Kirk Ferentz, the football coach at Iowa, talks about getting picked to face Tennessee football in the Citrus Bowl.
On New Year’s Day, No. 17 Iowa football and No. 21 Tennessee football will play in the Cheez-It Citrus Bowl at Camping World Stadium in Orlando. ABC will broadcast the 78th Citrus Bowl beginning at 1 p.m. ET.
The Vols (8-4, 4-4 SEC) will be playing in their sixth Citrus Bowl, and their first since Jan. 1, 2002, when they won 45-17 against Michigan to end an 11-2 season and were ranked fourth in the final polls. The six appearances share the all-time record with Georgia, Michigan, Florida, Penn State, Auburn, and LSU.
In the Big Ten Championship Game held in Indianapolis on Saturday night, Iowa (10-3) defeated No. 1 Michigan 26-0 after winning the Big Ten East.
The two programs will come together for the fourth time. The Vols have defeated the Hawkeyes 2-1 in their history, including 45-28 in the 2015 TaxSlayer Gator Bowl.
Kirk Ferentz, the head coach of Iowa, held a media conference on Sunday night to talk about the team’s selection to the Citrus Bowl and their upcoming game against the Vols. This is what he had to say.
We’re thrilled to be playing another game, to start with. Extremely pleased with our group. They put forth a lot of effort at work throughout the year. Despite the disappointing loss from last night, they have earned the opportunity to play in a premier bowl game, such as the Citrus Bowl. Above all, we are thrilled to be performing. Second, I’m thrilled to be returning to Orlando. Two years ago, many of the guys on our team went through it. It’s going to be a novel experience for many guys. And regardless of the new people this year or the ones that were there two years ago, there is only one thing to say: this is an absolutely amazing Bowl game. Excellent encounter both on and off the field. There, the committee performs a
FERENTZ: Although I haven’t looked at it yet, I was just discussing it with Phil two hours ago, so perhaps you were listening in on our chat. but thought something similar in a way. I spotted it out in the field, you know. Among our gunners is Koen. omitted the tackle. He must be upset about that, I know. I had the same thinking for him, though, to jump off the ground and chase the returner back down there, wherever it was, inside the 10-, 5-yard line. It truly feels like a flashback to when Cooper played in the Citrus Bowl, where he excelled. It reveals a lot about a player, in my opinion. I can name Bob, a player.
FERENTZ: To start with, let me just say that I believe this whole thing has advanced and that it made more sense to be involved last year than it did the year before. This year, how will it proceed? It is not predictable. We had already held a meeting with our players this time last year. The week following Thanksgiving, we had a meeting where we spoke with every individual about their future plans and thoughts. This gave us an idea of who will make up our roster and gave the guys encouragement to use this week and last week to decide. As you might guess, it wasn’t proper to speak with that last week.
show that he intends to open the portal. In summary, I believe that you should want each player to be content with their circumstances. You know, I would advise a guy to consider exploring other options if he is unsure about whether he wants to be here or not. Guys that are genuinely fully invested work better with us. We’ll proceed essentially in the same manner as previous year. We weren’t able to use last week to obtain information outside of that, but I imagine that by the end of the week, we’ll have a slightly better notion of how our roster will look. From there,
FERENTZ: It’s one of those situations, I believe, where we’re going to always have these conversations. There is no ideal method. Similar to conference play, if you don’t follow a real Round Robin format, someone will always be upset about how this team or that team performed in conference play. It’s been a problem since, at the very least, 1981, when I moved here. To cut a long tale short, I’m still not sure whether we wouldn’t have been better off just going to the one rule: going undefeated generally greatly helps your odds. I was telling my wife this today. Today, that was untrue. The year Auburn was left out was untrue. However, in general,
Whatever we undertake to begin the expansion year, which I believe begins in the upcoming year, will undoubtedly present some difficulties. It’s sad that a team may be undefeated, but at least it offers everyone something to discuss, debate, and think about. From the sounds of the conversation, you could probably argue for each of the six teams that were involved in the debate, if not more. It’s difficult. It’s simply one of those situations; going ahead, we’ll see what transpires
