Iowa's Kirk Ferentz Frustrated With Modern College Football

IOWA CITY, Iowa — Kirk Ferentz has built Iowa football into a perennial Big Ten contender without the benefit of blockbuster NIL war chests, but the sport’s shifting landscape has the Hawkeyes’ 28-year head coach sounding an increasingly exasperated note.

In an exclusive interview with On3’s Pete Nakos, Ferentz, 70, lamented the opacity that now clouds roster building and competitive balance across the country.

“Six years of experience in the NFL, and a lot of things I don’t miss about the NFL, but one of the things I miss is the clarity in terms of expectations and what the rules are,” Ferentz said. “Basically, all 32 teams operate by the same set of rules. As we’ve evolved into revenue sharing, which I thought was a worthy and needed step, we’re sitting in a quagmire. Just garbage.”

The veteran coach, who has guided the Hawkeyes to 20 bowl victories and a steady pipeline of NFL Draft picks, said the current environment feels like “fantasy football” compared with the transparent salary-cap structure he experienced as an assistant with the Cleveland Browns from 1993-98.

“It’s so cloudy, it frustrates me not knowing what’s real,” Ferentz said. “In the NFL, it’s very clear, there’s a ceiling and there’s a basement, you have to be somewhere in between. There’s no bull---- to it, and there’s transparency, too.”

While Iowa has avoided the booster-driven bidding wars that dominate headlines elsewhere, Ferentz acknowledged that even cultivating “the right booster or two” carries risk, noting that deep-pocketed benefactors can attempt to exert undue influence on personnel decisions.

“I don’t know what’s real,” he continued. “Quite frankly, I hear about what people’s payrolls are, but nobody can document that or prove it. It’s pretty evident that certain programs are bigger than others, and that’s frustrating to me.”

Despite the unease, Ferentz insists the Hawkeyes remain positioned to chase a College Football Playoff berth in 2026. Iowa enters the season with a high-profile quarterback competition and a transfer-portal haul that staffers believe addresses key depth concerns. The program’s NIL budget may not rival the league’s heavyweights, yet Ferentz’s track record of developing unheralded recruits into Sunday-ready talent keeps expectations elevated inside the Hansen Football Performance Center.

Still, the coach concedes that the clock is ticking. Ferentz, already the dean of Big Ten head coaches, has never reached the four-team playoff since its inception in 2014, a milestone that would cement a legacy already stamped on the Iowa record books.

For now, Ferentz will keep navigating a sport he barely recognizes, searching for clarity in a game that increasingly prides itself on controlled chaos.