Kirk Ferentz ‘open to anything’ offensively, will give Tim Lester autonomy
By William Rodriguez
Is new school Kirk back? Iowa’s head coach made it crystal clear that he’s open to building a new-look offense under new OC Tim Lester — as long as it doesn’t interfere with complementary football.
“If you’re paying attention you do have an appreciation for how football is complementary,” Ferentz said. “Just how one thing affects the other because you’ve got to be real sensitive to that.”
That part won’t change, but Ferentz is turning over autonomy of the offense to Lester. He will build the offense from the ground up, and control what the focal point of the unit is.
“Tim’s job is going to be to figure out what do we want to emphasize,” Ferentz said. “You can only practice so many things and emphasize so many things and do them well. I’m open to anything right now, any ideas.”
Lester has a history of running a variety of run-pass options — which Iowa had not run under Brian Ferentz.
While it remains to be seen how much, if any, RPO’s will be worked into the offense, Lester made it clear that he’s not going to fit a square peg into a circular hole. He’s going to coach to his player’s strengths.
“I think sometimes quarterback coaches, they have things they like to do,” Lester said. “I’m not married to anything. I’ve run a lot of things. I have a unique experience as far as levels and have been a D-coordinator.”
Coach Ferentz thinks the influx of new perspective blended with what Iowa football already will be a positive thing.
“Similar in a lot of ways to the way we’ve operated yet a lot of different perspectives,” Ferentz said. “New perspectives that’s part of moving forward, obviously getting different ideas, different views, and trying to implement them in a way that we all believe will work for us.”
“I can’t wait to see what we have,” Lester added. “What gets called will be dependent on what we see in the spring and what we see as the guys move around here in the next couple months.”
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