More With Less: Why Kirk Ferentz is the Best Coach in College Football

MADISON, WI - SEPTEMBER 22: Head coach Kirk Ferentz of the Iowa Hawkeyes gets ready to lead his team onto the field before the game against the Wisconsin Badgers at Camp Randall Stadium September 22, 2007 in Madison, Wisconsin.

by Kevin Trahan

August 7, 2009

The ESPN 150 recruiting rankings, which rank the top 150 recruits in the country, came out last week. To nobody's surprise, Iowa had no recruits on the list.

Now, that may frustrate many fans to see that their team has "underproduced" in recruiting, but it doesn't bother Iowa fans one bit. We're happy with our country strong recruits out of Small Town, Iowa and don't need a star quarterback out of Los Angeles to be happy.

I never place too much weight on recruiting rankings. All of those stats bother me because we don't really know how the recruits will actually fair in college and because talent can only take one so far. I know I need not be worried when a 60th ranking in recruiting translates to a 20th ranking in the polls that matter.

Iowa rarely has any recruits above three stars. Most of their recruits aren't even ranked. Most are kids from Iowa that nobody else wanted.

But the reason Kirk Ferentz is able to win with these players is his ability to look beyond the star rating. He has formed close relationships with many high school coaches around the state and takes their input on who they think deserves to play at the next level.

As stated so well by Rudy Ruettiger, "I wasn't always the biggest...or the quickest, but I led the team in tackles." That is exactly what Kirk Ferentz is looking for when he travels from home to home searching for recruits. He doesn't care about size, stars, or what ESPN says, he cares about work ethic, motivation, and a drive to improve.

Take Mitch King for example. At 6'3", the defensive tackle out of Burlington, Iowa was too small for other schools, but Ferentz saw his work ethic and turned him into a unanimous All-Big Ten selection.

Bob Sanders is another example. Most schools saw him as too small to play safety at the next level, but Ferentz recognized his toughness, speed, and huge hits. Sanders later went on to be drafted in the first round of the NFL Draft by the Indianapolis Colts and is arguably the best safety in the NFL right now.

There are many other players who weren't highly recruited, but went on to be big stars in college; Pat Angerer, Mike Humpal, Mike Kilnkenborg, Drew Tate, and Shonn Greene, just to name a few.

What is Ferentz's secret? There are two things.

First, he is an excellent motivator. He does a brilliant job getting his underrecruited players to hit the wieght room and become the best football players they can be.

Second, he finds the talent of individual players and instead of forcing the player to adapt to his scheme, he changes his scheme to showcase their strengths. This is the combination that churns out wins for Kirk Ferentz and the Iowa Hawkeyes every year.

To explain more, Ferentz finds the strengths of his players and would rather use those strengths, than force his players to change.

Such is the case with Mitch King. Ferentz didn't worry about the lack of size, but instead, designed plays using his speed and toughness to wreak havoc in offensive backfields. He used play action with Ricky Stanzi, because it gave him more time in the pocket and helped improve his composure and maturity as the season went on.

Ferentz explained his formula perfectly in an interview with ESPN, "So you don't plug holes—you assess what it is you are, what your strengths are, and you shift towards those strengths. We could go the opposite route of what we were in some ways."

This formula is what makes Ferentz the best in the business. One could argue for Pete Carroll, Urban Meyer, or even Jim Tressel to be the best coach in the country, but those coaches pay too much attention to stars.

They go for the top recruits in the country and would reject a player, such as Mitch King, in a heartbeat because they don't fit the "standard" for college football. Instead of recognizing Mitch King's speed, they would simply bench him and find someone else who fits more into their system.

These other coaches won't ever change their system, and I don't blame them. They have all the talent in the world and don't see the need to. But you never know what you're missing, if you don't try to bring out someone's strenghts. We can only wonder what Kirk Ferentz could do at Southern Cal, combining his formula with their talent.

But Ferentz is at home in Iowa, as he has told many major publications asking about a possible future in the NFL. He is satisfied turning his little known recruits into big-time college stars.

So I won't be too worried when Iowa is ranked in the 60s in recruiting in this upcoming fall. Ferentz will find a way to turn a small town Iowa farmer who nobody else wanted into a star, not because he changed the player, but because the player shaped his team.

Donte Whitner Reaches Out to Community

Daggs knows Donte

By Andy Major, Executive Director of Marketing

August 4, 2009

Michael Daggs, Rochester, NY, is the winner of the Verizon Wireless 'So You Think You Know Donte' online game that ran through the month of June and half of July.

As part of the grand prize Daggs, along with his five-year old son, met Donte Whitner and spent some time with him after practice at training camp at St. John Fisher College. Daggs also received Marshawn Lynch's autograph and watched practice as a true VIP.

The favorite part of the day for Daggs was seeing his son meet Donte. “It was completely unreal. Plus it was one of the nicest days of summer, and I couldn't ask for anything more,” said Daggs. “My son talked about it all the way home.”

Donte, who has a three-year old son, and Michael swapped stories about their sons and shared some experiences with raising a young boy.

Daggs had fun playing the online game and even more fun being the grand prize winner. “It was a great day!” exclaimed Daggs.

“This season’s 'So You Think You Know Donte' game received a lot of positive feedback from fans,” said Marquett Smith, the president of Verizon Wireless's Upstate New York region. “Verizon Wireless wants Bills fans to have fun, test their knowledge about the Bills and win a host of cool Bills prizes. We appreciate the support of the Bills in helping give Verizon Wireless customers and Bills fans the opportunity to have some fun at the team's site several times a year.”

The Verizon Wireless online contest was a series of fun and interactive questions that fans answered about Bills safety Donte Whitner. The fans that got the majority of the questions right were entered into a random drawing. Daggs was selected among thousands of entries that participated.

Kampman gearing up to join linebacker crew

July 26, 2009

By Pete Dougherty


Aaron Kampman used hard work and underappreciated talent to become one of the most complete defensive ends in the NFL.

Now at age 29 he’s making a notable position change from a 4-3 defensive end to a 3-4 outside linebacker, and in the next few months he and the Green Bay Packers will find out whether he’ll be the same ultra-productive player in his new role, or whether they’re trying fit the proverbial square peg into a round hole.

The Packers have done and said everything they can to convince Kampman the change will be good for him, and he’s attacked the job with his usual professionalism. But Kampman, while never publicly expressing any concerns, nevertheless showed great reluctance to talk about the move this offseason, which gave off a strong vibe that he was less than thrilled moving out of a role where he’d become one of the better players in the league.

“I read this, but I don’t sense that from Aaron,” said Dom Capers, the new defensive coordinator who will orchestrate the change to the 3-4. “I haven’t sensed (discomfort with the move) at all since I’ve been here. I spoke with him probably three or four days after I was here. He was wanting to know what all he had to do and what weight (he should be), just like you’d anticipate out of Aaron. I said, ‘You don’t have to lose a pound, you just get yourself in good shape where you can move around.”

Considering Kampman has been to two Pro Bowls and has 37 sacks over the past three years, it’s hard to blame him for any trepidation. He’s one of the Packers’ most important players and, like receiver Donald Driver, is worth more to them than what he does on the field because of the professional example he sets daily for young teammates. But Kampman is in the last year of his contract, and if he’s not the same player in 2009, he’ll have major incentive next year to go to a defense that plays the 4-3.

In informal conversations this offseason, a handful of NFL scouts were split on how Kampman will play in the new scheme, where he’ll have more responsibility in pass coverage after previously dropping only on the rare zone blitz. The Packers point to defensive ends such as Greg Ellis in Dallas and Mike Vrabel with New England as 4-3 defensive ends who didn’t look like good fits in the 3-4 but successfully made the transition.

This offseason, the Packers listed the 6-foot-4 Kampman at 260 pounds, which is about five pounds lighter than his playing weight last year. Besides conditioning and agility workouts, he also worked full time in the offseason training program with new outside linebackers coach Kevin Greene.

In offseason practices open to the media, Kampman not surprisingly looked a little on the stiff side when he dropped into coverage, but as the offseason went on, he occasionally showed some of the same instincts he displayed as a defensive end. On one noteworthy play at the Packers’ final minicamp in late June, he dropped into a middle zone, leaped and tipped a pass by quarterback Aaron Rodgers intended for Driver.

“He spent hour after hour with Kevin individually,” Capers said. “He’s done all those things that you’d ask any player to do. You can see why he’s been a good player, because he takes his profession very seriously.

“Like anybody, we’ve been conditioned to do a certain thing and all of a sudden you change that, there’s a certain amount of uncertainty. As we go along, he’ll become much more certain in those areas, (but) he might be reluctant to talk about it until he feels comfortable that he’s gotten some things down that he can talk about. I can’t speak for Aaron, but from my perspective, he’s been exactly what you want.”

Capers has emphasized all offseason that he can adjust the scheme and his calls to his personnel, and that he will mix in the 4-3 if needed in this season of defensive transition. McCarthy fired most of his previous defensive staff and switched to the 3-4 mainly to improve a weak pass rush that last season finished No. 25 in the NFL in sacks percentage. But while Capers might be able to coax more pressure on the quarterback with his varied blitz packages, he’ll also need to get the most out of Kampman, who was the team’s only pass-rush threat last season.

In making the transition, the Packers consider Kampman a better athlete than Ellis and Vrabel. Ellis, who was listed at 262 pounds when he made the change in 2003, averaged 8.2 sacks in his five seasons as an outside linebacker with the Cowboys, including getting a career-high 12½ sacks and a Pro Bowl appearance in 2007. Vrabel, who played defensive end in college at Ohio State but at 271 pounds moved to outside linebacker as a rookie with Pittsburgh, became a starter with New England in 2001 and had a career-high 12½ sacks in ’07.

Capers succeeded in similar first-year transitions with two other defensive ends, Tony Brackens in Jacksonville and Jason Taylor in Miami, though they are different-type players than Kampman. In 1999, Brackens, who was 6-4 and 267, had 12 sacks, which topped his previous high of seven; in 2006, Taylor, who was an elite defensive end but also had a prototype 3-4 build at 6-6 and 255, had 13 ½ sacks and was named NFL defensive player of the year at age 32.

“(Kampman) seems comfortable out there in space in the things we are asking him to do,” coach Mike McCarthy said. “I think he is a much better athlete than people give him credit, making the change as you can say from defensive end to outside linebacker. I expect Aaron to be very, very productive in this defense.”

For another former defensive end, the change to 3-4 outside linebacker already appears to have been a boon. Jeremy Thompson (6-4, 260), a fourth-round draft pick from 2008, goes into training camp with an edge over first-round draft pick Clay Matthews for the starting job at right outside linebacker. Thompson (6-4, 260) opened the offseason at that position and played well enough to stay ahead of Matthews through the final minicamp.

Nick Barnett and A.J. Hawk will be the starting inside linebackers in a scheme that’s designed to free them to make most of the tackles in the inside run game.

When camp opens Saturday, Barnett will be eight months removed from reconstruction surgery on his right knee but has been optimistic about his rehabilitation all offseason.

Hawk is entering something of a make-or-break fourth season in the NFL. He’s not been close to the impact player the Packers projected for the No. 5 pick overall in the 2006 draft and regressed last season while playing through chest and groin injuries. McCarthy has said the injuries were more of a hindrance than Hawk let on last season, and the Packers are looking for him to be a more dynamic and physical player in the new scheme than he was his first three years. If Hawk isn’t much improved, backup Brandon Chillar is coming off a solid offseason and could overtake him.