Iowa HC Kirk Ferentz Talks Belichick, NIL, Iowa State & More with Rich

Kirk Ferentz is in his 28th season at Iowa, and he still isn't entirely sure how it all happened. "It's still kind of blows your mind," he told Rich. "You take it one year at a time. You really do."

Rich opened with a little old-school humor. If he had asked Hayden Fry to zoom into a streaming show, Fry would have had no idea what he meant. Ferentz disagreed. "Coach Fry never met a camera he didn't like."

Having done his homework, Rich asked about the stretch when Ferentz coached on Bill Belichick's staff in Cleveland. Ferentz arrived in 1993, after a stint as head coach at the University of Maine, and he is candid about how he got there. "I do know seven if not eight people turned the job down before they got to me," he said. "I was the first guy that put my hand up and said I'll take it."

The first interview did not go well enough to get him hired. Belichick sent him home, and Scott Pioli drove him to the airport with a pep talk Ferentz still remembers: well, it wasn't that bad. A couple of days later, Cleveland called him back, and he "got beat up for about five more hours" before being offered the job.

What is a job interview with Belichick like? "Taxing. That just was exhausting."

The only other interview Ferentz had ever done was with Fry, and the contrast was total. Sitting with Fry for five minutes felt like knowing him for 20 years. Belichick was all business. "A lot of awkward pauses," Ferentz said. "I died a million deaths during that whole thing." He still considers himself fortunate to have spent three years on that staff, two of them alongside Nick Saban, with a room full of outstanding coaches and young personnel people like Pioli and Phil Savage.

His exit from the NFL came with a twist. Ferentz had two fears. One was a coaching change that would leave him stuck under contract, working for someone he didn't respect. The other, ironically, was whispers before the 1994 season that the Browns might move to Los Angeles, which he had no interest in with a young family. He asked for a contract provision letting him leave if something happened to the head coach, "never dreaming what would happen would happen." A year later, the move was announced, the team essentially quit playing, and the whole thing fell apart. Ferentz became a free agent.

"I was sure I wasn't going to go to Baltimore," he said, "but that's where I ended up going."

He wasn't necessarily looking to return to college football, but Iowa was the one place he felt fit him as a coach and his family, with the quality of life and education he wanted for young kids. He was "wild enough to think" there might be a chance for stability, since Fry had lasted 20 years and former Iowa assistants Bill Snyder and Barry Alvarez had found it too.

It did not look promising at first. "We were 2 and 18 our first 20 games," Ferentz said, while building a house.

Now his Hawkeyes are ranked 21st after a 40 to nothing opener, getting ready for Iowa State on Saturday night. Ferentz grew up in Pittsburgh and knew nothing about the rivalry when he first arrived at Iowa in 1981. He learned quickly. Iowa upset Nebraska in its opener that year, then went to Ames and "just got beaten in every category," in front of a hostile crowd.

He still thinks people outside the state don't appreciate the intensity. Iowa has three to three and a half million people and two Power Four programs that have both done very well. The last six games have been decided by about four and a half points, and he expects the same kind of game Saturday.

Rich asked whether the Big Ten walked coaches through the clock controversy from Michigan's win. Ferentz said the conference uses a system that is different from other conferences and the same one the NFL uses, and it sounded like there was a discrepancy between the board and the official time. He hasn't dug into the details. "I'm sure there was no malintent the other night," he said, calling it a hard circumstance for everyone involved.

His understanding is that going forward, whatever is on the stadium scoreboard will be what officials go by. "Which makes perfect sense."

At Big Ten media days, Ferentz warned about a growing imbalance in college football, and he explained it at length.

When NIL arrived, his first thought was that it could open the door back to the lopsided college football he remembers from the 1960s and 1970s. He recalled Nebraska beating Army by something like 77 to nothing when he was in high school. "First of all, it's unpatriotic," he said. "And then secondly, neither team really benefits in a game like that."

He was clear that he supports the players. "I'm all for the players being rewarded," he said, noting how dramatically the financial rewards have changed and that revenue needs to go to the people generating it. What he misses from his six years in the NFL is structure. There was a salary cap, everyone had the same contractual framework, and contracts meant something.

"There's a real imbalance," Ferentz said. "I'm not suggesting I know what the cap number is, but there needs to be one, in my opinion."

He sees two problems. A bigger war chest gives you a better chance to win. And unlimited money removes accountability. "If you got money to waste or burn, you can be a little bit more reckless," he said. In the NFL, "you lose your job if you're too reckless too often."

Ferentz pointed back to his first year at Iowa, when the Hawkeyes shared the Big Ten title and went to the Rose Bowl, the first time in 13 years a school other than two had gone. He believes the conference has been healthier ever since. The NFL, by contrast, has "true parity," where it comes down to the players and the coaches.

Rich pushed further. If college football is already professionalized, why not go all the way? Ferentz didn't dodge it. "We don't want to say that, but that is the reality. Players are getting paid." A fuller professional model would be very different, he said, but in a lot of ways it would be healthy. He also stressed what hasn't changed: most of his players are going to school, earning degrees and living normal lives, and most won't play in the NFL long term.

Is he worried about Big Ten programs spending $50 million a year on rosters? "Oh, absolutely." He joked that he teases former Hawkeye Dallas Clark for being an All-Pro and a world champion instead of a billionaire. When it all shakes out, Ferentz expects maybe 10, 12 or 15 schools with a decided advantage, and programs outside big population centers already face recruiting challenges. "This is just one more thing."

Rich suggested George Kittle might be Iowa's best bet for the billionaire club. Ferentz noted Kittle's dad was a captain on that 1981 team. "If George is not a billionaire moneywise, he is personalitywise."

His favorite Kittle story is about the recruitment. As Ferentz recalls it, Kittle's scholarship choices were Iowa and Weber State, and Iowa offered very late. The reason was not his dad. It was his mom, who was a great basketball player at Drake. "We were banking on that athletic gene," Ferentz said. "I'd say it's turned out pretty well for him."

Before letting him go, Rich passed along a hello from his wife, Susie, who remembers how professional and kind Ferentz was to her when she worked Iowa sidelines for ABC.

"All righty. Thank you," Ferentz said.