Keeler: Will Ferentz surpass Fry?
Assuming he coaches until 2020, Iowa coach Kirk Ferentz has the numbers on his side ...
Unless your name is Josh Koeppel — or Adam Gettis, who’s reportedly nursing a bum ankle — it’s been a pretty good week to be a Hawkeye. As Larry David might say, prettaaaay, prettaaaay, prettaaaay good.
Wednesday saw the unveiling of the Big Ten’s new divisional alignment for 2011, and Iowa was one of the conference’s big winners. The Hawkeyes got what should be a heated rivalry game against Nebraska installed as the new regular-season finale, and remained in the same division with geographic neighbors such as Minnesota and the Cornhuskers while losing perennial thorn-in-the-side Ohio State.
Late Thursday afternoon, athletic director Gary Barta kept the happy feelings rolling with the announcement — curiously close to the kickoff of Iowa State’s season-opener against Northern Illinois, by the way — that coach Kirk Ferentz had agreed to a five-year extension that runs his current deal through the 2020 season.
Actually, the timing probably has more to do with Hawkeye icon Hayden Fry, Ferentz’s old boss, being in town and ex-coach Forest Evashevski, who passed away last fall, having a street named after him on campus. But whatever. It’s a savvy move by Barta, who can only offer more years (as opposed to dollars) in an effort to try and quell the annual will-he-or-won’t-he-jump-to-the-NFL rumors.
Ferentz likes it here. By all accounts — and this is more important — his family does, too. Kirk has done enough time in short-term, thankless gigs in college and the pros to know a good thing when he has it. He’s currently coaching his second-youngest son, James, who’ll likely start at center on Saturday against Eastern Illinois. His youngest, Steven, is in high school. This extension assures that he can coach him, too, if the opportunity arises.
Oh, yeah, and this: With 82 wins, if Ferentz sees out the life of the extension, he’ll only need to average 5.6 victories per season — basically, go no worse than 6-6 the rest of the way over the next 11 years — in order to reach 144 career wins and pass Fry (143) on the school’s all-time career victories list.
No matter how many seasons you add, the NFL whispers won’t completely stop. But at least Ferentz has another darned good reason not to listen to them.
Category: Iowa Hawkeyes Football
