Regarding Ferentz: Looking at others’ 17th years

What follows isn't to be used as a statement, a prediction, a comparison, or anything other than a curiosity. Got that?

Now, some of you will go ahead and ignore that. It's one of the great things about being a reader. You don't have to take marching orders from anyone.

But as we enter Kirk Ferentz's 17th season as Iowa's head football coach, I thought it might be interesting to see how some other coaches fared in their 17th-consecutive seasons at the same school.

There aren't that many who make it that long in one place these days. Mack Brown was removed at Texas after 16 seasons. Barry Alvarez retired as Wisconsin's head coach after 16 years.

Bob Stoops of Oklahoma joins Ferentz in entering Year 17 this fall. The only FBS coach with longer tenure is Virginia Tech's Frank Beamer and Kansas State's Bill Snyder. Beamer is going into his 29th season, Snyder his 25th.

Beamer's team was 8-5 in his 17th season at Virginia Tech, in 2003. The next season, the Hokies joined the Atlantic Coast Conference and immediately started to tear it asunder. Over the next eight years, they went 84-24 overall and 53-11 in the ACC.

Beamer's program hit a valley in 2012 that it has yet to escape. The Hokies have gone 7-6, 8-5 and 7-6 the last three years, his 26th- through 28th at the school. Virginia Tech opens this season at home against Ohio State on Sept. 7. Beamer's guys beat the Buckeyes in Columbus last year, 35-21 They lost at home to East Carolina the following game and ended the season in the Military Bowl.

Before Beamer and Virginia Tech were admitted into the ACC, the league's previous owner was Bobby Bowden and Florida State. Bowden coached 34 years at FSU, two straight 17-year runs. In his 17th year, the Seminoles' went 11-1. That was in 1992, their first year in the ACC.

Over Bowden's 18 seasons in that league, FSU went 105-27 and had six other victories vacated by the NCAA.

Snyder retired in 2005 after coaching 17 years at K-State, then returned in 2009. He still is the Wildcats' coach.

Snyder stepped down after a 5-6 year in ‘05. His teams had posted six 11-win seasons in the Big 12, but the league caught and passed him in his last two years at K-State.

But there are second acts in American lives, after all. Snyder not only returned a few years later, but returned the Wildcats to glory. They went a combined 21-5 in 2011 and 2012, and are 27-9 in the Big 12 over the last four years.

So, like I alluded to in my original premise, don't assume any of this applies to Ferentz. This is all just numbers of other people in other places at other times in history. Every situation is different.

OK, here's a little more: Hayden Fry kind of hit a wall in his 15th and 16th seasons as Iowa's coach, going 6-6 and 5-5-1. Then, in Year 17, his 1995 team went 8-4. And his 1996 Hawkeyes were 9-3 before he closed his career with years of 7-5 and 3-8.

Now I'm done.