After authoring another eight-win regular season, longtime and legendary Iowa Hawkeye head football coach Kirk Ferentz says his coaching end isn’t anywhere in sight. Ferentz was asked on Wednesday during the Hawkeyes’ National Signing Day press conference what his message is to recruits when asked about his future and if he is definitively planning on coaching Iowa in the 2026 college football season. The 2026 campaign would be Ferentz’s 28th season at the helm.
College football’s longest-tenured head coach said he’s definitely planning on coaching the Hawkeyes in 2026. And Ferentz sounds like he intends to coach well beyond that.
“Yeah, well, ’26? That’s next year, right? God, I hope so. I mean, unless you know something I don’t know. I just tell them the truth. I feel really good. I had no idea what it feels like to be 70. Now, I do. However many months it’s been. It doesn’t feel any different than when I was 60. I feel good physically. I’ve got permission from my wife to keep doing this and it’s what I like doing.”
“I really enjoy doing it. Unless we just screw this up beyond repair, which we’re trying to do right now in college football, I don’t envision stopping any time in the near future. It’s what I do. I don’t golf and when I did, I stunk, so I don’t see going back to that,” Ferentz said.
Iowa finished up an 8-4 (6-3 Big Ten) regular-season record with a dominant 40-16 win over rival Nebraska on Black Friday. It was the Hawkeyes’ seventh straight victory over its rival from Memorial Stadium in Lincoln, Neb., and its 10th win in the past 11 meetings. Hawkeye coverage is brought to you by Ed Morse Chevy Buick and GMC, Meineke Muffler, Community Health Care Dental Clinic and Muscatine Power and Water.
