And he's done it against horrible conference schedules year in and year out. Put tOSU, PSU, Mich on Iowa's schedule every year and KF is a .500 coach.
Bullshit.
Ferentz is 10-9 vs. PSU.
7-8 vs. Michigan.
8-8 vs. MSU.
Only 2-9 vs. OSU. But there aren't many teams much better against the Buckeyes and the Hawks did beat them by 31 last time they played in Iowa City.
The bottom teams in the East haven't been as strong as the bottom teams in the West. Teams like Rutgers and Indiana haven't been good enough to have given the Hawks the occasional hiccups that NW and Purdue have. So essentially, if Iowa had been in the East their records would have been about the same.
Also, Iowa's success in trophy games isn't given enough credit. These are huge games and are not easy. Especially when you play more trophy games than any other team in the country. Iowa is the Super Bowl every year for ISU. Iowa is one of two games that Minnesota is able to summon some extra juice for. Nebraska is always juiced for Iowa. And Iowa is always an important game to Wisconsin. This is not at all an easy dynamic to have to navigate every season. And with the exception of Wisconsin, Iowa's record has been absolutely dominant in recent trophy games. Thoroughly impressive.
It's easy to say the Hawks will struggle against the newcomers from the Pac-12, but we don't know that. What we do know is the Hawks put 49 points up last time they played USC.
Iowa has always held its own against good competition. Bowl games are always quality opponents. Ferentz is 10-9 in these games.
- 5-5 vs the SEC
- 2-2 vs the Big12 (as Missouri was part of that league at that time)
- 2-0 vs the ACC
- 1-2 vs the Pac-12
It's really unfortunate that people create false narratives to minimize the success of a hall-of-fame coach.
Other than a handful of programs that have the resources to be great every year, Iowa has been as good or better than everybody. The numbers bear that out. Iowa has literally been as good a football program as anyone could possibly expect. And yet there is a contingent of assholes that do nothing but whine about style of play.
Do you know how many programs and fans of programs would kill for the sustained success that Iowa has had? Pretty much everybody.
Take ISU for example. Their fans pretty much despise everything about Iowa. Yet you don't ever hear an ISU fan honestly claim that Iowa sucks. The only people you ever hear say that are Iowa fans. Think about that, from a few different levels, and then give these men the respect they deserve