Ferentz is Big Ten's Coach of the Year. Who's No. 2?

Iowa's Kirk Ferentz put an armbar on the Big Ten Football Coach of the Year award at midseason.

If you win at Penn State, Wisconsin and Michigan State in the same season, you've instilled something good in your players and you've figured something out about the opposition.

Just as impressive for my money was having a team that was a missed chip-shot field goal in regulation from winning at Ohio State. Oh, what might have been. Then again, you don't hook up on that last-second touchdown pass at Michigan State, and maybe that award goes elsewhere. But to whom?

To me, there were just two other viable candidates for the honor, though Danny Hope at Purdue and Bill Lynch at Indiana had those two teams playing more-competitive ball in Big Ten play than I expected from them.

First is Pat Fitzgerald at Northwestern. I can't find the preseason magazine that had the Wildcats going 5-3 in the Big Ten and winning eight games overall. The late-season kick of knocking off Iowa, Illinois and Wisconsin in succession is very impressive. Quarterback Mike Kafka got robbed of a first-team all-conference honor Monday night. Kafka was as critical to his team's success as any player in the league.

Second is Ohio State's Jim Tressel. The Buckeyes had just two first-team all-Big Ten players and they're the league-champs. Quarterback Terrelle Pryor was ordinary at best much of this season, and the Buckeyes appeared to be on the rocks when they got rocked 26-18 at Purdue. But there sits OSU, atop the league for a fifth-straight year.

But switch Iowa's schedule with Ohio State's, or don't have Ricky Stanzi knocked out of the Northwestern game, and the Hawkeyes are probably Pasadena-bound. So Ferentz deserves the nod this year.

In fact, any time you can go 10-2 at any Big Ten school that isn't Ohio State, Penn State or Michigan pre-2008, you're a Coach of the Year. But to do it with Iowa's schedule and its set of key injuries on offense should make you a Top 5 National Coach of the Year candidate.

I haven't seen Iowa State's Paul Rhoads getting much buzz for the Big 12's COY. There's a difference between 6-6 and a winning record, I guess.

It sounds like Oklahoma State's Mike Gundy (aka "A Man") has the inside track with a 9-2

mark, overcoming the loss of receiver-deluxe Dez Bryant to an NCAA violation, and faced with his own set of injuries to battle through.

You can't argue with Gundy, and Texas' Mack Brown will get votes for going unbeaten so far, which is kind of the best you can do.

But the four-game improvement and the competitiveness Iowa State has shown in nearly every contest reflects well on Rhoads and the future of Cyclones football under him.

I've said this before, but I can't tell you how great it would be as a sportswriter if somehow, someway, Iowa State could play in the Insight Bowl, followed by Iowa in the Fiesta. I think it would take an Oklahoma State-Iowa Fiesta Bowl to make it possible.

If that means Boise State gets shafted, well, that's the price the Broncos must pay as long as I get what I want.