Kirk Ferentz also has the most Big Ten losses, and that’s an accolade, not a stain

Unless something jumps out at us in the days to come, the only story of this week in Iowa football is Kirk Ferentz breaking the record he shares with Woody Hayes for coaching wins while in the Big Ten.

That he will get Win No. 206 as a Big Ten coach against Massachusetts rather than a team of repute is unfortunate, perhaps, but the schedule breaks the way the schedule breaks.

With Ferentz, it’s a record for longevity, not winning percentage. That isn’t a slight. Not at all, in fact. It’s harder to win at Iowa than Ohio State or Michigan just like it’s harder to win at Purdue or Rutgers than Iowa.

Ferentz also holds the Big Ten record for losses with 125. That’s no stain. It’s not even a smudge. You don’t get to lose that much unless you survived, endured and, most of all, won a lot more.

Bill Belichick is tied for the most NFL regular-season losses with 175. A lot? Not when you amassed 302 wins, topped only by legends Don Shula and George Halas and accumulated in the most-competitive time in league history.

Lenny Wilkens is the NBA’s leader in coaching losses with 1,155. Man, that’s a lot of losing. Except that he won 177 times more than he lost, and coached a league champion in Seattle.

Baseball’s Cy Young Award is named for the pitcher with the most losses in MLB history, 315. Of course, Young won more games than anyone, 511. No one has or will come within 94 victories of him though his last game was 114 years ago.

Reggie Jackson struck out more than any hitter in MLB history, but how has he been remembered for the last half-century? For being “Mr. October,” starring for five World Series champions.

Iowa has the distinction of claiming the losingest Big Ten coach and the losingest FCS coach, and they’re two different people.

None other than Hayden Fry holds the FBS record with 178 defeats. He had 230 triumphs and 10 ties. He never coached a college football superpower. His wins came out of building programs, not inheriting them.

Three of those losses were in Rose Bowls with Iowa, which is three more Rose Bowl appearances than the vast majority of head coaches who ever worked in the Big Ten could say.

Many is the coach who came into the conference with winning reputations, but got dinged up after getting there.

Lovie Smith coached the Chicago Bears to the 2006 Super Bowl and had the Bears in the 2010 NFC championship game. Later, he was 17-39 in five years at Illinois and was 0-5 against Ferentz’s Iowa teams, including a 63-0 humiliation in 2018.

Rich Rodriguez, now in his second stint at West Virginia, has a career record of 191-130-2. At Michigan, though, he was a mere 15-22 and lost both his games against Ferentz’s Hawkeyes.

Scott Frost came to his Nebraska alma mater to coach after guiding UCF to a 13-0 season in 2017. In four years and change as the Huskers’ boss, he was 16-31 and went 0-4 against Ferentz’s teams. Now he’s back at UCF.

Lou Holtz won 117 more games than he lost as a college coach. Yet, he was a pedestrian 10-12 in two years at Minnesota before Notre Dame hired him away.

Those who drop in and out of the Big Ten don’t get remembered much in the league. Hayes, Bo Schembechler, Barry Alvarez and Pat Fitzgerald stayed put for a long time and stacked up successes. So it was with Fry at Iowa, and so it has been with Ferentz.

The “long” in “longevity” isn’t nearly as long for coaches as it used to be. Even at Iowa, the only school in big-time football that has had just two coaches in the last 47 years, things will be much different for the next guy.

Ferentz’s replacement will start here at 0-0. He better not dawdle, because Hawkeye fans are used to their coaches doing significantly better than .500.

An NFL assistant coach once told me you don’t want to be the coach who replaces Ferentz, you want to be the coach who replaces the coach who replaces Ferentz.

That was 14 years ago.

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