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by: Brett McMurphy
September 3, 2025
Photo by Jayne Kamin-Oncea, Imagn Images.
LAS VEGAS – The (soon-to-be) winningest coach in Big Ten history starts
laughing when reminded of how his Iowa career
began. Kirk Ferentz lost 18 of his
first 20 games – and admits he was fortunate he didn’t start 0-20.
Now, 27 years and 329 games later, Ferentz is one win shy of passing
Woody Hayes as the Big Ten’s winningest coach. That will come either Saturday
at rival Iowa State or the following week
at home vs. UMass.
“I go back, like, ‘how the hell did this happen?’” Ferentz told On3 this
summer.
A funny thing about Ferentz’s success is that he never really wanted to
be a head coach.
A former assistant at Iowa under Hayden Fry, Ferentz served as an
offensive line coach for six seasons with the Cleveland Browns and Baltimore
Ravens from 1993 to 1998. During that time, he paid attention to Iowa, Barry
Alvarez at Wisconsin and Bill Snyder at Kansas State.
“In college, there was a better opportunity for family stability than in
the NFL,” Ferentz said. “I really enjoyed coaching in the NFL, but I told my
wife (Mary) early in our time in Cleveland that odds were we would be moving
every 3-5 years.”
In 1999, Ferentz left the NFL when he was hired at Iowa. “I wanted
to be successful, but if it didn’t work out, it wasn’t going to end my life,”
Ferentz said. “I was perfectly happy going back (to the NFL) as a position
coach.
“I know some guys have ‘got’ to be a head coach. I never wanted to be
one, quite frankly.”
His success drew a lot of
suitors. Ferentz had several opportunities to leave Iowa, but never did.
In the early 2000s, Ferentz jokes
he “was the sexy guy in the room back then.” His agent, Neil Cornrich,
approached him about a substantial NFL offer.
“Neil told me, you have to
explain to your oldest son Brian, that this is ‘generational money.’ He’ll
never have to work if you take this job,” Ferentz said. “My wife tells Brian (then an Iowa offensive lineman) that, and he
looks at her and says, ‘I never asked to be taken care of.’
“That was a great parent moment. Like, you know, the kid’s thinking
right.”
Ferentz recalls another NFL job
he turned down.
“I didn’t want to entertain it,
and it was with a good owner, too,” he said. “A different college coach took
the job, and I think it’s funny because that guy has no idea I was the first
choice.”
Ferentz won’t name the many NFL
teams and college programs that were “quote-unquote better jobs” that tried to
hire him away from Iowa. Those so-called higher-paying jobs where
donors would sabotage the athletic director or set up clandestine meetings with
a prospective coach.
“I don’t want to swim in those waters,” Ferentz said. “At least I don’t
have to worry about that shit. They love you when they love you, but they can
cut and run pretty quick too. So I just never want to get involved in that.”
Ferentz has had a remarkable run
with the Hawkeyes. He’s had only one losing season in the last 24 years. He’s
been named Big Ten Coach of the Year four times, won two Big Ten titles and led
the Hawkeyes to two BCS/New Year’s 6 bowls.
He’s 205-124. He’s won games in every way imaginable. There was the 6-4
victory – yes 6-4 – vs. Penn State in
2004 and then the infamous 7-3 victory vs. South Dakota State in
2022.
Iowa’s seven points? The Hawkeyes had two safeties and a field goal.
Iowa is not always locked in a defensive tug-of-war. The Hawkeyes have scored
half a hundred 14 times under Ferentz, the only Division I head coach to coach three sons (Brian,
James, and Steve) at the same college.
On Aug. 1, Ferentz turned 70. His playing career ended after three
seasons as a hard-hitting linebacker at UConn in
1976. He’s been coaching ever since. Remarkably, Ferentz has been coaching
longer than 59 current FBS coaches have been alive.
Ferentz knows he can’t coach forever. He believes when he’s ready to
step down, “it’s probably going to be pretty obvious to me. Otherwise, I’m
cheating the kids, and I’m not going to do that. Or someone else is going to
tell me to sit down.
“There’s no perfect jobs and every job has something you don’t like:
speaking publicly or whatever it may be, making those appearances. But you do
those things to do what you really love doing and that’s coaching. So if it
gets to the point where I just start thinking ‘Hey, this stuff outweighs the
good,’ then that’s the time to walk away too.”
When that does happen, Ferentz said he will not be involved in finding
his replacement.
“Whenever I step down, I just hope somebody in the (Iowa) family is
allowed to elevate,” Ferentz said. “We have a handful of guys in the building
that are really good. That’s not going to be my decision about that. They
didn’t ask me, and I don’t want them to ask me. It’s not my call to make, other
than I can endorse a lot of people that we have. I hope they get that chance.”
Despite Ferentz’s slow start to his career, he also got that chance. What a magical run it’s been.
