Kirk Ferentz is a wizard.
Or a witch. Or some kind of eldritch horror from the depths of the earth, brought to the surface to act as a warning for those who would ignore it: "EMPLOY GENERALLY MEDIOCRE COACHES AT YOUR OWN PERIL." Or maybe he's a great coach with a hilarious and prohibitive buyout that just wrapped up the best regular season in the history of Iowa football with a loss.
And lose Iowa did! As Mark Dantonio is wont to do, his Spartans beat yet another big time opponent at almost literally the last possible second, relegating the Hawkeyes to a New Year's Day bowl that most years they would straight up murder their grandmothers for. Such is life under the reign of the most capricious warlock this side of Merlin, and what's funnier is that said wizard insists on using 1980s tactics to try and accumulate wins.
“It matters not what someone is born, but what they grow to be.” – Dumbledore
Still, those antiquated tactics racked up twelve wins in 2015, and if you hadn't heard of Kirk Ferentz before then, you'd think that he was on to something. You'd have to ignore losses to Maryland in 2014, Northern Illinois in 2013, Central Michigan in 2012, Purdue in 2012, Indiana in 2012... hell, most of the Big Ten in 2012 (except Minnesota and Michigan State, somehow). Before this admittedly sublime season, the Hawkeyes had been 7-6, 8-5, 4-8, 7-6, and 8-5 in the five years before that.
Off the field, life hasn't been that much better. Iowa is frequently cited as one of the more arrest-prone teams in the Big Ten. There's also the matter of his contract, a legendarily insane agreement that pays Ferentz somewhere in the range of 3.5 million dollars until 2020, which doesn't sound too crazy until you find out that a) the initial contract was for ten years and 35 million dollars, b) he's owed 75% of his salary every year for the remainder of his contract if he gets fired, and c) Iowa actually could buy him out at this point but so far have said "eh screw it."
So what makes Kirk Ferentz interesting is that either through sorcery or luck or a fanbase that demands a level of excellence just a few steps above "out of control dumpster fire" or all of the above, he has somehow broken the cold, certain calculus that most major college football programs use to make hiring and firing decisions. In a world where Mark Richt can get canned at least in part for being too nice to beat Nick Saban, Ferentz survives.
“It is not despair, for despair is only for those who see the end beyond all doubt. We do not.” – Gandalf
Truly, coaching college football is a kind of death, in that the end is inevitable and you rarely get to call your shot on your way out (unless you're Steve Spurrier, who I also consider to be a wizard, but more in the Ralph Bakshi vein of uncomfortably sleazy magic).
For instance, while we here in Buckeye Nation wring our hands about the prospect of having to find new defensive or offensive coordinators or panic slightly anytime someone points out that Urban Meyer is quickly approaching the time at which many of us thought he'd leave by, in Iowa they clap their hands and laugh because they know that they are blessed and cursed with Ferentz the Eternal. Ferentz the Infinite. Ferentz Forever.
Is Kirk Ferentz a good coach? I don't know. It's hard to say that he isn't as his 12 win team stood on the precipice of a playoff berth last night. On the other hand, it'd be hard to say that he is after a decidedly bleh 38-26 overall record in the past five seasons. What I do know is that his albatross of a contract had to have been signed in the blood of a sacrificial goat, that his occasional coaching miracles don't really outweigh a general malaise that surrounds Iowa on and off the field, and that 2015 was one hell of a season for him and the Hawkeyes.
And that's what makes Ferentz magical. Every time it looks like the state of Iowa is about to pass around the collection plate and buy the dude out, he waves his wand and conjures up an Orange Bowl victory or the most wins in a single season in Iowa football history. So even though Ohio State fans might feel slighted by this season, keep in mind that you have the luxury of expecting excellence, because some fanbases are held hostage by a trickster god with another five years left on his contract with no precedent of happiness being anything but fleeting.
#Iowa is 3/20 on 3rd down in their last 2 games. They're in the verge of winning both and going to the #CFP . Ferentz is a #wizard
— Griff (@Griffdodoubleg) December 6, 2015
