Three takeaways from Kirk Ferentz Cy-Hawk week presser

The Hawkeyes opened the season this past Saturday with a 24-14 victory against Utah State. They jumped out to an early 14-0 lead in the first quarter and were able to use the momentum from that start to propel them to a 1-0 start.

This week, the Hawkeyes are set to travel to Jack Trice Stadium for the annual Cy-Hawk Game against the Iowa State Cyclones. Kirk Ferentz is 13-10 against Iowa State as head coach of the Hawkeyes and has won seven of the last nine meetings. Iowa has won six of the last seven meetings in Ames, including five wins in a row.

Ferentz met with the media on Tuesday afternoon for his weekly press conference. He talked about what he saw from the offensive line, gave good news regarding some injuries and then spoke a bit about his quarterbacks injury.

Kirk Ferentz still has a lot of confidence in the offensive line

There was noticeable improvement from the offensive line when it came to pass protection in the season opener against Utah State. The Iowa OLine was ranked 126th in the country in pass blocking per Pro Football Focus last season, but had the 16th best pass blocking grade after week one. That allowed Cade McNamara time to throw and the Hawkeyes hit on a couple of chunk plays through the air, while they nearly hit on a couple more.

“We’re a more mature group now. We’re a little bit more experienced and more capable. It’s pretty much the same guys, throwing Rusty Feth on top of it, but same guys that have been here. They’ve been able to practice a little bit. They’re a little older and stronger. We’re a more physically mature team at that position especially.”

The one area that did not see as much improvement was the run blocking. Last season, the Hawkeyes averaged just 2.9 yards per carry, which ranked 128th in the country. Against Utah State, Iowa running backs picked up just 77 yards on 30 carries (2.5 ypc) and had just one rush of more than ten yards. Ferentz attributed some of the struggles to a tough preperation against a new defensive coordinator for the Aggies.

“I didn’t see a lot of physical stuff, but more it was a tough preparation for us defensively,” said Ferentz. “We didn’t know what to expect and got some looks almost maybe, I don’t want to say we weren’t prepared for, but there’s some things we might have done differently maybe in retrospect had we known what to expect a little bit more.”

Kirk said he does not expect to change much with the rotation on the line, but did say they will see how this week of practice goes. Against Utah State, Mason Richman (65), Logan Jones (62), Gennings Dunker (59), Connor Colby (45), Nick DeJong (41), Rusty Feth (38) and Tyler Elsbury (24) were the seven lineman in the rotation. There is a chance that Beau Stephens could be added to the fold after missing the opener.

“If we’re playing six, seven, eight guys, we’re doing it because we feel they can go on and compete, not because we’re fishing around to find something that might work. The guys you saw Saturday did a capable job, and hopefully they’ll all continue to improve as we go.”

Saturday will certainly be a test against a tough Iowa State defensive front, but the Hawkeyes have seen it before, so there should be no surprises schematically. If the line continues to struggle this weekend, that will raise more questions.

Good news regarding injuries for several players

Several players not named Cade McNamara received injury updates from Kirk and the news was good across the board. RB LeShon Williams (21 snaps) and S Xavier Nwankpa (46 snaps) both missed time in the opener with what appeared to be heat related injuries. Ferentz confirmed that the injuries were just that and said, “They’re fine” for Saturday.

The other update came for OG Beau Stephens. He missed the opener with an injury after starting ten games and logging 395 snaps last season. Kirk said he was out with a bone bruise and is hopeful that he will be available for the Iowa State game.

“He was at practice today. We’re keeping our fingers crossed. We thought it might be worse initially, but he had a bone bruise…He’s in the mix. We’re not sure who the starters are, but he’s in the mix certainly.”

Cade McNamara’s injury may last for a while

The questions over the last couple of weeks has been geared towards whether or not Cade was going to be able to take the field in the season opener against Utah State. Now that he has played his first game with the Hawkeyes, the new question is how long will it be before he is 100% healthy. Kirk noted that they could be dealing with managing his injury for the entire season, or at least a good portion of it.

“He’s got an injury, so we’re going to be managing it all season long. That’s my guess, or at least until it heals. We’ll manage it and try to be smart about it,” said Ferentz. “We’re not going to have him bootleg like the Chuck Long play from ’85, probably won’t pull that one.”

While no one was expecting Cade McNamara to come in and be Johnny Manziel in the pocket, there was hope that he would at least be able to have the ability to extend some plays and run if the situation asked for it. Probably similar to what CJ Beathard had the ability to do a few years back. However, if his quad takes most of the season to fully heal, the question is, are there certain plays that Brian Ferentz will be reluctant to call because they require him to use his feet? Will Cade be able to scramble in any capacity?

The Utah State defensive line generated just seven pressures and three quarterback hurries on Saturday, so it was hard to get a real gauge on McNamara’s mobility. It could be put to the test on Saturday, as the Iowa State defensive front generated 20 pressures and 13 quarterback hurries in the opener against Northern Iowa.

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