By Pat Harty

IOWA CITY, Iowa  In late 2002 and early 2003, Kirk Ferentz was a hot commodity, a head coach on the rise.

He had just led the Iowa football team to an 11-2 record in year four of his rebuild, and he was just 47 years old.

The NFL’s Jacksonville Jaguars came calling on Ferentz shortly after the 2002 season and there was mutual interest.

Prior to being named the Iowa head coach, Ferentz had been an offensive line coach in the NFL for six seasons from 1993-98.

So, he knew the lay of the land and was highly respected in NFL circles.

Ferentz also thought highly of then Jacksonville owner Wayne Weaver, making his decision even more difficult.

But Ferentz ultimately decided to stay at Iowa, and he has continued to make that same decision ever since as he now prepares for his 27th season as the Iowa head coach.

“The attention I have received regarding an NFL head coaching position with the Jacksonville Jaguars has been flattering, especially because I have the utmost regard for Wayne Weaver and the entire Jacksonville organization,” Ferentz said in January 2003. “However, my heart continues to lie with the University of Iowa, and I will remain the head coach of the Hawkeye football team.”

Penn State and Michigan both reportedly have made attempts to hire Ferentz over the years, only to fall short.

Ferentz, who turned 70 on Aug. 1, is the longest tenured head coach in the country and the second oldest college head coach behind only North Carolina head coach Bill Belichick, who is 73 and entering his first season in Chapel Hill.

With his next victory, Ferentz would tie legendary Ohio State coach Woody Hayes as the Big Ten’s all-time winningest head coach with 205 wins.

To help put Kirk Ferentz longevity in perspective, the 17 other Big Ten teams have combined to have 93 head coaches dating back to Ferentz’s first season in 1999.

Washington has had the most head coaches with eight since 1999, while Northwestern and Penn State have had the second fewest in the Big Ten behind Iowa with three apiece.

Indiana has had seven head coaches since 1999, while Oregon, Illinois, Nebraska, USC, Michigan State, UCLA and Purdue have all had six since 1999.

Penn State head coach James Franklin is second in the Big Ten in coaching longevity as the 2025 season will be his 12th in Happy Valley.

And while Kirk Ferentz’s  journey as the head Hawk has been rocky and controversial at times, it’s hard to be in once place for as long as Ferentz has been at Iowa without having some adversity.

If you combine the nine seasons he spent as the Iowa offensive line coach under Hayden Fry from 1981 to 1989, Kirk Ferentz has spent 36 years of his life in Iowa City, or in other words, more than half of his life.

Some will say that Ferentz is the last of a dying breed, a head coach on the verge of extinction based on having stayed in one place rather than pursue greener pastures or bigger stages.

Ferentz even said it when asked at Big Ten Media what advice he would have for Franklin to get from 12 to 27 seasons at Penn State.

“I’m chuckling a little,” Ferentz said. “I  just think it’s a sad commentary, I’ve been here if I can make it through the season, it’ll be 27, so it’s never going to happen again in this world,” Ferentz said. “I don’t see anybody being able to stay or wanting to stay somewhere that long just because the world has changed that way.

“We have so many more critics and experts out thee than we used to have. So, it’s make it really tough, I think, for people to coach. It’s always been true in the NFL, although, that whole thing has blown up as well.

“We’re not the most patient group as society, a society of sports fans. It’s just a different world. The only thing i can is like, you can’t worry about it, you just do your job. People are going to tell you to sit down, or you’ll figure out it’s time to sit down, One of the two. But it’s going to happen.”

Ferentz has lasted this long at Iowa because he has won enough games to keep his job secure and followed the rules, because he has been treated very well by the UI administration, because most fans still support him as evidenced by ticket sales, and because he likes his job.

Ferentz also has been resilient, and in some ways a survivor.

The racial unrest from the summer of 2020 certainly cast a negative light on his program, and on Ferentz’s legacy. But he admitted to having a blind spot, vowed to fix the culture, and now five years later, Ferentz is poised to make history.

He also has moved on from the emotional hardship from having his son fired as the Iowa offensive coordinator by the UI administration with four games left in the 2023 season.

The key to any coaching search is finding the right fit, and even though Bob Stoops was the sentimental favorite with Iowa fans back in 1998 when the search for Hayden Fry’s successor was being conducted, the search committee, which was led by then Iowa Athletic Director Bob Bowlsby, ultimately hired Ferentz.

Ferentz would then go on to lose 18 of his first 20 games, while Stoops led Oklahoma to the 2000 national title in just his second season as head coach.

To say that Iowa fans were frustrated with how things had turned out would be an understatement.

Amidst all the gloom and doom, however, was a glimmer hope from how Iowa had closed the 2000 season.

Iowa only finished 3-9 in 2000, but it also won two of its last three games against Penn State and Northwestern, which was ranked 18th at the time.

Ferentz entered the 2001 season still needing to have a significant breakthrough in order to stay off the coaching hot seat, and he and the team would meet that challenge as Iowa finished 7-5 overall, capped by 19-16 victory over Texas Tech in the 2001 Alamo Bowl.

Ferentz proclaimed afterwards that the Hawkeyes were back and that would certainly prove prophetic as Iowa would go on to finish a combined 31-7 over the next three seasons, winning a share of two Big Ten championships in 2002 and 2004.

Only twice since then has Iowa had a losing season in 2006 (6-7) and 2012 (4-8).

It seems reasonable to believe that Ferentz probably wouldn’t have been hired as the Iowa head coach without having a previous connection to the program. The nine seasons he spent under Fry in the 1980s gave Ferentz a unique perspective, and most likely an advantage.

He already knew the Iowa culture and was familiar with the community.

Timing was also on Kirk Ferentz’s side when he was hired at Iowa, because in today’s sports environment in which head coaches get fired sometimes after just one or two seasons, the odds of surviving after a 2-18 start would be slim to none.

Iowa showed patience with Ferentz and was eventually rewarded for it.

“If I was just starting right now I’d probably be looking at the world a little bit differently than I did back then,” Ferentz said. “Like two things, number one, I never had to be a head coach. Believe me, I wanted us to be successful and I wanted to be successful like you do in anything you do. But if it didn’t work it was not going to end my life. I was perfectly happy being a position coach.”

Ferentz’s love and passion for football has helped to fuel his desire to keep coaching. Some head coaches lose the fire and the willingness to embrace the daily grind.

Forest Evashevski had led the Iowa football team to unprecedented heights in the 1950s when he retired after the 1960 season at the age of just 42, and after just nine seasons as head coach.

Evashevski would go on to be the Iowa Athletic Director from 1960 to 1970, but he never coached again.

Hayden Fry held the previous program record for longevity as he was the Iowa head coach for 20 seasons from 1979 to 1998.

However, Fry was battling cancer when he retired at the age of 69.

Kirk Ferentz, on the other hand, has enjoyed good health and shows no signs of slowing down physically despite being 70.

Kirk Ferentz once was asked by the media how he would spend a year away from his job.

He answered by saying he would spend a big chunk of the year traveling around the country and watching other football teams practice.

The game means that much to Kirk Ferentz, with it deeply embedded in his heart and soul.

Other than his family and friends, nothing else comes close to mattering as much as football does to Kirk Ferentz, especially Hawkeye football where both sides have proved to be the perfect fit.