By Pat Harty

IOWA CITY, Iowa – Entering his 26^th season as the Iowa football coach, Kirk Ferentz is going where no Iowa football coach has come close to going before him.

Hayden Fry’s 20-year reign from 1979 to 1998 used to be the longest in program history, but Ferentz from a longevity standpoint has since put a considerable amount of distance between himself and his former boss.

Ferentz also has moved up one spot on my updated list of the greatest Iowa football coaches of all time.

In June 2021, I wrote a column in which I ranked the top four Iowa football coaches of all time. Hayden Fry was ranked first, followed by Forest Evashevski, Kirk Ferentz and Howard Jones.

However, with Kirk Ferentz having won two Big Ten West Division titles since then, he now moves to second on my list behind the guy who hired him in 1981 to be the Iowa offensive line coach.

Iowa will face Illinois State in the 2024 season opener on Aug. 31 at Kinnick Stadium in what will be Kirk Ferentz’s 316^th game as the head Hawk.

To help put that number in perspective, Fry coached 244 games as the head Hawk, while Evashevski only coached in 83 games in his nine seasons from 1952 to 1960.

Ferentz, Fry and Evashevski are widely recognized as the three greatest head coaches in program history, though a case could also be made for Howard Jones, who led Iowa to back-to-back undefeated seasons in 1921 and 1922.

But if you had to pick just one as the greatest Iowa football coach of all time, who would it be?

There is no wrong answer because each is deserving in their own way.

It is also hard to compare head coaches from different eras, especially in the case of Evashevski and Jones, both of whom coached before the current two-platoon system was used.

But again, if you had to pick just one, who is it?

For me, it’s still Hayden Fry and here’s why:

Fry rescued Iowa from the deepest depths of despair.

He took over an Iowa program that had suffered through 19 non-winning seasons.

There was a culture of losing that many feared was beyond repair.

The circumstances were so dire that Bump Elliott probably would have been fired as the Iowa Athletic Director if Fry had failed to rebuild the program.

Elliott already had missed with his two previous football hires – Frank Lauterbur and Bob Commings – so Fry would have been strike three and you’re out.

Fry instead would prove to be a home run hire as he defied the odds by leading Iowa to a Big Ten title and to the 1982 Rose Bowl in just his third season as head coach.

He would go on to win two more Big Ten titles in 1985 and 1990 and coach in two more Rose Bowls.

Iowa was also ranked No. 1 in the nation for six weeks during the 1985 season.

Fry, who passed away in 2019 at the age of 90, was also the first Iowa head coach to have a double-digit win season, and he surrounded himself with one of the greatest assistant coaching staffs in the history of college football.

Fry helped to launch the coaching careers of Barry Alvarez, Bill Snyder, Dan McCarney, Bob Stoops, Don Patterson, and of course, Kirk Ferentz.

Fry also broke the stranglehold that Ohio State and Michigan had on the Big Ten throughout the 1970s, and he ended the three-yards-and-a-cloud-of-dust mentality that was used to describe Big Ten football at the time by installing a wide-open passing attack that would help to make Chuck Long the first Big Ten quarterback to compile 10,000 passing yards in a career.

But Fry’s genius stretched beyond the playing field and beyond hiring assistant coaches.

He had a gift for gab and was a master at promotion and marketing.

Fry’s created the tiger hawk logo, and now more than 40 years later, it is one of the most recognizable logos in college sports.

Kirk Ferentz, meanwhile, has persevered perhaps better than any coach in program history.

Overall, Ferentz has a 196-119 record with the Hawkeyes, ranking third all-time in wins among Big Ten coaches.

Iowa was clearly in decline when Ferentz replaced Fry shortly after the 1998 season, whereas Ferentz has kept the Hawkeyes highly competitive in years 21 through 25.

Ferentz, who turned 69 on Aug. 1, also has avoided having any serious physical ailments while Fry was battling prostate cancer when he retired.

This season will mark the 20-year anniversary of Iowa’s last Big Ten championship team in 2004.

That season was also arguably Kirk Ferentz’s best season as the Iowa coach, considering everything the team had to overcome, most notably a rash of injuries at running back.

Iowa won a share of the conference title and 10 games overall in 2004  despite having little semblance of a running game.

The 2004 squad was crushed by Arizona State 44-7 in the third game in Tempe, Arizona, and then lost at Michigan 30-17 in the Big Ten opener.

The team was 2-2 and the season could have spiraled in the wrong direction, and yet, Kirk Ferentz and his assistants stayed the course as Iowa would go on to win its final eight games. The season was capped by a 30-25 victory over Louisiana State in the Capital One Bowl in which Drew Tate threw a 56-yard game-winning touchdown pass to Warren Holloway as time expired.

Kirk Ferentz has dealt with some off-the-field adversity, including the racial unrest from the summer of 2020.

He also promoted his son, Brian Ferentz, to offensive coordinator in 2017, only to have that decision backfire as Brian Ferentz was fired with four games left in the 2023 season.

But as Kirk Ferentz prepares for year 26, his team looks poised to win at least 10 games for the fourth time since 2019, even with major concerns on offense.

Kirk Ferentz’s legacy will be impacted by how Tim Lester performs as Iowa’s new offensive coordinator. The offense has kept Iowa from being elite, and if Lester could just make the offense average, Iowa could have a playoff-caliber team, assuming the defense and specials teams continue to perform at a high level.

Kirk Ferentz still has a chance to surpass Hayden Fry as my pick for the greatest Iowa coach of all time. But it would take winning another Big Ten title to do it, but that certainly won’t be easy.

As for Evashevski, he just didn’t coach long enough to be ranked as the greatest in program history, or now as the second greatest in program history.

Evashevski’s glory years might have been the best among all the Iowa coaches. He still has the distinction of being the only Iowa coach to win a Rose Bowl as he won two in 1957 and 1959.

Some believe that Iowa would have become a traditional power, much like Nebraska was in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s if Evashevski had stayed in coaching.

But he didn’t, and the program quickly unraveled in the 1960s after Evashevski switched from head coach to athletic director.

The situation didn’t get better until Fry finally arrived with his west Texas wit and a winning formula.

Greatest Iowa football coaches of all time

1. Hayden Fry

2. Kirk Ferentz

3. Forest Evashevski

4. Howard Jones