast break points to 0 for Minnesota.

COACH McCAFFERY:  Well, you know, I think the thing that really impressed me tonight about this team, and I think what ends up happening is we tend to in a game like this focus on that point to the end.  Down 10, then what happens?

It’s a 40‑minute game, okay?  The way we defended in the first 10 minutes is the best we’ve defended since I’ve been here.  We get up 15‑3.  This is a good team, phenomenally well‑coached team.  You know they’re going to come back.  They made it hard for us.  Mixed in a little bit of zone.  We adjusted.

Then the second half starts.  We score three right away, get back to even.  They hit some shots to go up 10.  We out‑rebound them, commit one turnover in the second half.  We didn’t panic when we got down 10.  We whittle away at it, plenty of time.

We made the plays we had to make out of the stretch and we rebounded out of the zone, which oftentimes when you’re running flare screen action, spreading the floor, that’s problematic.  But I thought Aaron and Zach in particular and then our guards got in there and Marble and Matt really made some plays.  And I thought Cartwright was excellent.

Q.  How would you describe the play‑making you had down the stretch with Marble?

COACH McCAFFERY:  Well, you know, it’s interesting.  They were switching so we ran one action to try to create the switch.  Marble just took it down and dunked it.  They got a little separated.  Then when we got the stop, we’re thinking, Okay, are they going to foul, let him play out?  I think it was a six‑ or seven‑second differential.  They let it play out.

Dev just went and made a play.  At that point in time, you got to go make a play.  They were scrambling.  We’re in a double bonus.  It’s going to have to be a pretty good foul to get a call there, but you have to put your head down and go.  What a great play he made.  Great finish by Matt.  Then defensively we did what we had to do.

Q.  Talk about the spark you got from Mel off the bench. 

COACH McCAFFERY:  I thought he was terrific both halves.  His energy level was really good.  We needed an athlete in this game.  This is a very athletic team.  They’re bigger than we are.  We needed the length of Mel and his athletic power.  And he gave it to us in a big way.

Q.  (No microphone.) 

COACH McCAFFERY:  He’s a really good player.  He did the same thing up there.  We had like a seven‑point lead.  He kept hitting shots.  He’s sacrificing himself to play the point guard for that team and doing a great job of it.

In the zone, he’s a great catch‑and‑shoot three‑point shooter.  A couple of times we would have liked to have been a little bit closer to him.  We marked him and we were there, but we weren’t far enough ’cause he’s just going to catch it and fire.  Fortunately we had enough left.

Q.  Eric May’s back situation?

COACH McCAFFERY:  He couldn’t go yesterday.  He went Monday.  He couldn’t go yesterday.  He just said he didn’t think he could get anything done.

I appreciate his honesty.  A lot of guys would have suited up and tried to go.  I would have put him in there because he’s always played well against these guys.  He didn’t feel like he could go, so we’ll give him some rest.

Q.  After Sunday’s game where you obviously weren’t happy with the defense, after two days of practice, they come out and play with a lot more intensity. 

COACH McCAFFERY:  You know, they’re a group that has great character.  They want to do what we’re asking them to do.  They want to be successful.  They make mistakes sometimes.  I get on them.  Everybody sort of assumed Monday was going to be this phenomenally intense screaming and yelling session.  There was a little bit of that.

But it’s a teaching opportunity because it’s not all toughness, it’s not all lack of concentration.  On some level it’s got to be a technique, a fundamental.  That’s on us.  So we’ve got to go back.  We broke down every aspect of defense, kind of like it was the first week of practice, five minutes here, seven minutes there, six minutes here, reteach it, make sure we’re doing it right, then force them to come with the intensity level you need to be successful in this league.

That’s what they did, so…

Q.  How much did you like Devyn’s maturity? 

COACH McCAFFERY:  That’s what Devyn Marble is.  He’s a playmaker.  He’s really, I think, becoming somebody that really understands what that situation was and how to be successful possession by possession, what do we need.  Did we really need that three there?  Yeah, we kind of did.  We were down five.  We just missed two free throws.  That changed everything.  Now we got a stop, then a dunk.

They were so worried about switching, taking away any open shot, switching is an opportunity to drive because the X is on the O.  So we tell our guys, whenever they’re switching men, put it on the deck and go, especially when you’re in the double bonus.

He knew that.  He goes and makes a play.  He knew that on the last possession.  In a situation like that, they really don’t want to foul him.  He just made a great pass and a great finish by Matt.

Q.  Regarding the toughness, something you questioned after the game Sunday, how would you describe it after tonight?

COACH McCAFFERY:  Well, I would say that we were phenomenally tough and it shows you that we’re capable of playing like that on a regular basis.  We talked about toughness.  We also talked about consistency.  What I said was, we have been tough at times.  We have not been consistently tough.  We have been tough in games, but not necessarily in the next game and the next game.

I think that’s the challenge.  That sort of epitomizes this league.  The teams that can rev it up every night, now you have a chance.  It just goes to show you, we have played that way, we’ve played that well.

We played that well in stretches on Sunday, but not enough.

Q.  A lot of good plays out of inbound plays tonight. 

COACH McCAFFERY:  And everybody wants to give me credit for that.  I’ll be honest with you.  We put the formation in, then the guys have to read it.  It’s timing.  It’s spacing.  It’s screening.  It’s when to screen, what angle to screen, when to deliver the ball, who you deliver the ball to.

I would give them all the credit for that.

Q.  Bryce was kind of inconsistent shooting, then has a steal at the end, drives it to the basket to draw the foul. 

COACH McCAFFERY:  I don’t worry about his shot, as long as he is taking what I consider to be good shots from him and he did.  I don’t want him pulling up from three, one on four on the break.  If he’s shooting pull‑up jumpers, driving the ball to the basket, pushing the ball in transition.

A couple of forced turnovers in the first half.  It was coming easy.  15‑3.  He threw the one over Aaron’s head, then he coughed the one up trying to split somebody.  Those are the two he has to get out of his game.  To me those are the only two mistakes he made, not the shots he made.  I thought he was great.

Q.  What about the steal he made. 

COACH McCAFFERY:  If I have him in there, he’s going to make those plays.  Once Sampson goes to the ground, he’s shooting it.  Bryce knew that.  That’s part of the scouting report.  We had an opportunity earlier where Marble missed it by this much and then Bryce got it.

Q.  Big student turnout tonight.  Did that give you an extra jolt of energy?

COACH McCAFFERY:  You know, there’s nothing like it.  Our fan base is so incredibly loyal.  Now that the students are back, when they fill up that side of the building, you think about it, I didn’t play a lot of guys in the second half.  We had a little bit of a tired team.  That’s the energy level that we got from them that really helped us win this game, no question.

Q.  It seemed like Melsahn’s energy started on the defense and the boards.  How do you get him to continue that?

COACH McCAFFERY:  I think you’re right.  He seemed to get confidence offensively because he was making plays defensively.  A couple of times earlier in the year, he was playing pretty good defense, he wasn’t scoring, everybody was down on him, including myself.  Then I go back and watch the tape.  He was pretty good, he just didn’t get it in the basket.

We’ve just encouraged him to keep plugging away defensively, fight the post.  They have two seven‑footers.  Fight the post, get those traffic rebounds.  That will get our break going, get him going.  Makes a big difference.  I think he’s feeling really good about himself tonight.

Q.  You beat a really good team two times this season. 

COACH McCAFFERY:  It’s a big step for us to beat a team of this caliber twice, a team that is that athletic, has been playing that well.  So now for us the challenge continues.  Where do we go from here?

Last January kind of kicked off this year’s recruiting officially before we had finished last year’s class.  So it’s a long process, and certainly evaluation is a key part of things.  Then beyond that is the actual recruitment of the prospects.  So a lot of work goes into it, and I just think the staff did a great job.

Certainly, want to give the players thanks and appreciation.  They did a wonderful job hosting our prospects feel comfortable; the prospects and their families.  Our support staff does a wonderful job giving a lot of their free time to come in and help us in the recruiting process.  Certainly our faculty and academic advisors come in and spend time as well, all of those people pitch in, so there is a lot of team work involved in the recruitment of players and we appreciate that.

Really pleased with the class overall.  We certainly felt like we had some needs to meet and tried to address, and I think we did a good job with that.  I think overall the entire class, all 24 guys signed right now, we feel really good about them having a role in the future with us, most importantly, I think they’re good fits with our program.  I think that is the number one thing that we look for.

One other thing really quickly.  Signing day is always a happy day, and it’s certainly a happy day for the prospects and their families.  To me, it’s a real celebration of having a good high school career.  And all the careers are different just like each and every one of the signees is different, but nonetheless, it’s a great celebration.

I’ve always thought that scholarships are earned.  Nobody gives scholarships out.  They’re earned.  It’s the result of a player doing a great job during his high school career, and also getting a lot of support from family members.  Support from people, teachers, coaches, things like that.  It’s a really special day for everybody involved that way.

Obviously, it’s a turning of the page as well.  End of their high school football careers, if you will, and the start of the next step.  I think that’s going to be the most important step.

And we encourage our prospects to enjoy the rest of their senior year.  Certainly a lot of times we all kind of wish our lives away to get to that, and I don’t think they should do that in high school.  So we encourage them to enjoy the rest of their high school experience, and when it’s time to start with us, we’ll look forward to that as well.

We’re just hopeful that they’ll do as good a job with the University of Iowa as they did in their high school careers. That’s really what this is all about.

It’s a happy day.  We’re looking forward to the months and years ahead once the other players transition into the program with us.  With that, I’ll throw it out to questions.

Q.  Can you talk about the two quarterbacks and what you see for them this fall?

COACH FERENTZ:  I think in Cody’s case, it’s a little bit like recruiting Brad Banks.  We weren’t intentionally looking for a junior college player at that position, necessarily.  But we did screen as many quarterbacks as we could.

We really felt good about Cody as a football player.  Research led us to find out he has some roots in Iowa.  He was born here.  Moved out of here in elementary school, but his mom grew up here and he has a lot of family members back here, so it was a good fit that way.

One thing that was critical to us, we were hoping he would be hopeful to red shirting next year, if he is.  That doesn’t mean he will.  He’ll compete just like James and Jake and John.  But that was part of the understanding.  We wanted to make sure he was open to that.  He was.  I think he’s looking at the big picture as well.  So that worked out beautifully.

C.J. is a little different story.  He kind of happened late.  Just a matter of sometimes when there are staff changes, fits aren’t as comfortable as they maybe were at one point.  We benefited quite frankly from the staff change in that case.  Things happen pretty quick.

Ken O’Keefe went down and spent the day with C.J., and was really impressed with his football intellect, just his way of answering questions on the board and that type of thing.

We already knew he was a tremendous player, and he turns out to be a tremendous young man.  He came up this weekend, and fortunately he and his dad were really comfortable with what they saw in the program, and school and community, and it worked out really well.

So we didn’t necessarily start out looking for two quarterbacks, but that’s the way it ended up.  I think as a result of that, we’ll be in pretty good shape at that position for a while.  That is certainly important on any football team.

Q.  Could you give us a thumbnail sketch of Greg Garmon?

COACH FERENTZ:  Greg’s very talented.  He’s an explosive running back, really elusive.  Many of you are familiar with his history, his life history.  He’s been through some trials and tribulations healthwise, and otherwise.  He’s weathered those things in tremendous fashion.

He’s got a tremendous demeanor and outlook and attitude.  He’s a very positive young man, very talented young man.  We’re fortunate, I think that we haven’t had much luck in the state of Pennsylvania overall, but Erie, Pennsylvania has been really good to us.  We are thrilled to get him on the team.

He’s playing in his eighth AllStar Game today.  He’s got a game at 6:00 tonight, as I understand it.  So he’s certainly a champion playing in AllStar Games.  But just a delightful young guy, and the other three players that we’ve had from Erie, that would be fantastic.  So we’ll keep our fingers crossed.

We’re really excited about getting Greg here and looking forward to getting him on the team.

Q.  How realistic would it be for him or Barkley Hill to be a starter by the time you start the Big Ten season?

COACH FERENTZ:  Yeah, I think anything’s possible.  We’re equally as excited about getting Barkley.  Barkley’s a guy that we think is a tremendous young person.  Outstanding football player.  Had a tremendous career up at Cedar Falls on a successful team.

That was one of the obvious positions of need for us.  We really thought it was critical to the point where we were considering signing three running backs, and we gave that thought.  Once we had commitments from Greg and Barkley, we felt comfortable moving forward with those two guys.

And Jason White’s decided to come back to our team, so that gives us a little help there too, rather than graduating.  So I think the combination of those two guys plus what we have on campus, we feel pretty good about that.

We told Barkley and Greg we’re going to let them compete.  And that’s true of every guy that we’ve signed.

Q.  When Barkley initially committed to Iowa State and then changed his mind?

COACH FERENTZ:  That’s probably a good question for Barkley and his family.  But we continued to recruit him respectfully, if you will.  Just kept the line in the water.  Came back and visited with him on occasion.  Not frequent, but on occasion.  I think over a period of time, maybe he just felt  I don’t want to speak for him  but maybe he felt this style of offense might be better suited for him.  I think that’s probably as big a factor as anything.

But I’d let him answer that.  We’re just thrilled that he chose to come here.  We’re very excited about that.

Q.  Based on the attrition you’ve had on the defensive line this year with graduates and before, how realistic is it that one or more of your recruits could see playing time or compete for a starting position this year?

COACH FERENTZ:  I think playing time is realistic.  Starting hopefully won’t be the case.  I think that’s a tough challenge on either side of the ball up front.  But that, you know, clearly is a big concern for us.  We had three seniors a year ago go to the NFL, and all three of those guys did really well as rookies.

Five seniors on this year’s ballclub, so you lose eight quality players.  It’s a little bit like we went through with the offensive line in ’08, ’09.  You lose eight quality players in a twoyear span, that really leaves you a little thin in terms of experience.

I think it’s really paramount the guys on campus have the best chance to develop into starters for us, and that’s going to be a real focal point.  We can talk more about that next week moving forward.  That’s going to be really critical.

Right now we have four guys that are defensive line guys.  Two of them are a little bigger and more developed than the other two.  But I think all four have great upside.  And I think the two bigger guys, certainly Jaleel and Faith have a better opportunity to come in and contribute next year because of physical maturity.  But I think all four guys are guys that we’re excited about.  You know, it’s going to be fun to see how that develops.

Q.  You had some success in Chicago this year getting those guys, Faith and Jaleel.  How big of a role did a guy like Maurice Fleming have in helping you guys recruit?

COACH FERENTZ:  Maurice, as you probably well know is a really charismatic young guy.  He’s got a really special personality to him.  If you meet his mom and his grandmother, you get a little clue and insight in terms of where that comes from.

We were very impressed with Maurice.  He came to one of our oneday camps back in June, and he won all of us over that way, offense and defense.  Then we got to know Maurice, and it was even more we felt better about everything.  It was really exciting for us.  That’s important.

A nice sidebar or a nice benefit we enjoyed is that Maurice is pretty active, and players seem to know players.  He was really active on the recruiting front.  He’s got a great personality.  He’s pretty persuasive.  I don’t think there’s any question he helped us a little bit with some of the other guys and we appreciate that.

Q.  You have two junior college guys, and you seem to have developed a relationship with Iowa Western, can you talk about how beneficial that is to have that here in Iowa?

COACH FERENTZ:  Yeah, it worked out well.  Last time we all visited, I thought it was a 5050 shot on Reilly.  I really thought there was more than, you know, probably an even chance that he was going to stay in college so we weren’t sure where that was going to go and what was going to happen.

He made a decision, and I don’t think he could have made a bad one, quite frankly.  He was in good shape either way.  So he made a decision, and it just so happens that Eric Simmons was a guy we knew a little about from a year ago.  He was an excellent student, a presidential scholar out of Madrid, and went to Western.

He had a little bit of an association, talk about connections.  He and Austin Blake knew each other a little bit through their high school days.

So we talked to Eric about coming in and starting school in January.  He was excited about that opportunity.  From all reports right now he’s off to a really good start.  We’re two weeks into this thing right now, so we’re just really happy to get him.  It’s nice to have that option available to us.  So we’re really excited about having him join.

Q.  We haven’t had a chance to speak with you in person since Marcus Coker left.  I wondered if you could tell us your thoughts on that whole situation?

COACH FERENTZ:  Well, obviously, he’s left school.  We wish him all the best.  Again, I said it before and I’ll say it again, I think Marcus is a tremendous young guy.  We wish him all the best moving forward.  Anything else we’ll be happy to talk about that next week.

Q.  What about Nate?  You’ve got offense, defense?

COACH FERENTZ:  Yeah, he’s an interesting guy.  If you’ve seen him on tape or seen him play, he’s really an interesting guy.  It’s eightman football, and I think Chad was nineman football, Chad Greenway, I’m not suggesting they’re the same player, but they are a little bit the same in that they play both ways.  Really are dominant players and guys that watch the film.

The thing that jumped out at you is they really enjoyed playing.  That was pretty evident.  He really competed.  I was a little confused there for a minute, you know.  He was running the ball to the right, and everybody stopped.  I was trying to figure out what the heck happened because the white line was over there.

It’s a smaller field, and it took me a while to figure that out.  But he’s a really high energy guy.  He’s a guy that I think has a chance to play a couple different positions for us.  I think he’d like to start at running back.  We’ll put him there and see what happens and kind of go from there.

Q.  You signed the sons of a couple of former Hawkeyes.  Talk about Keppy and Kittle.

COACH FERENTZ:  Yeah, it just kind of worked out that way.  Myron was here back, gosh, in the mid ’80s, I guess it would have been, and came from Durant.  Hometown of Jon Roehlk.  Had a nice career here.  We got on Mitch a little bit.  Picked him up on the radar screen from the wrestling, first and foremost.

I think we were one of his first offers last spring.  He came out to spring ball one day with his dad, and just really impressed us.  Obviously, his tape impressed us.  So we’re really thrilled about him.  And with George Kittle.  You know, Bruce played here.  I didn’t hold that against him.

Bruce, his wife is a much better athlete.  Jan was an All-American basketball player, and I think held records at Drake.  She and her sister beat up on Bruce and I in 198384.  They beat the crap out of us.

That was the deciding factor.  I think George is a guy that’s really, if you watch his tape he’s an in between player, not sure what positions he’s going to play.  But I certainly like his competitiveness.  He’s an intelligent young guy, and again, that comes from his mom.

We think he’s a guy that has a chance in our program to blossom and develop.  So we’re really excited.  He’s got good ball skills.  He’s about 6’4″, 205, and might be a tight end, outside linebacker.

We’re not sure where he’s going to fit, but we think he’s a good football player and we’re really happy to get him.  And I know playing here is important to him.  That certainly counts, too.

Q.  Talk about the recruiting rankings?

COACH FERENTZ:  Yeah, I just predict if you come back 10 years from now, it’s probably the same.  Lot of those schools in the preseason are Top 10 for next fall too.  So, I don’t really pay too close attention.  Not amused, but entertained is a better choice of words.

I got the back up on ESPNU, and it’s amazing.  It’s really becoming to look like draft coverage in some ways, and there are a lot of similarities.  To me, the NFL draft is a celebration of what a player did in college, and today all the TV coverage is really of what players have done in high school.

So those are neat things, neat to report and all that.  Just like our guys that are moving on.  They’re going up for the NFL draft.  But wherever they end up, he’s got work to do when he gets there.  And if he plays that way, I’m sure he’ll play very, very well, and it will be easy to convey that to the people that come in and ask about him.

Those are the kind of reports and feedback we got from the players, coaches, support staff that we visited with that we recruited.  All we can do is try to project what you think a player’s going to do once they get to your school and into your program.  We tried to do an intelligent job of that.

So as far as the rankings go, they really don’t mean a lot at this point.  I think what’s really important is where the players are in their last two, three years of their career.  I think that’s really what’s paramount and are they on track to get their degrees.  They are on track to have the kind of careers they hope to have when they get there.

After the celebration’s over, I think it’s really important at some point that really the focus is on all the hard work that has to go into earning their degree at a Big Ten school, playing high level competition and competing successfully.  That gets left out of the equation a lot, you know?  And that’s okay.  Today’s a day of celebration, but at some point that’s what you have to move on to.

Q.  How active was LeVar?

COACH FERENTZ:  He’s active.  He’s in learning.  Once we had an opening whatever day that was, Monday, Tuesday, he was full speed.  I’m laughing because I think he missed the plane by three or four minutes out on the west coast, and ended up in Chicago at 5:30 the next morning.  He was on a couple of goose chases.  It was a way for him to break in.  Welcome to recruiting and welcome to coaching.

Q.  Would it be presumptious . . . ?

COACH FERENTZ:  Nothing’s official right now.  But he got his feet wet, for sure.  When I talked to Bruce Kittle last night and this is Bruce’s first year as a fulltime college coach.  It’s about a good way to sum it up, so don’t worry about the past because it will probably be more of the same.

Q.  Does Conner come in as your No. 1 punter?

COACH FERENTZ:  John Wienke and Jonny Mullings competed for that position.  Both guys made improvement during the fall.  So we’ll go through 15 days, and somebody’s going to come out number one.  And I think Conner’s going to have a chance to come in, and compete.  So we’re all for it.  It’s whatever’s best.  That’s what it comes down to.  But he’ll have an opportunity to compete in camp.

Q.  If I’m not mistaken you are offerinfg four-year scholarships?

COACH FERENTZ:  You know, I’m not sure.  I think they received it.  I’m not sure.  All I know is we have guys that four or five years, and our goal is for them to graduate and have a great career.  So the $2,000 legislation won’t be important.  It won’t matter to our commitments.  These guys  they want to be here.  This is not a oneyear trial or anything like that.

Q.  So logistically it didn’t change anything?

COACH FERENTZ:  I didn’t give it any thought, quite frankly.  I’m not sure about the rules.  It doesn’t really matter.

Q.  How many walkons do you think you’ll take?

COACH FERENTZ:  We’d like to get our roster to 115, 118, somewhere in that ballpark.  We’ll know more after we get through spring practice to see who sticks with the team, who doesn’t.  We just had a freshman walkon lineman retire a couple weeks ago.  So those things happen.  Hopefully we’ll end up around 118, typically.

Q.  Did any recruits express concern that you haven’t named a defensive coordinator yet?

COACH FERENTZ:  I think one name came up this past week and maybe one other time.  But I don’t think it’s a big deal.  What I told people is we’ve been here 13 years.  We’ve been really fortunate.  One thing I’ve always appreciated about coaching here, and I coached here in the ’80s, the first guy to leave, Coach Fry was able to bring great coaches in, and we haven’t lost many guys since I’ve been here.

We’ve had two retire.  One at 68, one at 70, but that’s going to happen.  Couple guys go to the NFL.  So you know, guys move around on occasion.

One thing I’ve always known is we’re always going to have good people here and good coaches.  So I’m not worried about that, and I think our recruits understood that as well.  It really wasn’t a big factor.  At least it didn’t seem to be.  There is no way for me to measure that.  Maybe they weren’t bringing it up, but it didn’t seem to be a big issue.

Q.  Coach, this offensive line, is there potential for anybody else to come aboard?

COACH FERENTZ:  We have the potential.  We still are waiting on one prospect to make a decision.  We’ll wait to see what happens there.

Q.  What plans do you have for the Super Bowl?  What kind of emotions will it be for you having your son going?

COACH FERENTZ:  I’m hoping to be there.  Like the fools that we are, we’ll be here working on Sunday, hosting another junior day.  But when that’s completed, I’ll be on my way to Indianapolis.  Hopefully I’ll get there for kickoff and go as a fan and go as a dad.  So it’s going to be a lot of fun.

Q.  I know you guys continue to recruit.  You have to recruit to the finish line.  Has it become more difficult?  Is it a little bit more combat, I guess, for lack of a better term, as it gets closer to signing day?

COACH FERENTZ:  Yeah, it’s been kind of crazy the last couple years.  I think, I don’t know if this is any different, but it’s just kind of the nature of recruiting.  It’s interesting.  Some of the other schools that were scrambling around a little bit at the end too.  Nobody’s immune to it.

So it’s an interesting process.  I’m still a huge believer that early signing would be a good thing for everybody.  Again, it wouldn’t be mandatory but a voluntary exercise all the way.  But I think it would be helpful for the recruits that don’t want the attention and all that stuff.

But it doesn’t seem to be gaining much traction, so I’m not worried about that too much.  But that’s in some ways recruiting is a lot saner than it was, but in a lot of ways, it’s interesting.

Q.  When something comes up in recruiting and got a little crazy towards the end, do you guys just go in there with the mode of we’ve got to get back there?  We’ve got to get in there?

COACH FERENTZ:  You just try to reassure people.  You never know what kind of smoke screens are being thrown around, and that’s part of the game.  So it happens.  You just try to address the things that might be getting thrown out there and try to take them head on.  That’s all you can do.

Sometimes you have to use your imagination.  After a while it becomes clear what other folks are saying.  It’s not like it takes Dick Tracy to figure it out.  You just try to address it and be proactive.

Q.  Do you get concerned when you have to add a component to say something that may have never been said publicly.  But now with social media it gets out there, and you bring the component of fans into it who are reacting to that prospect?

COACH FERENTZ:  I’m probably not as in tuned to some of that.  The staff kind of keeps me abreast of some of that stuff.  That’s like our own players.  We really try to encourage our players and people involved in recruiting not to get on there.  But it’s like a moth to a flame a lot of times.  Yeah, it’s an interesting phenomena, interesting phenomena.

Q.  When did you start looking at Ott from Nebraska?

COACH FERENTZ:  You know, Reese gets in his car and starts driving around.  Somewhere between here and there, he stops somewhere in the Rocky Mountains, I think.  Who knows what state he’ll be in.  His car dealer deserves combat pay, because Reese puts a lot of miles on his car.

But Reese got on to Drew kind of early, I guess, and we encouraged Drew to come over.  Quite frankly, he was in one of our oneday camps and pretty much struggled.  We were totally unfair.

He’s an outside guy and played tight end and is really a good athlete.  We asked him to be a defensive lineman for a day in camp, and that wasn’t very much fun for him and that wasn’t fair.

But we just kind of went with what we believed in and saw him do in high school film.  He was really comfortable playing there, and he’s a good basketball player.  A quality young guy from a quality family.  So we really felt good about the whole package.  Take that one day of camp and throw it out.

We think he’s got a real high upside.  We’re really excited about him.  He’s got some growth to make in the years ahead, as does Daumantas.  But if you watch those guys and really do some work on them, they’re the guys that we think have great upside.

You go back and look at a guy like Karl Klug who came in under 210, Bryan Mattison and Ken Iwebema, came in at 218 when they were freshmen.  All three of those guys played really well for us.

So I think both Drew and Daumantas kind of fit that profile, if you will.  They’re not going to be out there next year playing, probably.  You never know, but I think if they got that right attitude and work ethic that we think they have, I think they’ve got a chance to grow into the kind of players that we’re used to playing with.

Q.  Were you guys regional this year in recruiting or positional as far as coaches?

COACH FERENTZ:  Both.  We did both.  I think we have to do that.  You try to make sure players are really familiar with everybody on the staff.  I only get one crack at a home visit, so I think if position coaches get involved, too, that helps.

You try to do every little thing you can.  It helps us get to know the players and the prospects a little bit better.

Q.  Is that staying the same future?

COACH FERENTZ:  I think it’s what works for us.

Q.  Did the Aaron Curry recruit, did that get awkward with Rick moving to Nebraska?

COACH FERENTZ:  I don’t think so.  I mean to me it became clear in my opinion after December passed, it was time for us to move on for the most part.  That’s kind of how I saw it.  You know, that’s recruiting.  You just keep moving and worry about the ones you get.  There’s a lot we don’t get.

Q.  The defensive coordinator thing, did you get them or not, the kids?

COACH FERENTZ:  Somebody else threw it out there probably at some point.  But maybe it was.  I think we got both of them, come to think of it.  The most recent was Sean Draper, that was one more question.  As you get closer to signing, you’d be amazed, really sometimes it’s a fair question.  It was easy to answer.

Q.  How’d you answer it?

COACH FERENTZ:  It will be fine.  We’re going to be fine.

Q.  Do you have any home visit story this is year?

COACH FERENTZ:  Some really good meals, again.  You know me.  Well, unbelievable.  Just what I needed.

Q.  Number 3 son, what is his attitude?

COACH FERENTZ:  He’s looking around here.  He’s looking pretty hard at Iowa, as you might imagine.  If that ends up being what he does, that’s great.  You know, we’ll support him, whatever he chooses to do.

Q.  Is it hard not to get too wrapped up in recruits the day before signing period it comes between you and someone else and then they choose someone else?  Is that a hard process to get through?

COACH FERENTZ:  I think it’s a lot harder on the prospects, not that it’s not hard on us.  One thing I try to explain to recruits at the front end is usually  not for all, but for a lot of them  what’s hard is telling adults that have treated them well, and you develop relationships with people and talk to them a lot, to tell them, no, you’re not coming to their school.  That’s hard.

But do the math.  Just to the last point.  If a guy can take five visits, you’ve got an 80% failure rate there.  So it’s hard for prospects to understand that.  We do this every year.  We know the rules and how it’s going to be.  You can only make one school happy.

Football’s all about team work and doing the best for the team.  But in recruiting, it’s the one time a football player has to do what’s best for them.  They have to get down to what’s going to make them happy.  For us to pretend like we know, that’s being presumptious.

Figuring out for themselves, relying on their families and their support networks to determine what it is that’s going to make them happy as they move forward.  Ultimately, they’ve got to do what’s best for them.  I get that.

I didn’t get that so well in the early ’80s.  But after you do this for a while, you kind of develop a little understanding that you’re not going to win them all.

It’s kind of like coaching games.  It would be wonderful to win them all, but it probably won’t happen.  If you can’t live with the hard part about this whole stuff, you probably ought to do something else, because it’s part of the job.  It’s really hard on prospects at times.  Really hard on them as you can imagine.

Q.  With Marvin leaving and you picking up a couple wide receivers, is it one or more?

COACH FERENTZ:  We’ll let all those guys compete.  That’s a position right now where, we have a lot of positions, and I’ll talk more about this next week.  Just in general we’re a really young team right now moving forward.  I don’t think we have a lot of returning AllAmericans or all Big Ten guys.  So for me it’s open season where everybody’s going to compete and work hard.  I think it’s exciting.

We told every guy in the selection, if they can come in and help us, we’re all for it.  That’s kind of where we are right now.  So I think the players are excited about that.  But to the point I made earlier, there is a lot of hard work that goes with that too.  If you want to get out on the field next September, you have to really work hard.  That’s what it takes.

You look at guys like Moeaki and Bulaga, guys that came in and played as freshmen.  Look at the work they did before they got here and once they got here.  That’s really what it takes.  But we’ve got a really open mind to where we’re heading here.