Iowa coach Kirk Ferentz says college football has changed since he first joined the Iowa staff prior to the 1981 season and summer is a prime example. Iowa’s veteran players have been back for more than a week and first year players are scheduled to arrive today (Monday).

Ferentz said “The off-season and recruiting are our two biggest areas, but we had a handful of guys…more than a handful, back in the ’80’s. A lot of the guys in the two deep would stay here and train, but it’s just a whole different thing, and now you can mandate it if you choose to, so it’s just a whole different world.”

It means the players got about three weeks off from the end of semester exams. Ferentz says he likes the fact that they can watch their guys go in and train now, and “We’re feeding them now, so the guys are eating good food year ’round. The breaks…Thanksgiving break used to be a really good time for guys to have a chance to go home and recharge. That’s not coming back, that won’t change ever again in the future, so the calendar just gets squeezed. We’re really fortunate, I think, in that we’ve got a nice break after the bowl game, where the guys have a couple of weeks to get back home and do some things on their own.”

Ferentz says these days time off is limited to a few weeks after spring semester, a few weeks after a bowl game and spring break. Therefore he says, it’s important the guys get a chance to get off campus and go home or wherever they choose to go. “Those break,” he says “Are getting more and  more limited by the year, it seems, so it’s just really important for them to have a chance, and this one worked out beautifully. They had three-plus weeks before they had to be back here.”

Iowa opens the season at home on September third against Miami of Ohio.

(Learfield Sports)