Folks, I did not expect to be at this level of anti-Kirk Ferentz three weeks into the season. Even I, the resident pessimist here at BHGP, did not anticipate things being as mind-bogglingly bad in Saturday’s loss to Iowa State as it ended up being.

Yes, the CyHawk game is always rough football, but this was rough football caused by our own head coach and his baffling play calls.

But of course, this is Iowa football, so we should have seen this coming all along, and we obviously should not expect it to change anytime soon. What’s my basis for saying this, you ask? Well, the man in charge himself met with the media yesterday and basically said as much.

Don’t believe me? Let’s hear him say it. Check out the full transcript here, and my snark, in midseason form!, below.

COACH FERENTZ: Good afternoon, everybody. To start, a couple words about setbacks. Obviously, everybody in Kinnick on Saturday witnessed us experiencing one of those.

I know a lot of people are disappointed, certainly our fans. But I can assure you nobody is more disappointed than the people directly involved, especially our players. They invest an awful lot.

Needless to say, anytime you experience a setback, it’s painful. One thing for sure, I’ll share it with the team, you don’t get second chances and you don’t get games back. That’s part of the big deal.

Big takeaway is it’s one game and we still have 10 opportunities in front of us so that’s a big takeaway there.

Unfortunately, setbacks are part of every season. It’s not always in the form of a loss, but always you have challenges and that’s one of the axioms of going into a season, just understanding there’s going to be things that happen that aren’t planned, maybe not wanted. And how you deal with those is what is important and that’s kind of where our focus is.

Oh boy, we’re in coach-speak mode right away. We always have challenges, guys!! Remember, sometimes we have injuries and that’s the only reason we’ve struggled on offense, ever. Injuries ONLY. Pay no attention to my play calling.

Injury update:

Q. First of all, injury question. Seems like it’s just Seth and Jayden at this point that are still out?

COACH FERENTZ: Looks like Jayden will miss this one. Got a couple guys that are limited in practice right now. Hopefully they’ll be ready by game time.

Q. Would Seth be limited?

COACH FERENTZ: No, I don’t see that happening this week. He’s missed too much time. But hopefully moving forward. Hopefully.

Ok then! Getting Seth Anderson back might be more crucial than we thought, given what we saw on Saturday.

Q. With Kaleb Johnson, what’s the biggest thing you’ve seen from him this year compared to last year?

COACH FERENTZ: I think maturity and focus. It’s like any player. It’s rare for a freshman to play a veteran guy — rare. But he did a lot of good things the last two years. I think he has a much better feel for what he’s doing.

He’s a little bit more patient than he was. He’s running really strong. Obviously had some really nice runs the other day. I thought his best runs were at the end of the game where he ran strong and broke some tackles. There wasn’t a lot there but he was making yards.

So to me, if he can keep integrating that into his style of play, that’s really going to help us.

Kaleb Johnson has been a tremendous bright spot for the offense this year. I’m curious about his stats from the ISU game without the two big runs, but there’s no doubt he’s pretty much the only person bringing energy to the offense right now. They need him to keep it up, big time.

Now you know what’s coming next:

Q. When Kaleb’s playing the way he is, when the O-line is playing the way they are, like, I guess from the Xs and Os standpoint, what does that do for the passing game? What are opportunities you’re seeing that are opening up as a result of that?

COACH FERENTZ: Those are areas we were hoping we’d be able to build off of because we were a little bit more veteran, certainly up front. Outside of Kamari we’re pretty veteran at the running back position — and tight end. And you are hoping you can get something established there.

But if we’re going to play the way we want to play we’ll have to pass the ball more effectively. That certainly was a factor Saturday, and hopefully it’s just something we’ll keep getting better at as we move forward.

We’ve done some things, done some things that weren’t so good. It’s a little bit of everything — accuracy, route running, things like that, and protection at times. So those are the things that we have to piece together. And again after practice today there’s still a lot to work on. There will be all season long.

Another week, another mention from Kirk about the offense not practicing well. After what I’ve seen in the first games, that checks out! The fact that he thinks there will still be A LOT to work on ‘all season long’ is alarming!

Q. You mentioned Brad Banks, in particular. In 2001, there were a few instances, a few series where you brought him in to relieve McCann, just as sort of a change of pace sort of guy. When you look at the QB situation this season, is there ever a situation where you’re thinking that maybe Sullivan can be that change of pace, faster QB for somebody like McNamara?

COACH FERENTZ: It’s twofold with Brad. Part was he was a different kind of quarterback than Kyle. We talked a lot about Kyle, too. And big takeaway for me was, and Brad shared this with a couple other people, but he learned. He learned from Kyle.

There’s a lot of good things that he brought up that day just watching how Kyle performed during the 2001 season, his takeaways from it. I thought they were really pretty astute.

So they’re two different guys. But our thinking was Brad was a guy that we thought had a good future here a year later, and we’re going to get him involved in possible weekly. But that was dictated by Brad’s performance in practice.

We’ll keep an open mind to anything. Obviously if it’s going to help us win games now, that’s the first priority. And secondly, if a player — we rotate at other positions — it’s a little tougher at quarterback. It would take the right guy. But Brad certainly was the right guy.

There it is, y’all. We knew it, but he’s saying the quiet part out loud here: “It was dictated by Brad’s performance in practice.”

HERE WE GO AGAIN BABY. DID YOU KNOW DEACON HILL WAS GREAT IN PRACTICE LAST SEASON? HE WON A LOT OF GAMES FOR US, Y’ALL. “It would take the right guy” to have a specific package for a specific player. Ok, well from all that we’ve heard, hasn’t Sullivan been having strong practices? Remind me again why we care more about practice than in-game performance????

Q. I guess you could probably predict on the outside people are not happy about quarterback. But obviously you expressed some confidence after the game in Cade. How have you seen him respond and you still feel confident with him as your starter?

COACH FERENTZ: I do. We’ve been on the field twice. Yes, so far so good.

I’ll stay on the same page I’ve been on. I think he just needs to play. He needs to learn from those experiences. The faster you learn, the better, obviously. He’s missed a lot of time. I think he needs that. It is a new offense for him.

Probably, whatever it’d be, his third one in three years, something like that. There’s some learning going on there. He can play better and I think he will play better. It’s just a matter of working at it.

There’s nothing magic we can do. Maybe eliminate some things, lean this way, lean that way, that type of thing. But otherwise just counting on him to play a little better. And we need to help him more in all positions.

I think I said going into the season, the biggest question was going to be how long of a leash Cade has. The answer, unsurprisingly, is very, very, very long.

This is admittedly a tough situation, because Kirk is not wrong. Cade needs some time to get adjusted to playing in games again. But at what point do you give up and say, ok, this isn’t working? Saturday was very bad. This Saturday probably won’t be a good indicator of anything (unless he comes out and just like slings for 500 yards or something, but that won’t happen). It truly boggles my mind how stubborn Kirk is when it comes to his quarterback. James Vandenberg played every down in a season where the team was guaranteed to finish with a losing record, even though Jake Rudock was in waiting as the future starter. Last year, we saw way too much of Deacon Hill for God knows why.

So barring injury, I’m convinced we’ll be seeing Cade all season, even if he continues to struggle and it costs them wins.

Q. Just going off of that, how do you balance that obviously now, at one-on-one, the margin for error is a lot smaller going forward, like, balance that with the fact, like you were saying, you are trying to be patient with Cade. How do you balance those two sides?

COACH FERENTZ: I’ll be clear on this. We’re trying to win every Saturday. So whatever Saturday it is, that’s the No. 1 goal. It’s the No. 1 goal.

There’s a bigger picture, too, you’re looking at and trying to factor in things like missed time, all those kinds of things, whether it was Koen or Cade or whatever.

We have a couple of other guys that missed time. Leshon, mentioned him, where he’s at. That slows a guy’s progress down. Certainly does and it’s a factor.

And you compare them to other players that are at the position and go through it. But ultimately it’s our responsibility to get the best guys out there to give us a chance to win every Saturday, and that will always be No. 1. Then keeping the bigger picture in mind, too, and that’s all about us improving in the areas we just talked about.

If we don’t do a better job inside the 5, it’s going to be tough to envision us having a good year, if we can’t score some touchdowns in there. And one was off a turnover. You have to take advantage of that. You get the ball on the 12 that possession.

So those little things, those are the things that really can get you or the big plays, defensively.

But there’s a lot of things to consider. We’re trying to win each and every Saturday. This one’s gone. Now we’re on to the next one and fully aware. We have 10 opportunities to make. We have to make everyone count.

This was actually the next question after the one I just highlighted. And it reads like a slap in the face. Xavier Nwankpa gets burned on one play for a touchdown and he doesn’t see the field again. Cade throws an interception that turns the tide, he just needs more time guys!

BUT WE WANT TO WIN EVERY GAME!

Put your money where your mouth is, Kirk. I’m not saying Sullivan is some kind of savior or the best possible solution, but how will we know if he never has a shot to impact a game if our starter is visibly struggling?

Speaking of Xavier:

Q. The 75-yard pass play that was referenced earlier, Koen Entringer came in after that, played the rest of the game at strong safety. And you’ve said a lot about how he’s been practicing. Sort of walk us through where his situation is with strong safety right now and what Xavier Nwankpa’s status is?

COACH FERENTZ: Xavier is a good player, and so is Koen. They’re both good young players, I guess one is a little younger than the other. The main difference is Koen has missed a lot of time coming off the knee surgery. He recovered in record speed. It’s amazing how fast everything went. Every step got there a little quicker than the, quote/unquote, book would predict.

All that being said, he’s playing catch-up right now. But we feel we have a really good group of guys back there. And Lutmer would be the next guy. I think we’ve got five guys that are capable back there. We’ll let them keep working and competing and see where it all goes. But I feel good about the group.

Plays like that happen unfortunately. And that’s when it happens you’ve just got to learn from it and try to avert that in the future.

So he just dodges the aspect of Xavier’s status here…or is he just saying that Lutmer is the new No. 2? ‘We’ll let them keep working and competing’ BUT XAVIER JUST NEEDS MORE IN-GAME EXPERIENCE KIRK.

Let’s end with this:

Q. Your first game on the sidelines. Just curious your thoughts on the in-helmet communication, the sideline Tablets and advantages or disadvantages that creates. You guys can make in-game adjustments, but also other teams can adjust to your defense.

COACH FERENTZ: Sounds like there were a problem or two with the Tablets, like a play or two off schedule were missing.

But overall it’s a real positive. And the coach-to-player thing is a real positive, too.

It’s kind of what we expected based on practice, but I think it’s all positive. And I don’t have many suggestions in that way. Just trying to figure out how to score a touchdown when we got the ball inside the 5. That’s more important right now.

Don’t care about the question here, I care about what he ended with. That was the last thing he said to the media: Just trying to figure out how to score a touchdown when we get the ball inside the 5.

So he doesn’t know, after watching the film?

Like I said above, I did not anticipate to be at this point this quickly in the season, but yikes. Buckle up, it’s gonna be an interesting season.