Kirk Ferentz will be the Big Ten’s football wins leader for a very long time

If you know who will win Saturday’s Iowa-Iowa State football game right now, you can become wealthy enough to snap up real estate in the French Riviera after you cash your bet that afternoon.

What you do know is Kirk Ferentz will own the Big Ten’s football record for wins by a coach within the next 10 days. He needs one more triumph to break his tie at 205 with Woody Hayes, and the Hawkeyes host Massachusetts the week after their trip to Ames. UMass began its season Saturday with a 42-10 home loss to Temple, which went 3-9 last season.

Hayes’ last season at Ohio State was 1978, the year he wrested the No. 1 spot from Amos Alonzo Stagg. Ferentz might stay No. 1 just as long for all we know, and not just because he could add many more victories before riding off in the sunset to be the offensive line coach at Grinnell College or somewhere.

The idea of anyone else coaching for 25-plus years at a Big Ten school seems less possible now than it ever has, and it’s always been an extreme rarity. The only ones who have topped Ferentz’s 27 seasons in the Big Ten are the 29 of Robert Zuppke of Illinois (1913-1941) and Hayes’ 28 (1951-1978).

Joe Paterno coached for 46 years at Penn State, but logged 314 of his 409 wins before his school joined the Big Ten.

Of the conference’s current coaches other than Ferentz, Penn State’s James Franklin has the most wins with 102. Bret Bielema has 97 at Wisconsin and now Illinois. Franklin is 53, Bielema 55.

If Ferentz retired immediately after getting his 206th win, Franklin would be halfway to that total.

Ohio State’s Ryan Day has quickly piled up 71 wins, but can he maintain his 10-wins-per-year pace for another 15 years or so? He’s only 46.

But 15 more years in that bubble where just losing to Michigan makes your fans think you’re deeply flawed? Whoa. Urban Meyer went 83-9 at Ohio State over seven years, then walked away.

Undoubtedly, there are Ohio State people who will say Ferentz’s record will be cheapened by the fact he will have coached 330 (or 331) games at Iowa when he broke the mark, while Hayes coached 276 for the Buckeyes. Plus, there were ties during Hayes’ entire career and he had 10 of them, so he could have won several more games in overtime.

OK, but the Big Ten was more top-heavy in Hayes’ era, when Michigan and Hayes-led Ohio State ruled the Midwest with iron fists.

Hayes didn’t have Penn State in the Big Ten. Northwestern, which has had many good teams during Ferentz’s time at Iowa, was 11-47-1 in the conference over Hayes’ last seven seasons. Wisconsin, a power for most of Ferentz’s 27 years at Iowa, had one winning Big Ten record between 1963 and 1978.

And, Ferentz didn’t get to coach against Iowa’s teams of the 1960s and ’70s. Hayes won his last 14 games against the Hawkeyes. None of the last eight were by less than 20 points.

Hayes is a caricature to many of those who remember him, and he earned that image with his gruffness and temper. He said things like “Football represents and embodies everything that's great about this country, because the United States of America is built on winners, not losers or people who didn't bother to play.”

His career infamously and disgracefully ended the day after he punched a Clemson player after the latter intercepted a Buckeye pass in the Gator Bowl. He had plenty of other hotheaded moments over his career.

Yet, as with so many public figures, there was far more to Hayes than his image suggested. He would routinely go to hospitals and nursing homes in Columbus and visit total strangers. He had a mandatory 6:30 a.m. vocabulary class with his freshmen players three times a week during training camp.

He was a fierce advocate for education. He preferred discussing history rather than football. His former players have spoken highly of him. More than 900 of them attended a 2013 event in Columbus to celebrate what would have been his 100th birthday.

I think Ferentz would have been someone Hayes liked, respected and dearly wanted to defeat. I strongly doubt Hayes would have resented Ferentz claiming the Big Ten wins record. Unless it happened against Ohio State.

Comments: (319) 398-8440; mike.hlas@thegazette.com