Brian Ferentz Feels Prepared for Expanded Role

Iowa Offensive Coordinator Comfortable with Coaching QBs

Iowa offensive coordinator watches the Hawkeyes go through warmups before a game against Purdue on Oct. 16, 2021 in Iowa City, Iowa. (Rob Howe/HawkeyeNation.com)

IOWA CITY, Iowa - Brian Ferentz is coaching Iowa’s quarterbacks this season as well as being the Hawkeyes’ offensive coordinator.

Which certainly raised some questions when the decision was announced, given that Ferentz doesn’t have the experience of coaching the position at a time when there is a competition for the starting quarterback job for the upcoming season.

“I’m just trying to look at coaching that position from this perspective — how do I help them do their job better?” Ferentz said during a media availability on Wednesday.

What Ferentz wants is a good competition for the position between the two veteran quarterbacks on the roster, Spencer Petras and Alex Padilla, and Joe Labas, who doesn’t have any of the game experience of the other two.

“You guys are talking about Alex and Spencer,” Ferentz said. “What about Joe? Why can’t Joe compete? Well, right now, things are limiting him from competing. That’s my job. My job is to get everyone on the same footing so that you can objectively look at a true battle.”

But Ferentz is aware that he doesn’t have the experience of coaching the position like former quarterbacks coach Ken O’Keefe, who retired earlier this year but still has a consulting role in the program. He doesn’t have the experience of Jon Budmayr, who is on Iowa’s staff as an offensive analyst after playing at Wisconsin before becoming the Badgers’ quarterbacks coach and later the offensive coordinator at Colorado State.

“I think the thing I’ve tried to be aware of is how quickly can I get up to speed on the fundamental play of the position that eludes me,” Ferentz said. “So you lean on people who are experts in what you don’t have expertise in. I learned that from a really smart person a long time ago, and I don’t know if I subscribed to it early enough.”

“At the end of the day, it’s a position I’ve never coached before. The only thing I’m sure of at this point is football is football. And it’s a simple game.”

Ferentz took over as Iowa’s offensive coordinator in 2017, with O’Keefe working as the quarterbacks coach. It was a different setup than in past seasons under coach Kirk Ferentz, when the offensive coordinator also worked with the quarterbacks.

“Over the last 5 years, I can’t overstate how much I learned from Ken,” Brian Ferentz said. “And how much I appreciate that.”

“When Coach O’Keefe told us the move he wanted to make, my first thoughts were I wanted Brian to take over the quarterbacks, and so I’m really happy that’s what happened,” Petras said. “I’m excited to see what we can do. He’s a smart guy, and I’m really excited to see what happens.”

Petras said having the offensive coordinator work with the quarterbacks is helpful.

“If there’s two people in the building who need to be on the same page, it’s the offensive coordinator and the quarterback,” Petras said. “I think any time there’s a degree of separation there, there’s challenges that can be presented.”

It’s more responsibility for a coach who took plenty of criticism for Iowa’s offensive struggles last season.

The Hawkeyes went 10-4 last season, winning the Big Ten’s West Division, with one of the nation’s worst offenses. Iowa was 121st out of 130 FBS teams in total offense, 101st in rushing offense, 109th in passing offense.

“I’m a competitor, and I want to win,” Ferentz said. “That’s me. That’s as selfish as I can speak. I want to win. When we don’t win as a football team — forget performance, when we don’t win as a football team, those games, those outcomes, haunt me for the rest of my life.

When you compete, you may not perform the way you want to perform. You still have to come back and go back to work. There will be a tomorrow for our football team. We will get another chance come September whatever. Everything we’re doing right now is working toward that.”

Ferentz said he understood the criticism that came his way.

“Does criticism bother me? Of course. I’m a human being,” he said. “Can I let it affect the way I do my job? Absolutely not. And my job is to help us win football games. So all that matters for me is going home at night and knowing whether or not I did that to the best of my ability.

“How I feel about last season doesn’t matter. How we performed last season … honestly, at this point, it doesn’t matter, because it’s this season now.”

It’s why Ferentz didn’t even want to get into the battle for the starting quarterback job. Petras made 11 starts last season, while Padilla made three. Each entered a game in relief of the other — Padilla for Petras in the Hawkeyes’ win at Northwestern, and Petras for Padilla in the second half of Iowa’s win at Nebraska.

Petras, who has made 19 career starts, threw for 1,880 yards with 10 touchdowns and nine interceptions last season. Padilla threw for 636 yards, with two touchdowns and two interceptions.

“You’re a facilitator,” Ferentz said. “You distribute the football. It’s all you do. The longer the football is in our quarterback’s hands, the worse it is for our offense. That’s not a knock on the three guys we have right now. That’s their skill. They can get it to guys that can do something with it.

“At the end of the day, that’s what it comes down to for us — running the ball effectively, throwing the ball efficiently, advancing the football.”

The new job is an education, then, for a coach learning from his new responsibilities.

“I’m awestruck on what these guys are capable of doing,” Ferentz said. “If you really put a clock on it, a lot of these guys are making decisions that are measured in tenths of a second. And I’m talking about big decisions that can change the outcome of a game, a season, a career, that are made in tenths, and hundredths, of a second. And I think that’s a lot of fun and I think that’s interesting. It’s got me more excited about football than I have been in a long time.

“But man, I’ve got a lot to learn, too.”