Iowa head football coach Kirk Ferentz speaks with the media each Tuesday during the football season. Every week, the Daily Iowan‘s Pregame staff will post highlights and interesting quotes and lines from Ferentz’s press conference.

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The Hawkeyes’ final game of the regular season comes against Nebraska, a team fighting for its bowl-eligibility life. Iowa, of course, is 11-0 and trying to stay in the playoff hunt.

• Bobby Dodd Coach of the Week: Kirk Ferentz
• First words: Hello.
• Happy that there’s now a returner trophy with Tim Dwight’s name as part of it.
• On Purdue: “Good effort by our football team”
• Gives credit to grounds crew for having the field in good play
• “There are no easy days in our conference”
• Same four captains, as they’ve been all year
• Ferentz says the Hawks have been about as healthy as they’ve been all season
• Says Nebraska is a good team, feels they’re finally meshing, cites new coaching staff having to work things out.
• “They’re a good football team, good offense, good defense, two good returners”
• “We have a tall list of things we need to get prepared for.”
• Feels that the concept of the Heroes Game is great.
• Says there are a lot of things that didn’t make sense logistically when the conference expanded.
• Says that the game against Nebraska was the “centerpiece” for everything that went wrong.
• “Right, wrong, or indifferent, I’ve never been on circling games on a calendar.”
• Ferentz says he wasn’t sure where the leadership was in April, but he does know where it is now.
• Said they’d be “crazy not to try” to get a potential Drew Ott medical-redshirt year.
• ‘That injury gutted him — he wanted to have a good senior year.”
• On the Sports Illustrated cover — “I wasn’t quite prepared for that — We’re going to have to do some research on that and prove there is no jinx.”
• Says that this season hasn’t been about proving the critics wrong.
• On Darian Cooper (who got in on a play during the Purdue game): “He’s fought hard, he’s worked extremely hard, we wanted to give him a chance.”
• On what he’s thankful for: “I’ve been really fortunate to be doing what I love … I’ve never had a bad job.”
• On C.J. Beathard: “I’m glad he’s our quarterback.”
• Notes how older guys treat younger players well, no hazing or anything of the sort.
• On Nebraska’s defensive line: “That’s an NFL line.”
• “These guys present some challenges.”
• Says that he doesn’t want Nebraska’s Tommy Armstrong out of the pocket: “He makes good decisions out of the pocket.”