Hlas: Kirk Ferentz has said hello and goodbye to many Big Ten peers

As will be pointed out in every telecast of an Iowa football game this year, the Hawkeyes' Kirk Ferentz is the longest-tenured head football coach in the FBS division.

That says Ferentz, entering Season No. 19, wanted to keep his job. The grass is always greener somewhere for most coaches.

It also says Ferentz has been able to keep his job. The keeping is a lot more significant than the wanting. Most college coaches have them taken away at some point.

There have been 46 other Big Ten head coaches of at least one full season since Ferentz took over at Iowa. So, an average of over 2.5 coaches per year have been replaced in the conference each year.

Nick Saban, headed toward his 22nd season as an FBS head coach, was the coach at Michigan State in 1999. He has bounced from East Lansing to LSU to the Miami Dolphins to Alabama in the time Ferentz has been at Iowa.

Like Michigan State's Mark Dantonio, Saban has been at his current job since 2007. Those are long runs, yet they began eight years after Ferentz replaced Hayden Fry.

Fry, by the way, put in 20 years as the Hawkeyes' coach. Iowa went from being sand in the coaching profession's windstorm before Fry to a Rock of Gibraltar once he came north.

You think of a stable Big Ten program, you think of Wisconsin. OK, maybe you think of Ohio State instead. Or Michigan.

Yet, for all its consistent winning over the last quarter-century, Wisconsin has had four coaches since 1999. There was Barry Alvarez, the program's architect. Then Bret Bielema, Gary Andersen, and now Paul Chryst.

It still is somewhat mind-boggling that coaches voluntarily left Wisconsin for Arkansas (Bielema) and Oregon State (Andersen), but the heart wants what it wants.

Ohio State also has had four coaches since 1999, counting one-year fill-in Luke Fickell, who bridged the Jim Tressel and Urban Meyer eras.

Michigan? Also four. In fact, of the 11 schools that were in the Big Ten in 1999, only Iowa, Penn State (3) and Northwestern (2) have had fewer than four men who were head coach for a season.

Northwestern's Pat Fitzgerald is seventh on the list of the nation's longest-tenured coaches as he goes into his 12th season. One of the few above him is Frank Solich, who has been Ohio University's head coach since the 2005 season.

Solich was Nebraska's coach in 1999. Ferentz's first game as Iowa's coach was a 42-7 loss to Solich's then-No. 5 Huskers. Solich got fired in 2003, and still has banked enough time at Ohio to currently be tied for third nationally in tenure.

Gary Patterson of TCU is second to Ferentz, by the way. Patterson's first season with the Horned Frogs was 2001. Then there's a 4-year gap to Solich, Utah's Kyle Whittingham and Oklahoma State's Mike Gundy. Here is a link to a list of every FBS coach with 10 or more seasons at the same school.

Back to the Big Ten. Indiana has gone through the most coaches since Ferentz started at Iowa, with six. Cam Cameron was the Hoosiers' coach in 1999. He was replaced by Gerry DiNardo, who now works for the Big Ten Network. So does Glen Mason, Minnesota's coach in 1999.

Nebraska's first Big Ten football season was 2011. Maryland and Rutgers began Big Ten football play in 2014. That wasn't long ago, yet each has gone through two coaches in that time.

How long ago was Ferentz hired? In 1999, there were 23 bowl games, There are now 40.

Eight of Iowa's incoming scholarship freshmen were born in 1999.

Iowa is on its fourth governor since 1999.

In 1999, Prince's album '1999' was 17 years old and Prince was 17 years from dying.

Ferentz has been the Hawkeyes' coach for a long time.