Kirk Ferentz, Motivational Speaker. Over the last nine years, we have read countless articles on Kirk Ferentz's motivations, and that of his team. We have read theories of how Ferentz focuses on the conference's big dogs more than Iowa's traditional rivals, how he uses the non-conference season like the NFL preseason and gears his squad toward the Big Ten campaign, how they feed off the disrespect from all of those non-offers from bigger schools. Most of it is dime-store psychology.
There is little doubt, though, that Iowa has lost the motivational battle in recent years against Minnesota.