Kirk Ferentz is the longest tenured Division I college football head coach in the country. He also happens to be one of the best.
Under Ferentz, Iowa has been consistently strong, especially over the last decade. The Hawkeyes have won at least eight games every season since 2015, excluding the COVID-shortened 2020 campaign.
While it’s not always flashy, Ferentz finds ways to win. His defense and special teams units are usually elite. And the offense has taken big steps forward the past few seasons. That ability to punch above his weight class every year, along with his long tenure at Iowa, has earned the respect of the college football world.
Tom Fornelli of CBS Sports released his annual top 25 Power Four college football head coach rankings entering the 2026 season. The panel of 10 voters ranked Ferentz as the 20th-best coach in the country. This is what they had to say about the future College Football Hall of Famer.
“Kirk Ferentz falls a spot in our rankings this year, and it’s primarily due to one rogue voter. The lowest he finished on any of our ballots was 32nd, but that voter was the only one of us who had Ferentz outside their top 25. Every other vote placed him between 14 and 25. That was enough to drag him beneath a couple of names that, with all due respect to those coaches, Ferentz should not be ranked behind.” -Tom Fornelli, CBS Sports
Ferentz is the seventh-best Big Ten coach on the list, behind Curt Cignetti, Ryan Day, Dan Lanning, Kyle Whittingham, Matt Campbell, and Lincoln Riley. Despite having fewer resources than all of those coaches, he’s consistently found a way to be one of the best coaches in the conference. That says a lot about the culture that Ferentz has built at Iowa and the respect his players have for him.
Ferentz is the all-time wins leader for a head coach in Big Ten history. He’ll look to add to that record when the Hawkeyes take the field this fall for the 2026 season.
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This article originally appeared on Hawkeyes Wire: CBS reveals 2026 head coach ranking for Iowa football’s Kirk Ferentz
Reporting by Zach Hiney, Hawkeyes Wire / Hawkeyes Wire
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
