Has the longest-tenured head coach in college football done enough to earn a spot in Atlanta?
Kirk Ferentz has done a lot of great things for Iowa football over the course of his 27-year tenure on the sidelines.
An all-time Big Ten-best 213 wins (technically 209 thanks to NCAA vacating four wins, but still). Two Big Ten Championships. Three major bowl game appearances. 2010 Orange Bowl title. Eight consensus All-Americans. Thirteen straight winning seasons.
That's a lengthy list of accomplishments. The Hawkeyes may very well add more milestones to this list before Ferentz calls it a career, but there's one benchmark that can't be added until after he retires - induction into the College Football Hall of Fame.
It's an important question to think about, but would Ferentz be eligible for consideration if he were to retire right now? Or does he have some work to do before that can happen?
Here's his 2026 resume.
Resume
The National Football Foundation (the organization that oversees the College Football Hall Of Fame) changed up the induction requirements for coaches beginning with the upcoming 2027 ballot.
Coaches under the age of 70 have to be retired for at least three seasons before they are considered for induction, but at 71, Ferentz would become immediately eligible whenever he retires. If he is still coaching by age 75, Ferentz could be inducted as an active coach.
The second requirement for coaches to earn consideration is the most important piece and features the new change. Coaches have to have been a head coach for a minimum of 10 seasons and coached at least 100 games with a .595 career winning percentage.
That .595 career wining percentage formerly stood at .600 for many years before it was changed due to fan outcry after the sudden death of longtime head coach Mike Leach at the end of the 2022 season.
Leach is regarded as a pioneer of the sport because he helped develop the air raid offensive system, but he also won plenty of football games, too. He was best known for leading Texas Tech to 84 wins in 10 seasons in the 2000s, but he also had successful stints at Washington State and Mississippi State.
Mississippi State was 8-4 and ranked No. 22 in the AP Poll during Leach's final season, and it's likely it would've continued to win under Leach had he not passed away. Leach's sudden death left his career winning percentage at .598 - just barely short of the requirement for induction.
Fans pointed out that many older coaches are in the Hall (such as Iowa's Hayden Fry) despite having winning percentages under .600, and the NFF finally agreed to make the change.
But does that help Ferentz's case? It does.
Ferentz's current winning percentage at Iowa is well over the mark required for induction (.620) but he's barely above the threshold right now (.597) because of his 12-21 record during his three-year stint at Maine from 1990-1992.
As it stands in August 2026, Ferentz would be eligible for induction into the College Football Hall of Fame, but his Hawkeyes need to keep winning for that to remain the case.
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HawkeyeRoundtable publisher Brad Schultz has covered the Iowa Hawkeyes since 2023. To send him story ideas, scoops, or criticize his writing, reach him at [email protected]
