Kirk Ferentz proud of how Brian Ferentz has handled adversity

On Saturday, Iowa offensive coordinator Brian Ferentz coached his final game at Kinnick Stadium. While many fans are happy to see Brian Ferentz’ time come to an end, the Hawkeyes’ head coach and Brian’s father, Kirk Ferentz, has a much more nuanced perspective.

“This was Senior Day today, his last day, so there was some sentimental value to that, certainly,” Kirk Ferentz said. “I’m glad it turned out the way it did. I was proud of him. He’s been admirable in the way he’s handled a very tough situation. And I’m not quite sure I know how he’s done it but I’m really proud of him as a dad. And can’t say enough about that. But I do try to keep things separate.

“In this environment of coaching, good luck finding — he’s had two jobs now in his career. So there aren’t many guys smart enough to know they’ve got a good thing… We’ve got really good guys on our staff. Just really proud of all of them.”

Brian Ferentz went out on top at Kinnick Stadium with a 15-13 win over Illinois. The low-scoring output was just the most recent in his laundry list of offensive inefficiency. On Oct. 30, Iowa announced it will part ways with Brian Ferentz at the end of the 2023 campaign.

The separation is no surprise. In 2022, Iowa only averaged 17.7 points and 156.7 yards passing per game. Even worse, Iowa finished 130th out of 131 FBS teams in total offense at 256.1 yards per game.  Consequently, Iowa revised Ferentz’s contract ahead of the 2023 season.

The program docked his salary from $900,000 to $850,000. Further, Iowa added a clause which stated Iowa must score 325 total points in the regular-season games for Ferentz to retain his job in 2024. For reference, 85 programs reached this mark in 2022.

It’s about more than being a Ferentz

With one game remaining in the regular season, Iowa has tallied a mere 203 points total points. Although Kirk Ferentz has mixed feeling about his son’s dismissal, he simply hopes to see his players succeed.

“It goes back to the players,” the 68-year-old head coach said after the team’s win over Illinois. “That’s why we do this. And just so happy for these guys, what they’ve endured and gone through. And they know what’s going on, too. But they’re on board. And again they’ve never flinched, including today.

“It would have been easy today. But everybody stayed the course, same thing last week, kept pressing and some good things have happened. It’s all you can ask for in life, just straight ahead and see what comes out of it, and if we come up short today, we’d go back to work on tomorrow and see what we can do about the next one and we’ll still do that.”