By Pat Harty

IOWA CITY, Iowa – Kirk Ferentz was meeting with the media on Thursday in what seemed to be a typical post-season press conference in preparation for a bowl game.

He talked about the challenge of facing 10-2 Vanderbilt in the ReliaQuest Bowl on Dec. 31 in Tampa, Florida.

He looked back at the regular season and praised his players for staying the course and for finishing the season on a high note with wins over Michigan State and Nebraska in the last two games.

He also congratulated his players, who have been the recipients of multiple post-season accolades, most notably graduate center Logan Jones, who was named a consensus All-American and the winner of the 2025 Rimington Trophy, which goes to the nation’s top collegiate center.

Ferentz also answered questions from the media as he always does, but then after having answered five questions, he shared some breaking news:

“The last thing, I want to take a minute here and just give you a program update. LeVar Woods, who’s going to come up here in a second, has decided to take another position,” Kirk Ferentz said of Iowa’s special teams coordinator. “He’s going to take a position at another program, so he’s going to coach throughout the bowl game, throughout this bowl game and then he’ll be heading to Michigan State.

“I know it was a tough decision for him, and it was a really good opportunity for him to consider. We’ve had several coaches have that opportunity, as well. Just first and foremost, just want to congratulate him on that and just share a couple words about LeVar.”

Woods, a former Iowa and NFL linebacker, was standing in the back of the room listening as Kirk Ferentz shared the news publicly.

Woods then took the podium and explained why he has decided to leave a team, a school and a town that has meant so much to him and to his family.

Woods grew up in northwest Iowa and was recruited to Iowa by former head coach Hayden Fry. Woods then played his final two seasons at Iowa in 1999 and 2000 under Kirk Ferentz.

“First and foremost, there are definitely places that shape you, and there are places that make you. For me, Iowa is both,” Woods said. “I grew up here. I learned what it means to work, to be accountable, to show up when it’s hard, to put the team ahead of myself, and I had the privilege of wearing the black and gold, living out a dream that so many kids in this state carry with them from the first time they toss a ball in the backyard.

“The University of Iowa gave me more than football. It gave me my life. I met my wife here in Iowa City, in fact, met her at the Old Capital Mall on campus. We were both very young. We left here so I could pursue a career in the National Football League.

“We started our family elsewhere in a different state with our first two kids born in Arizona. We chose to return to Iowa to raise our family here in Iowa City. No plan to coach, no plan to do anything other than raise our kids here in this community.

“Together we built a home, expanded our family here, had our third daughter that Coach mentioned here in this community. Our kids have grown up with the same values of this community that they poured into me. Same thing with the university, with neighbors who care, teachers, faculty, people that invest in you, coaches who push you, community that rallies around its own, and that’s what we have here. That’s what makes it incredibly difficult to have decisions and make decisions like this.”

Woods nearly broke down as he reflected on what being a Hawkeye has meant to him.

He was named Iowa’s special teams coordinator in 2017 and has excelled at his job to where you figured it was only a matter of time before another opportunity would present itself.

And when new Michigan State head coach Pat Fitzgerald offered Woods the chance to be the assistant to the head coach and special teams coordinator, Woods couldn’t turn it down, even with his ties to Iowa.

LeVar Woods wants to be a head coach some day, and as he pointed out Thursday, he isn’t getting any younger as Woods will turn 48 in March.

“Yeah, those are ambitions I have,” Woods said of being a head coach. “I think anyone that gets into coaching definitely has those ambitions at some point. I feel like for me personally at this time of my life, I’m going to be 48 years old, which isn’t all that old, but it’s old for me and kind of where I’m trying to go trajectory-wise, and I feel like now is a good time for that. I also feel like the opportunity to try to get hands dirty on the front end of something that Michigan State has got going on, that that’s a great opportunity to learn those things.”

Woods and Pat Fitzgerald were used to competing against each other when Fitzgerald was the head coach for Northwestern.

They became better acquainted on a personal level when their sons both joined the Iowa football team as freshmen this season.

Mason Woods graduated from Iowa City West High School and now plays tight end for Iowa, while Ryan Fitzgerald is a walk-on quarterback for the Hawkeyes.

“Pat and I really spent the most time together with our kids,” Woods said. “My son is here, his son is here on the team, and as parents that’s probably the most time that’s spent.

“But again, a lot of respect for him, watching him as a competitor, competing against him, and seeing his teams.”

Woods was asked Thursday if he expects his son to stay at Iowa or go with him to Michigan State.

“Mason, this is his place. He chose this place on his own accord,” LeVar Woods said of his son. “Obviously he grew up around here, grew up watching. He’s seen it. He’s met Coach Ferentz running up and down these halls when he was in diapers. I could embarrass him quite a lot if I wanted to but I will refrain from that with some private stories. But he chose this place, and he and I have had conversations when other situations have come up, but he feels great about it. This is a great place. I trust that my son is here, so I wouldn’t put my son in a position where I felt like it was a bad spot or bad people or anything like that. That’s not the case here.

“This is his place, and this was my place for a long time. I feel like I just need to see something different. If you think about it, I met with one of the players and they started doing the math, started figuring out, Coach, you’ve been like 42 years of your life lived in Iowa. It’s crazy when you think about it. So at some point — I challenge the players all the time to grow or get uncomfortable, put yourself in positions. I sent my daughter down to Texas. She didn’t know anyone down there. Go figure it out.

“I feel like I’m kind of at that point in my life. That’s kind of where all that decision came from, and trying to take a leap and see what happens.”

From a coaching standpoint, Woods has basically done all he can for his alma mater under the current circumstances.

Iowa already has an assistant head coach with Seth Wallace having been given that title/role in January 2024.

Fitzgerald is giving Woods what could be considered a promotion, which almost certainly will mean more money, along with more responsibility.

There really is no opportunity for Woods to keep climbing the coaching ladder under Ferentz at Iowa.

This situation is sort of similar to when former Hawkeye player and assistant coach Dan McCarney left Hayden Fry’s staff to become the defensive coordinator at Wisconsin under new head Barry Alvarez in 1990.

McCarney was ready to be a defensive coordinator, but Iowa already had one of the best defensive coordinators in college football in Bill Brashier, who didn’t retire until after the 1995 season.

Perhaps the only downside to having a talented assistant coach is that other schools eventually take notice.

Iowa’s success on special teams has been well documented since Woods was promoted to coordinator.

Hawkeye fans used to actually cheer when former All-America punter Tory Taylor would take the field because his booming punts were so crucial to the team’s success.

Iowa also has had the nation’s top return specialist for the past two seasons in former walk-on Kaden Wetjen, who now holds the program record with six return for touchdowns.

Pat Fitzgerald obviously has watched closely as Woods has built a name for himself on special teams.

He then made Woods an offer that Woods couldn’t refuse.

Woods plans to stay with Iowa through the ReliaQuest Bowl before moving to East Lansing, Michigan to help coach the Spartans.

This wasn’t an easy decision for Woods, but he believes that making this move right now is in his best interest as he continues to pursue his goal of becoming a head coach.

There are times when a coach has to give up something special to help his career, and that time has come for LeVar Woods.

Kirk Ferentz won’t coach the Hawkeyes forever, so when the day comes to hire his successor, LeVar Woods probably wants to be in the best position to be a candidate.

So this move, if it works for Levar Woods, could help his chances down the road.