money Iowa Hawkeyes head football coach Kirk Ferentz listed in ESPN’s ‘next up’ tier of head coaches
Iowa head football coach Kirk Ferentz is one of the most respected head coaches in all of college football. He’s entering his 24th season as the Hawkeyes’ head coach where Ferentz has won 178 games atop the helm.
Like his 178 overall wins, Ferentz’s 110 Big Ten conference game wins rank fourth all-time in league history among head coaches. Fresh off a Big Ten West division title last season, there are some that have ranked Ferentz as the league’s top head coach.
Elsewhere, CBS Sports ranked Ferentz as the Big Ten’s No. 3 head coach behind Ohio State‘s Ryan Day and Michigan‘s Jim Harbaugh.
Now, ESPN’s Adam Rittenberg released four tiers of college head football coaches: national contenders, next up, overachievers and fast starts. The national contenders category is exactly what it sounds like. It’s reserved for coaches who lead teams that are regularly expected to compete for the College Football Playoff or to do so in the near future.
While Ferentz wasn’t in Rittenberg’s national contenders category, he was in the next tier down of next up.
Iowa is among the nation’s steadiest programs under Ferentz, occasionally bursting onto the national radar but almost always reaching solid bowl games and competing in the Big Ten. Ferentz had his best stretch early in his tenure, recording two Big Ten titles and three consecutive AP top-8 finishes from 2002 to 2004. But his teams also finished in the top 10 in 2009 and 2015, and since 2015 Iowa ranks 13th nationally in winning percentage (.716). Iowa’s NFL draft output regularly outperforms its recruiting ranking, as Ferentz and his staff are known for player development. – Rittenberg, ESPN.
Alongside Ferentz in this coaching category are Utah’s Kyle Whittingham, Oklahoma State’s Mike Gundy, UCLA’s Chip Kelly, Miami’s Mario Cristobal, North Carolina‘s Mack Brown, Ole Miss’ Lane Tiffin, Stanford’s David Shaw, Wisconsin‘s Paul Chryst and BYU’s Kalani Sitake.
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