Harty: Easy to assume Captain Kirk’s voyage will end at Iowa
IOWA CITY, Iowa – A person’s age can lead to assumptions.
I would guess that most Iowa fans now assume that Kirk Ferentz will retire as the Iowa football coach because he, obviously, loves his job and because he’s almost 61 years old.
Ferentz will turn 61 on August 1, barely a month before he starts his 18th season as head coach.
He has had chances to leave Iowa for the NFL and for other college jobs, probably more times than anybody outside of his inner circle would know about.
But Ferentz has stayed long enough to where it’s now widely assumed that he will retire as the Iowa coach.
He said as much when asked last Friday morning on KCJJ radio if the Iowa job was his last coaching job.
“I sure hope so,” Ferentz said.
Don’t think for a moment, though, that the NFL has dismissed Ferentz as a head coaching candidate. I’m guessing there would be more NFL teams interested in having Ferentz as their head coach than teams that wouldn’t be interested, and by a wide margin.
Just think about some of the head coaches that have been hired in the NFL recently and compare them to Ferentz. I won’t mention any names, but in many cases, Ferentz would seem like the better choice.
Ferentz has given no indication how long he wants to keep coaching.
He still seems to cherish every day on the job. He appears in good health. And he and his wife, Mary, enjoy their Iowa City lifestyle.
Combine those three things with Ferentz’s accomplishments on the field and you have a recipe for coaching longevity.
He currently has four years left on his contract, which means he is due for an extension. A two-year extension would make the most sense because both sides would have some leverage. At this stage, Ferentz doesn’t need more than six years on his contract.
Some in the national media, and a few Iowa fans, were under the delusion that Ferentz’s job was in jeopardy heading into last season, and that winning 12 games in 2015 might have bought him more time.
That’s ridiculous.
There was pressure on Ferentz to win last season, but not to the point where his job was ever at risk, nor should it have been.
If Ferentz had led Iowa to a 12-win season a decade ago, or even five years ago, there would have been more concern about him leaving for a different job.
In a way, we’re all guilty of age discrimination, myself included, because I rarely think about Ferentz leaving anymore, mostly because of his age.
I think this will be Ferentz’s last heading coaching job because that how he wants it to be, not because his well of opportunities has dried up.
You’d be hard-pressed to find a coach who lives in the moment more than Ferentz does. He rarely looks past the next game, let alone to retirement.
My answer now whenever somebody asks how long I think Ferentz will coach at Iowa is three to five years. That’s been my answer since he turned 60.
It hardly is going out on a limb because three to five years is another way of saying I don’t know.
All I know is fans rarely ask me about Ferentz leaving anymore because that fear has subsided over time.
Ferentz never would say it publicly, but I’m sure he would embrace a scenario in which he hands the job over to his son, Brian Ferentz, who currently coaches the Iowa offensive line, along with being the running game coordinator.
But for that to happen, Iowa would have to keep performing at an elite level.
It has been a while – 56 years to be exact – since an Iowa football coach left the job after a successful season. Forest Evashevski led Iowa to an 8-1 record in his last season as head coach in 1960.
Iowa finished 1-9 in Jerry Burns’ final season as head coach in 1965, 3-6-1 in Ray Nagel’s final season in 1970, 0-11 during Frank Lauterbur’s last call in 1973, 2-9 in Bob Commings’ final season in 1978 and 3-8 in Hayden Fry’s final run in the 1998.
I’ll predict that Ferentz will end the pattern of losing and retire after a winning season. The hard part is predicting when it’ll happen.
I’m not sure he even knows.