Iowa football notebook: Kirk Ferentz has high hopes for offensive line with ‘awesome coach’ George B

INDIANAPOLIS — Kirk Ferentz can be "a little discriminant” with offensive line coaches.

After all, he had that role at Iowa under Hayden Fry and in the NFL under Bill Belichick.

But he has an “awesome coach” right now with George Barnett in his third year occupying that role.

“We have the right people in place, and I think we’ll have the right competition,” Ferentz said Wednesday at the Big Ten’s football media days. “So we got to stay healthy, and we have to improve.”

Ferentz reminded himself this week that Connor Colby was only in his second season of college last year.

“And we’re treating him like he was a returning starter,” Ferentz said of the Cedar Rapids native. “There was a time when guys played five (years in college). ... They usually played pretty well in three, four and five.”

Logan Jones, meanwhile, “probably should get a medal for the way he played last year.”

“Because what he did was so difficult,” Ferentz said.

Jones switched from the defensive line to offensive line in the spring and then started all 13 games at center.

Ferentz’s optimism aside, he is not “running from last year” and offensive malfeasance that came with it.

“We were not good offensively,” Ferentz said. “You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to figure it out if you just look at numbers.”

Iowa’s offense ranked among of the worst in college football, including 130th out of 131 teams in yards per game.

The offensive line was “a big part of our issue,” Ferentz said.

“We just haven’t been at the level that we’d like to be,” Ferentz said. “I love our guys; that’s not the problem. But you can’t microwave that.”

Now with another year in the metaphorical development oven, Ferentz is “looking forward to watching those guys compete.”

“Probably the most significant change on our team will be the maturity of our offensive line,” Ferentz said.

No major injuries to report

Kirk Ferentz has “nothing right now” to share from an injury standpoint, he said Wednesday.

“Nothing in the two-deep,” Ferentz said, “knock on wood.”

That is undoubtedly good news for Iowa after having a slew of injuries in the spring, particularly at wide receiver and offensive and defensive line.

DeJean downplays award

Cooper DeJean was one of 10 players named to the Big Ten’s preseason honors list Wednesday. However, DeJean does not seem to be dwelling on it.

“It’s a cool honor, but it’s a preseason award,” DeJean said. “We haven’t played a game yet. Everybody’s 0-0, so I'm just trying to focus on what I can do this camp to help this team win football games in whatever way I can.”

Kirk Ferentz’s hay bale prediction

Gennings Dunker won the Solon Beef Days’ annual hay bale toss for the second consecutive year last weekend, outlasting some of his offensive line brethren in the process.

The repeat title prompted the 6-foot-5, 320-pound offensive lineman to be “talking a little crap” this week about it.

“He was taking bows in our meeting because I announced that,” Ferentz said.

Ferentz made a prediction about next year’s hay bale toss, though, and told reporters to “write this down.”

“You may see an upset next year,” Ferentz said.

His upset pick? Logan Jones.

“Not that far behind him,” Ferentz said of Jones. “Gennings exaggerated a little bit. I think he said he was like two feet in front. It was more like inches. So I think he pissed Logan off yesterday.”

Bret Bielema’s ‘last rodeo’

Illinois Coach Bret Bielema squashed any speculation that he might replace Kirk Ferentz whenever Ferentz retires, noting that he signed a no-compete clause with other Big Ten teams.

“I wanted to get back into head coaching, but I didn't want to go to a situation where I didn't think it could be sustained,” Bielema said. “I wanted this to be my last rodeo.”

Ferentz, 67, said earlier this year the question of how much longer to coach has “not really” crossed his mind.

“So long as you love doing what you’re doing, I don’t know why you’d stop,” Ferentz told The Gazette in a May one-on-one interview. “That’s kind of the plan right now.”