James Franklin comments after loss and 0-5 start: ‘It’s not good enough’

Opening comments:

Gotta give Iowa credit. Coach Ferentz has been doing it for a long time. Much respect.

“The story of the game is you can’t turn the ball over. And that’s been the story of the season. Turnovers.”

“That is the story of the game. That is the story of the season.”

“We got in this situation together. We’re gonna get out of this situation together.”

“We’ve got to get this thing corrected. We’ve got to get this thing fixed.”

On what he would tell fans about 0-5 start:

“It’s not good enough. There’s obviously a lot of circumstances going on this year, but none of that matters at the end of the day.”

On going back to Clifford:

“The whole reason for the change was the turnovers. We made the change to go with Will, and (he) did some good things with the QB running game and some of the stuff.”

“Then we started to turn the ball over again.”

“I felt like we had to do something to go back to Sean. It initially helped us, but then the turnovers came back again.”

On QB play:

“It is a concern, there’s no doubt about it. We’ll continue to work with those guys this week.”

He also said third-string QB Taquan Roberson was not available.

On fourth-and-2 decision late in first half:

“I’m doing everything I possibly can to inject some confidence and inject some momentum into the offense to try and get us going. When you don’t pick it up and they go down and score, obviously critical play.”

“It’s not just about the decision. It’s about the execution. We didn’t execute and ended up giving up a big touchdown right before the end of the half.”

On keeping team together and not losing the team:

“Most importantly, we’ve got to stick together as a family and as a team and stay positive. We’re being challenged right now. We’ve had to learn how to handle success, and now we’re having to learn how to handle adversity. It’s even more challenging when they don’t have the typical support system around them.”

On morale of team with so many things going wrong:

“It’s really been like that all year long, and it’s been challenging, there’s no doubt about it. But again, this is kind of where we’re at, this is what we’re dealing with and we’ve got to find a way through it.

“We have to be creative, we have top be efficient.”

“We’re out a number of guys and have been out a number of guys … but at the end of the day the guys that we put on the field we’ve got to put them in position to be successful.”

On fumble on third-and-1 pitch:

“Everything has an effect. There’s no doubt about it. everything impacts your perception of what’s going on, how you’re going to call the game.”

“We’ve got to be better in those situations. We’ve got to run the ball when everybody knows we’ve got to run the ball.”

“We’ve got to execute, and we’re responsible for all of that”

On Kirk Ciarrocca so far:

“We’re not playing well enough in all three phases — offense, defense and special teams.”

On O-line play:

“We knew running the ball against this team is gonna be difficult. It always is. We’ve always had challenges running the ball against this crew, and most people do.”