This is a many times repeated argument but I've got nothing else to do so might as well weigh in. I think Ferentz is a slightly better than average coach, maybe a 6 on a scale of 1-10. Honestly, he's had what I would classify as one really excellent season since 2005. Kirk made his reputation (and a lot of money) off that great run from 2002-2004. That was admittedly a fantastic time for Iowa football, and it's also a fact that he hasn't come anywhere close to sustaining that kind of success since. Kirk has lived on the reputation of those three years for a long time and for many folks those years have overshadowed the fact that he's a pretty average coach. He's going on his 16th year at Iowa; he's well known, has a program with tremendous stability and those are nice positives, but I don't think he's done a very good job of turning those positives into a high level of success. I also find repeated losses to teams like Central Michigan, ISU, Western Michigan and other bad teams to be both puzzling and frustrating.
I will say that Iowa football teams are rarely completely awful, outside of his first few years and 2012, so he does have a knack for avoiding abject failure. I also think he generally does a good job of preparing his teams for bowl games. He's not a bad coach, but he's not a great coach either. One double digit win season since 2005, only one. Yeah, 2002-2004 was a great run; it was also a decade ago. There are a lot of schools in the country where he would have been fired after the 2006 or 2007 season. Of course the entire discussion is moot because he's going to be our coach until at least 2020. He's about due for another pretty good year and it might be this year. However, you can take it to the bank that there will be plenty of 6-6 or so seasons to follow before 2020.
