NEIL CORNRICH & NC SPORTS: MANAGING THE CAREERS OF PROFESSIONALS IN THE SPORTS INDUSTRY

SEARCH NEILCORNRICH.COM

Tuesday, September 17, 2019

Kirk Herbstreit: Ferentz the top coaching performance in Week 3










By SEAN BOCK 20 hours ago

ESPN college football analyst Kirk Herbstreit publishes his list of the top team and coaching performances after every week during the college football season.
Herbstreit listed his top performances on Monday, and Iowa head coach Kirk Ferentz was awarded Herbstreit's top coaching performance of the weekend.









The Hawkeyes went into Ames on Saturday to square off with in-state rival Iowa State, and took care of business topping the Cyclones 18-17. In a game that had two weather delays totaling 2 hours and 55 minutes, the Iowa special teams and defense came up in the clutch to give the Hawkeyes their third win of the season.
Ferentz addressed the struggles of this year's Cy-Hawk game in his Sunday Conversation on HawkeyeSports.com.

"What we didn't know is that it would become a nighttime game, which makes it that much harder," said Ferentz. "The delays threw a monkey wrench in there. The players handled things well, the staff had a good plan, too. The players, their ability to adjust to the variance in times and then with the second one which got a little challenging with the length of the delay (2:06). Guys started getting hungry and all that, so we had managers go out and getting food."
"All in all, everybody handled it well. Luckily we weren't worn out. Those were three pregame warmups we went through which is unheard of. All that stuff going on, yet the players stayed focused and competed better as the game went on."

Iowa got a nice boost from a few different players.

One of the big performers of the night was kicker Keith Duncan, who converted on all four of his field-goal attempts, including the go-ahead field goal in the fourth quarter. Duncan is known for his walk-off field goal to upset Michigan in 2016. The past two seasons, Duncan didn't get as much action due to the emergence of Miguel Recinos.

Instead of transferring, Duncan kept working, and was named the starting kicker this year and has delivered thus far. Duncan was named the Big Ten Special Teams Player of the Week.

Iowa cornerback DJ Johnson was named the Big Ten Freshman of the week after starting his first collegiate game on Saturday due to multiple injuries in the secondary. Johnson made a couple of rookie mistakes during the game, but adjusted as time went on, and came up with a pass deflection that would've resulted in a huge gain for Iowa State.

"I love adversity,” Johnson said. “Adversity, it shows us who we really are. So when (the double-pass for a touchdown) happened, I just kept talking. I went to the bench and prayed and then I just kept playing and everything just worked out.”

Right below Ferentz in second place on Herbstreit's list is Eastern Michigan head coach Chris Creighton, who lead his team to victory on the road at Illinois, one of the biggest upsets of the weekend.


Popular Posts