Ten year-extension for Rhoads makes a statement at Iowa State

Iowa State did what it had to do Friday. It added a lot of years and a considerable amount of money to Paul Rhoads' contract as Iowa State's head football coach.

It's a 10-year, $20 million deal. It tells Iowa State fans that is committed to keeping 44-year-old Rhoads around a while. It also is a message from Rhoads to ISU supporters. Namely, he's sticking around a while.

The coach is about as popular with fans as a coach of a 6-6 team can get, given that two of those wins were over then-No. 2 Oklahoma State and Iowa. Not bad for a team Sports Illustrated picked to go 2-10.

The University of Pittsburgh suddenly had a head coaching opening this week. Rhoads was defensive coordinator at Pitt from 2000 to 2007. This extension says Pitt will be looking elsewhere for a coach, not that Rhoads would have been persuaded to look in that direction anyhow.

The guy is building something in Ames. How high is the ceiling? I don't know. It's the Big 12 with a lot of heavy-hitters. ISU is doing well in upgrading football facilities, but last I looked, it doesn't have a T. Boone Pickens writing it checks. Nor does it have its own version of the Longhorn Network. Nor does it have Oklahoma's national reputation and the state of Texas to dip into anytime it needs an All-America prospect at a skill position.

But it has a good, popular head coach who has done very well in his three seasons at ISU, and it has stability. If Rhoads continues to do good work, he'll get wooed by better programs than Pittsburgh over time. That, as Iowa State Athletics Director Jamie Pollard always says, would be a nice problem to have. It means your guy is taking care of business.

Ten-year contracts can be albatrosses. But when the Cyclones could easily have stepped backwards this year when everyone expected them to do so, they instead were competitive in most of their games, and a lot more than that in others. So there's a lot of reason for ISU to think that at the least, Rhoads will keep them in contention for winning seasons and bowl trips.