Everything Iowa Head Coach Kirk Ferentz Said About Kentucky, Music City Bowl Bid

Everything Iowa Head Coach Kirk Ferentz Said About Kentucky, Music City Bowl Bid

Kentucky and Iowa will do battle at Nissan Stadium in Nashville on Dec. 31 in the 2022 Music City Bowl. 

The game will be a rematch of last season's Citrus Bowl, which saw the Wildcats come out on top 20-17. 

Iowa head coach Kirk Ferentz — the active longest-tenured skipper in college football — will once again oppose Iowa alum Mark Stoops. He spoke to reporters on Sunday night following the announcement that his Hawkeyes will take on the Wildcats for a second postseason in a row. 

Here's everything the 24th-year HC said in regards to Kentucky and the Music City Bowl bid: 

KIRK FERENTZ: Obviously, we're just really happy and excited to get the news. It was great to learn from Steve Ramsey that we're going to have an opportunity to play in the TransPerfect Music City Bowl in Nashville, and as Gary mentioned, we thought we had that opportunity coming a couple years ago. It didn't materialize. So, this is really special.

Also, as has been mentioned, it is our 20th bowl now since 2001, and I think each one of them represent, I think a significant accomplishment, and then the other part about it, each one is really something that's appreciated by everybody in our team, our program. They are special opportunities for our team, most importantly our players, and just to have this happen is really a good thing.

In general terms, the way I've always looked at it, it's one more chance for our entire football team to compete together and work together for another couple weeks, which is great. For the seniors, it's exactly that because this will be the last time they get a chance to compete with the Tigerhawk on their helmet, and I can tell you, it's really special before they go off to their adult lives or whatever chapter is next for 'em.

And then for the younger guys, it's significant from that standpoint as well as just it's an opportunity to continue to develop, and these are really important opportunities for all the players that haven't played a lot or even guys that have played that are younger to continue to move forward as players. And really the way you learn how to play football, there are a lot of different things that go into it, but the most important part is you have to go out and do it and practice it.

So, again, just appreciative on a lot of levels. You look across the line now, it's always good to know where your playing, and then who you're playing. Certainly there's some familiarity with the Kentucky program, Coach Stoops being a graduate of this program and playing-wise and assistant, but more importantly, just what he's done as the head coach in the program they've built at Kentucky, and we got exposure to that firsthand last year at this time. Nothing but great respect for them. I'm not overly knowledgeable about this year's team, but I know what their program stands for and how it's built and we know we're going to be in a very competitive situation. Again, a big challenge for us. So that's exciting as well.

Then as kind of an interesting sidebar, my nephew brought it up, that we kicked off the calendar year, 2022, playing Kentucky and now ironically we're going to finish it on the 31st with the same opponent. So it's a little bit of an interesting sidebar. And as Gary mentioned, we thought we were going to Nashville a couple years back and now we get to actually do it.

So anyway, it's just really good to know who we're playing. We can now start thinking a little bit about our preparation and doing some game planning as well as the other things that we are doing.